[gokulcfd]

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