[paka]

No solution for this paraview? Still cannot solve this problem. No readings, or just some weird outline shape or in some data readers the paraview crashes.

Thank you,
Krystian

Hi Krystian,

I am also no expert of Mac/Unix or even Computer in General.

What I gather from my supervisor, Richard Morgans, the Paraview software you get in the OpenFOAM download package is not compatible with Intel Mac. The reason being is because this is the olf version of Paraview (2.4). If you have a look at the comment posted by my supervisor:
Richard Morgans on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 06:48 pm

There is a link to where you can download the new version of paraview.

Once you downloaded it, you can type
paraview
in xterm terminal and paraview will come up.

From this point forward, you have to copy your controlDict file in the system directory with .foam extension:
cp controlDict controlDict.foam

you MUST copy this controlDict.foam in system directory. Otherwise it would not work.

after, you can go to paraview utilities menu and select:
file -> load file
browse for the controlDict.foam file, select and click OK.

The you should select accept and you are ready to go.

The other thing is, make sure that there is no Paraview.foam file floats around in the directory when you open paraview, viz.:
$HOME/blah/simpleFoam/cavity:>paraview
make sure you delete any .foam extension expecially the Paraview.foam, which from my experience was created automatically somehow.

I am no computer expert, but I hope this helps.

Felicia

[paka]

Hi Felicia,

I was a little bit misunderstood ;)
I should have mentioned, I'm a PowerPC G5 user. I managed to install everything and I even managed to run paraview through paraFoam. It is launching, it works. I also should have said, whole thing also works on my linux machine, where I use paraview 2.4 release 2, and Mac installation has got paraview 2.4 release 3, so even newer version, but Mac cannot open .foam files. Somehow I can view examples onto my linuxbox, whereas on Mac it says it doesn't know what kind of reader to use to view these files. I am repeating myself, but whole paraview is launching just cannot open .foam files.

I also already mentioned, that on my linuxbox when I push File->Open data, it shows on the extension list the .foam extension, whereas on mac there is no such thing.

I've read somewhere above (or in other post) that Hrvoje Jasak managed to run paraview, therefore I assume he was able to open his case files and view them. However, as you see this is not the case on my Mac machine.

I downloaded paraview from his .mac account, using link which he provided on the top of this page.

Anyway, thank you for a will of help.

Cheers,
Krystian

Hi Krystian,

sorry about that. In that case, I do not think I can help you with that one, I's sorry.

Hope you'll sort it out soon.

cordially,
felicia

[g4ben]

I'm getting this error trying to run FoamX. I had to use a soft link between my user folder and ~/hjasak as suggested above.

/Users/g4ben/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.3/bin/killFoamX: line 130: kill: g4ben: no such pid
Starting NameServer with inet:Beowulf.local:1234 ...
uncaught MICO exception: IDL:omg.org/CORBA/INITIALIZE:1.0 (0, not-completed)
/Users/g4ben/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.3/bin/runFoamXHB: line 127: 16167 Abort trap nsd -ORBIIOPAddr $myIOP --ior $FOAMX_CONFIG/ns.ref </dev/null

[paka]

If you read through the whole above post and probably the other related to Mac OS X, you will read that so far it is not possible to launch FoamX or at least it is not possible in any easy comfortable way. Solution, use command line.

Use OpenFOAM using command line, than view in paraview. However, it is very probable you will not be able to view files using paraview, because it doesn't support them under Mac or somehow this is the only mine case and so far I cannot solve it nor anyone else.

Regards.

[paka]

Can anyone actually run paraview on MacOS and view .foam files? If yes, can anyone write down how you did it?

Thanks.

[rmorgans]

Hi Krystian,

This may not be the solution you are looking for... but it seems to be a solution for intel macs at the moment.

I don't have a mac, but one of my students does. I dont use OpenFoam very much at all, but I do have the Cygwin version installed on my windows machine.

I noticed in recent posts that the latest cygwin version used the latest version of paraview, because it had a native openfoam reader. I installed this on my windows machine and it seems to load in files (I've tested in only on the icofoam cavity case and one other (a smooth contraction potential flow)). I have no comments about the difference between parafoam viewing and paraview native, as I haven't used either enough.

We installed the OS10 X11 Intel version of the latest stable release (2.6.1) on Felicia's machine, downloaded from

http://www.paraview.org/HTML/Download.html

We had to put paraview in the path. It runs well on the intel mac and I see no reason for it to not run on a ppc mac.

