Hello,

Does anybody knows, in format do we need the data to plot an unstructured grid in FAST. Right now I have the number of nodes, with there x y z coordinates and the number of elements (quadrilaterals) with their connectivity.

any help asap, will be really appreciated.

regards,

-Radhika

I believe FAST (at least the last version I used several years ago) can only handle unstructured grids comprised of triangular/tetrahedral elements. If your quadrilateral grid is I-J ordered you can use the structured PLOT3D format, otherwise you would have to subdivide your elements for the sake of plotting or use another, more flexible package.

Let's assume that I have triangles aswell of I-J-K order. Now when I try to write in PLOT3D format, the manual specifies some flags for the triangles. I could not understand the significance of the same.

So I give all of them a value of 1 or 2. I do not get the same type of grid I am expecting. Some corners are missing or some last elements seems to be joined with middle elements.

Just a guess, but it sounds like with PLOT3D format you may inadvertently be specifying a blanking with the "1" and "2" values you're using, or the I-J ordering isn't quite right. Plotting as a structured grid you shouldn't see any diagonal lines.

FAST also has an unstructured format you can look into, check the manual for:

Grid file:

# nodes, # tri faces, # tetrahedra (x,y,z), i=1,# nodes (triangle connectivities), i=1,# tri faces(tri face boundary conditions), i=1,# tri faces (tetrahedra connectivities), i=1,# tets

The Q file is similar to PLOT3D format, except the Q arrays goes from 1 to # nodes.

That's about all I remember, it's been a while. Good luck!

Hi

Consider using GMV. It can plot any damn thing as long as u give correct connectivity information. GMV is available on majority of platforms. I don't remember the web page addess but u can search thru google. hope this helps. Abhijit