I wonder if people using postprocessing visualization software for CFD could share their experience. For example, Fluent postprocessing module is ok for quick basic postprocessing, however, when I am trying to do something more advanced, specially in the area of movie like presentation Fluent postprocessing is not adequate.

After some searching on the web I have found following software that is used for, and claims expertise in the area of CFD visualization.

AVS (advanced Visual Systems)

Tecplot

EnSight

FieldView

others?

Could current users provide some short feedback or review of the above software packages or possibly point me towards other software that I am not aware of. I am interested in ease of use, compatibility with CFD software (e.g., Fluent) and PC/Windows, capability of providing high-end simulation (movies) presentation of CFD results (e.g., unsteady reactions/combustion, complex industrial type geometries, walk/fly through ...)

Thanks

Paul

In my own opinion, Ensight is particularly powerful for rendering transient data sets. I know they support Fluent and Windows.

I started using Ensight, but Ensight is a bit expensive and, I think, it's a bit hard to learn how to use. Regarding the results, I could say that Ensight is fast and also has a great redenring quality.

My choice, nowadays, is no doubt Paraview (http://www.paraview.org). Besides being free, it can be ran in parallel (Ensight Gold can do it too), has a good rendering quality, is easy to learn (my opinion), has a bunch of readers for several kinds of data, filters has been incorporated to expand its capabilities, etc...

About the others... I couldn't say nothing as I've never used them. I've had also some experience with the /post1 in Ansys/Flotran, but, in my opinion, this post-processor is a bit limited.

CFD-Online has a section dedicated to post-processors, take a look...

Regards

Renato.

You can't go far wrong with Ensight. Most codes will write output for it, and it is extremely capable and probably the best choice for really large data sets.