The cygwin paraview script makes a link from the controlDict to controDict.foam, and fires up paraview - this is from

/home/rmorgans/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.3/bin/paraFoam

on my windows machine - search the message board for postings on this.

if [ $WM_ARCH = "cygwin" ]; then
if [ -r system/controlDict.foam ]; then
echo "$0: Using already present $CASE_DIR/system/controlDict.foam."
# using cygpath for workaround of paraview warnings
paraview --data=`cygpath -wal system/controlDict.foam`
else
if [ ! -r system/controlDict ]; then
echo $0: system/controlDict does not exist in case directory $CASE_D
IR, exiting
exit 0
fi
ln system/controlDict system/controlDict.foam
# using cygpath for workaround of paraview warnings
paraview --data=`cygpath -wal system/controlDict.foam`
rm system/controlDict.foam
fi
else

Currently we do this process manually - copy controlDict to controlDict.foam on the mac, run paraview and then open the controlDict.foam. It could be scripted easily when I have time on the mac.

Hope this helps... but it's probably not what you're looking for.

Cheers

Rick

[hjasak]

Hi Krystian,

I'm not sure what the problem is: I have rebuilt OpenFOAM and FoamX should now start up with no problems. Also, paraFoam runs just fine, just use

paraFoam <root> <case>

as usual.

Hrv

[paka]

Thanks Rick a lot for your help. I was so hopeful, that it will work. Unfortunatelly, when the "new" paraview try to open .foam files it crashes.
Paraview by itself runs fine, just cannot open foam files. It crash and says in terminal window 'Bus error'.

Hrvoje:
Is there any way you could provide new/working binaries for PPC. I checked your .mac page, but nothing seemed to be changed there.

And the problem is that paraview version provided on your mac page does not support .foam files.

I am looking for help and will be still playing in the mean time with paraview.

Thanks,
Krystian

[hjasak]

Sorry - not sure I get it.

The last 1.3 release has been updated on 1/Apr/2007 and in it both paraFoam and FoamX work. The one before that was in May/2006, i.e. almost a year old. If this is what you've got "it works for me" (I am sure insiders get the joke).

Hrv

[paka]

Yes, the 1.3 release is which I use and it is from 1/Apr/2007. I am not a FoamX appreciator, I prefer "text" way, so I didn't test it. I guess it is just a problem of $JAVA path to make it work.

To my surprise that 1/Apr paraview release do not support .foam files. I was sure I did something wrong since this is still fresh release, however cannot find a way how to open .foam files.

And I guess, I get the joke too

Thanks,
Krystian

[hjasak]

Sorry, don't get it: in order to post-process the cavity case in the $FOAM_RUN directory:

- start xterm
- in the xterm type

paraFoam $FOAM_RUN cavity

- click on Accept and you're done.

There's no need to open the files.

The "it works for me" is a joke about a guy called Sreenadh, all that time ago...

Enjoy,

Hrv

[paka]

Exactly that is what I do.
The problem in my case is, the "ACCEPT" step does not appear.

paraview loads up, window appears, but does not load the case. Here it is what appears background in command line

krystian$ paraFoam /Users/krystian/OpenFOAM/krystian-1.3/icoFoam/ cavityGrade
ErrorMessage
# Error or warning: There was a VTK Error in file: /Volumes/MacExternal/local/OpenFOAM/darwinSrc/paraview-2.4.3/GUI/Client/vtkPVWin dow.cxx (2365)
vtkPVWindow (0x5044a00): Cannot read file information when no reader is specified. This probably means that the reader for the file with name: /Users/krystian/OpenFOAM/krystian-1.3/icoFoam//cavityGrade/cavityGrade.foam cannot be found
ErrorMessage end
ErrorMessage
# Error or warning: There was a VTK Error in file: /Volumes/MacExternal/local/OpenFOAM/darwinSrc/paraview-2.4.3/GUI/Widgets/vtkKWAp plication.cxx (1335)
vtkPVApplication (0x4c75920):
Script:
paraFoam.pvs
Returned Error on line 11:
invalid command name ""
ErrorMessage end

Thanks,
Krystian

[paka]

If I run 2.6.1 version, then select OPEN to open choosen file... push Accept, then it quits almost imidietelly printing out in terminal 'Bus error':

