[jd210]

Dear Foamers,

I'm currently writing up the results from a Rayleigh-Taylor interface problem. I can quite easily show the interface in paraview. However when I present them I'd like to ensure all plots have the same aspect ratio, show the same amount of geometry and ideally on a grid plot.

My original thought was to export the contours as CSV files and plot the points in excel. However with openfoam's left to right cell sorting I can't think of a way to get the points in a useful order to plot. Does anyone know of some sort of method to do this?

Alternatively, does anyone how to ensure that in a paraview screenshot I can show the exact same geometry dimensions?

The comparisons I want to make are across grid resolutions like the below image, but the location of the top of the interface will vary which I'd like to show



Thanks in advance!

[floquation]

Originally Posted by jd210

My original thought was to export the contours as CSV files and plot the points in excel. However with openfoam's left to right cell sorting I can't think of a way to get the points in a useful order to plot. Does anyone know of some sort of method to do this?

I don't have a code for you, but it should be pretty easy to write a sorter in Python/Matlab/... using the following criterion:
"For any given point, its two adjacent points are the two points that are closest to that given point."
So, loop over all points, compute the distance to all other points, and sort based on that distance.
Something like:

Choose a random point p
pPrev=null;
While(not done)
  smallestDistance = inf
  nextPointIndex=-1;
  For all points q unequal to p and pPrev
    newD = d(p,q)
    if(smallestDistance > newD){
      smallestDistance = newD
      nextPointIndex = index of q
    }
  endfor
  sort q[nextPointIndex] next to p
  set pPrev = p
  set p = q[nextPointIndex]
endwhile

And since your shape is not closed, you might need a condition to "search the other way" as well. So if no new point is found, return to the starting point and search the other way (i.e. the second-closest point).

Originally Posted by jd210

Alternatively, does anyone how to ensure that in a paraview screenshot I can show the exact same geometry dimensions?

Make a state-file which shows exactly what you want to see. Then, load that state file for each case and export the visualisation. (Do this without moving the camera after loading the case file!)

[jd210]

Thanks for your suggestion. I was hoping not to have to write a script, but in the end it wasn't so bad to do it in matlab.

[floquation]

Originally Posted by jd210

I was hoping not to have to write a script, but in the end it wasn't so bad to do it in matlab.

So you wrote the script?
If so, you might want to post it here such that future users that come across this topic may use it as well.

[jd210]

Originally Posted by floquation

So you wrote the script?
If so, you might want to post it here such that future users that come across this topic may use it as well.

I will indeed, will test it a little more than once before I do though...

[Edgar Alejandro Martínez]

You can use fluidfoam as a way to export the fields and plot them using Python. I made a YouTube video on how to use it, perhaps it may help you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFZeFDUQflQ