opening .stl file in paraview
 

hello foamers!
Im trying to simulate the external flow over cars. hence in the meshing stage i tried viewing the .stl file of the car in paraview.
this is what i did
i copied the stl file in the triSurface directory in the constant directory. created a controlDict and surfaceFeatureExtractDict file in system directory.
i tried extracting the features by typing surfaceFeatureExtract in the terminal. two files were formed in the constant and triSurface folders.
then i tried viewing in paraview and got this error message


ERROR: In /home/openfoam/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-2.3.1/applications/utilities/postProcessing/graphics/PV4Readers/PV4FoamReader/PV4FoamReader/vtkPV4FoamReader.cxx, line 216
vtkPV4FoamReader (0xac411b8): could not find valid OpenFOAM mesh


ERROR: In /home/openfoam/OpenFOAM/ParaView-4.1.0/VTK/Common/ExecutionModel/vtkExecutive.cxx, line 754
vtkPVCompositeDataPipeline (0xac4b488): Algorithm vtkPV4FoamReader(0xac411b8) returned failure for request: vtkInformation (0xac505d0)
Debug: Off
Modified Time: 91220
Reference Count: 1
Registered Events: (none)
Request: REQUEST_INFORMATION
FORWARD_DIRECTION: 0
ALGORITHM_AFTER_FORWARD: 1


what does this mean?
I should be able to view the car in paraview before forming the background mesh , right?


thanks in advance

Hi,

the error message states what's wrong:

So you have two possibilities how you can watch your geometry.
1. Create the background mesh, start paraFoam and load the stl file.
2. Load the stl file by starting
Therefore, you have to modify your stl file in such a way, that you change all to I don't know if it's meant to be this way, but this works for me.

Pascal!!!!
thanks a lot , i first did blockMesh then opened paraview to view the background mesh. I then separately loaded the stl file. i can view it now.