Paczuszka:~/OpenFOAM/ParaView-2.6.1-darwin/ParaView-2.6.1-darwin-files/bin krysian$ ./paraview
Bus error
Paczuszka:~/OpenFOAM/ParaView-2.6.1-darwin/ParaView-2.6.1-darwin-files/bin krystian$

[hjasak]

In fact, this is progress. Let's do the testing in a few steps. I will concentrate on the root and case in:

paraFoam /Users/krystian/OpenFOAM/krystian-1.3/icoFoam/ cavityGrade

As a preliminary test, could you move back to paraview-2.4.3 and try the command again without the trailing "/" after the root. Thus:

paraFoam /Users/krystian/OpenFOAM/krystian-1.3/icoFoam cavityGrade


First, we will make the converted VTK files to see if paraview works at all. Run:

foam ToVTK/Users/krystian/OpenFOAM/krystian-1.3/icoFoam cavityGrade

This should produce a VTK directory and in it there will be a bunch of files. Now try running paraview (NOT paraFoam!), do File -> Open Data and load one of those files. You should get an image on the screen.

Secondly, we can try the same thing with paraview-2.6.1 you've downloaded from the internet. In my experience, this one will fall over with a bus error (building paraview on Mac is not easy and I've had this problem for a while before getting it right).

Thirdly, and if the preliminary test does not work, we can start digging a bit. Go to ~/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.3/darwin and see if there is a file there called libPVFoamReader.so. This file contains the OpenFOAM reader module for paraview and should be present in the installation.

Enough for now, I think - please let me know what comes out of this.

Hrv

[paka]

Hi Hrvoje,

First of all, many thanks for all your helping and time.

Here come my answers:

1. Usually I run whole things without unneccessary slash after icoFOAM, however to be sure I tried to run it once again with and w/o slash. Both cases bring the same result as said before.

2. Then, I tried running foamToVTK. It works, which really made me happier At least some substitute for now.

3. I looked for libPVFoamReader.so. Mac's Spotlight finds the file but in /Volumes/OpenFOAM-1.3/lib/darwinDPOpt/

You wrote it should/could be in
~/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.3/darwin
Did I miss something? I followed instruction from the very top of this conversation, and I am having both folders (OpenFoam-1.3 and darwin) in same folder created by me manually, which is ~/OpenFOAM

Thanks,
Krystian

[hjasak]

Sorry, the directory name is my fault - your library file is at the right place.

Hmm, this is intriguing. Could you do:

ls $WM_PROJECT_DIR/bin/paraFoam.pvs

Check that the file is there and contents looks OK. This is the file that specifies the reader. I cannot think of any other problems: the reader library is there and stand-alone paraview works OK. Do you get a FOAM banner in the window where you start paraFoam?

Hrv

[paka]

OK As usual, the whole thing usually lies on the dummy user site This time the problem was also there. Started digging out from begining, the problem was in some shell variables. All in all, the variables were defined in Mac bash shell, but didn't realized X11 bash did not get everything. So typing 'source ~/bashrc' once again in X11 term solved the problem. Foam logo started showing up in terminal.

However, now the 'Bus error' appears.
I run 'paraFoam icoFoam cavity', then paraview/foam starts loading up, FOAM logo appears in xterm. Then, Accept button appears as should in paraview window. When I push it, it quits writing out 'Bus error' in xterm. Below I attach output from xterm:


Paczuszka:~/OpenFOAM/krystian-1.3 krystian$ paraFoam icoFoam cavity
/*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*\
| ========= | |
| \ / F ield | OpenFOAM: The Open Source CFD Toolbox |
| \ / O peration | Version: 1.3 |
| \ / A nd | Web: http://www.openfoam.org |
| \/ M anipulation | |
\*---------------------------------------------------------------------------*/

_PVFoamReader_Initialize is defined!
/Users/krystian/OpenFOAM/OpenFOAM-1.3/bin/paraFoam: line 57: 4026 Bus error paraview paraFoam.pvs
Paczuszka:~/OpenFOAM/krystian-1.3 krystian$

PS. ls path/paraFoam.pvs works and file is where it should be.

Thanks,
Krystian

[hjasak]

Which paraview? 2.4.3 or 2.6.1? Should be 2.4.3 - the same one that works with foamToVTK files.

Hrv