Hi, Folks,

I just got tons of (PIV) experimental data I'd like to plot/visualize:

The data are flow velocities in a plane in a format of 4 columns: x y Vx Vy

Just like a general CFD postprocessing, the software should be able to plot a plane vector field with vector size and color representing the magnitude of each velocity vector.

We have access to CFX, FLOW3D, and FLUENT, but has no idea whether the postprocessors can easy read the experimental data. We also like to work with some independent flow visualization software to processing the data, especially the software for Mac/Windows platform.

Any suggestion/info ?

Thank you very very much.

Hua

You may want to take a look at the Resources/visualization section. I have been using several commerical post-processing packages (for 3-D CFD) for several years, and in general, they are very good. For your special format, you need to talk to the developer to see whether you need to write the interface software or not. ( put your data into their input format) The other way to do is to find out whether you can use the existing post-processor ( such as the one in the Fluent or alike). In either way, it shouldn't be a difficult task.

Maybe you want to try PLOT3D or TECPLOT

Why do not you try to use the software, Matlab or PVWAVE? They are widely used by scientists. You may use arbitrary format of your experimental data as like as you want. They have powerful functions for postprocessing and they can also help you to analyse your data. While most of commercial CFD postprocessors are just specially designed for CFD softwares with fixed output format, and too expensive. I think many laboratory are using Matlab, because after all, they are doing experiments but not CFD.

We are using Tecplot of Amtec Engineering for a similar problem of PIV-data.

Have a look at their homepage http://www.amtec.com/.

There is a chance to get a 30-days trial (evaluation) version ...

Chris

Try Tecplot. I use it to post-process results from a number of different CFD packages. It's relatively inexpensive, easy to use, and will do what you have said you need.

Thanks for all helps, I'am going to get Tecplot and try.

--hua

I am a student (Glasgow caledonian university) and I am looking for notes about cfd,how to use and general I am intresting in the field of visualization.If you have something for me thank you very much.