[melanie]

Hello,

has anybody ever installed paraFoam on Windows ?
I am a new user, I just want to do post-processing on my PC and run the jobs on a Linux cluster.

Thanks !
melanie

[gschaider]

AFAIK paraFoam doesn't run on Windows yet (at least not in the stuff Petr has done here).

What you can do is: convert the data with foamToVTK and view the stuff with the normal paraview (from www.paraview.org). But be warned: the files will get quite huge because the vtk-files are uncompressed text-files. And timestep-handling is not as convenient as with paraFoam.

[melanie]

Thank you very much Bernhard, now I can start learning...

[markusrehm]

Hello,

are there any new ways to postprocess data on Windows?
I used to log onto our Linux-cluster from my Win-PC with XWin32 and used paraFoam in OpenFOAM-1.4 and no rendering was possible meaning I could not see anything.

Now Paraview-3.3 crashes through the network connection or even gives me a windows bluescreen which I have not had for quite some time !

I could need that for people here who don't want to switch to Linux just for some small calculations.

Any suggestions or experience?

Bye, Markus.

[7islands]

Hi Markus,

[Advertisement]
If you are still using the 1.4-series of OF you could try my own version of ParaView binary with my own version of native OF reader builtin [1]. In fact I have a binary that supports 1.5-series in my hands, but I'm too lazy to update the package

[1] http://oshima.eng.niigata-u.ac.jp/OpenFOAM/ParaView/

Takuya

[philippose]

Hello there,

I must say... a very good evening to everyone :-)! And feels nice to be typing out a message on the OpenFOAM Forum after a long time :-)!

So... to jump straight to the current question:

I have been using Paraview-3.x.x for almost a year now (actually longer I think !!), on the Windows XP Platform, with the native OpenFOAM reader from Takuya, without any problems or issues.

Basically, I download the Paraview-3.x.x sources from the CVS repository, and compile it using Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 (Express Edition) [<- the free version i.e. :-)], after adding on Takuya's code.

I have a network share which acts as my "Simulation Data Server", which is also accessed by the Linux machines equipped with OpenFOAM. The simulations are run directly on this shared network drive (rather than on the more common / popular OpenFOAM "run" folder).

Since the simulations are present directly on the network share, they are also visible from the Windows machine, and can be post-processed without any changes whatsoever.

Have a great evening!

Philippose

(P.S.: Takuya, I noticed that you have been busy working on a parallelised version of your reader :-) !?!? How is it coming along? And also, any progress on the real-time update of simulation time steps in Paraview ? I have been drowning in work, so havent been able to look deeper into the stuff I was working on sometime ago!!)

[7islands]

Hi Philippose,

@parallelized reader: It's a reader that reads decomposePar-ed cases of parallel simulations from rendering servers (pvserver) executed in either of serial/parallel. Yes as you noticed, it's already been working in my side for a while. I know it is inappropriate to praise my own product but, it's really really really an interesting thing to play with. I think I can post a development snapshot hopefully as early as this weekend (writing release nots is indeed tedious...). However be prepared, it's not meant for everyone but for those who have good skills like you, as everything is too complicated (installation steps, usage, etc.)...!

@update of time steps: although it's still preliminary, it's also implemented.

I have to add one more thing to you: I have removed and rewritten your contribution of UI interaction bits in favor of a simpler implementation. I have to say sorry about that.

Have a nice weekend!
Takuya

[philippose]

Hey there again Takuya,

A Good Morning to you :-)!

Great to see that you are updating your OpenFOAM reader to also handle decomposed cases without having to re-construct them... that is another thing I was interested in sometime last year, and tried to implement... :-)!

However, the ability to update time-steps automatically would be really something nice to have!!

There is absolutely no problem with having rewritten / removed the part I contributed to the Paraview reader :-)! .... as long as its a simpler and more efficient method than the current form, its a welcome change... :-)!

After all.... thats what open source is all about....! And I can check out the new code and extend my knowledge too!

Nice to see that you are able to give yourself the time to focus on this reader.... I hope the guys at Paraview decide to include it into their standard CVS soon...!

The other option would be... (if you havent tried it yet)... to convert your reader into a pure Paraview "plugin", which can be loaded at run-time. That way, a recompile of Paraview itself would not be required, and you could include the reader as a part of the OpenFOAM-1.4.1-dev or OpenFOAM-1.5.x SVN repository.

What do you say?

Have a nice week ahead!

Philippose

[7islands]

Hi Philippose,

This time the package size exceeded the postable limit of 50kB, so now it's uploaded on the Wiki. Have fun!
http://openfoamwiki.net/index.php/Contrib_Parallelized_Native_OpenFOAM_Reader_fo r_ParaView

In my test, the parallelization resulted in somewhat mixed effects. I typically get 2.3x-2.5x sppedups in mesh loading times when run in 4 processors, but often experienced slower renderings by parallel executions. But as myself being still new to parallel use of ParaView, finding that kind of things itself is interesting.

@converting to a plugin: This time I tried it but the class name (vtkOpenFOAMReader) conflicts with the "official" one as long as we use the class name. On the other hand the parallel part (vtkPOpenFOAMReader) will be built as a plugin since it does not have such a problem.

@SVN repo: In my understanding the main obstacle is a licensing reason. The -dev SVN accepts only GPLed materials, while the ParaView License (a BSD license) should be the most reasonable license assigned at least to the serial part (vtkOpenFOAMReader), since it is a derivative work of the "official" one. I assigned GPL to the parallel part due mainly to the adoption of Qt, but as it depends on the serial part there's no meaning of checking only the part into the repo... The full story around the topic is really complicated.

Takuya

[johanna]

I had problems with paraFoam and Xwindow system and decided to install paraview into my windows XP. I noticed this discussion and as I don't have that much experience with these things, so could you give a bit more detailed instructions for this one.

"Basically, I download the Paraview-3.x.x sources from the CVS repository, and compile it using Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 (Express Edition) [<- the free version i.e. :-)], after adding on Takuya's code. "

Johanna

[7islands]

Hi Johanna,
My apologies to the delay in providing the OF1.5-ready ParaView binary package (as I implied in my Aug. 29 post). For general instructions on building ParaView by yourself, have a look at the ParaView wiki [1]. The reader code is provided on the OF wiki [2]. If this is indeed your first try with these things, you may have to spend a whole day though...

[1] http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView:Build_And_Install
[2] http://openfoamwiki.net/index.php/Contrib_Parallelized_Native_OpenFOAM_Reader_fo r_ParaView

Takuya

[tamsilian]

Hi sir/madam
I am Joseph.recently,i installed OpenFOAM 1.6 upon Linux-Ubuntu and I don't know how to download and install Parafoam for Post processing.Could you help me about this problem that where to refere to download paraFoam and how to install it?
Thanks a lot
Joseph