Tricks for Using Paraview
The SLAC Toolbox
The SLAC Toolbox is an extra toolbar added into paraview. Its purpose is to accelerate workflow by minimizing gui interaction for commonly performed tasks. Everything done via the SLAC Toolbar can also be done via the normal ParaView GUI.
When paraview first comes up, click the SLAC Folder in the toolbar. This has places to enter the name of the mesh, and optionally, the name(s) of field files and/or particle files. On hitting "OK", the other icons in the toolbar become active, if their corresponding data has been loaded (e.g., the "e" and "b" field icons will become active if fields are loaded, but will remain greyed out if no fields were specified).
For mesh viewing (independent of whether fields and/or particles are loaded), these three buttons change how the mesh is displayed. The "Show Mesh as Solid Surface" button shows the mesh surface as an opaque surface. The "Show Mesh as Solid with Wireframe" button shows the surface along with element edges rendered in black. The "Show Wireframe Front and Solid Back" button is a view dependent drawing style; the outward oriented faces are shown as wireframe, while the inward oriented faces are shown as a solid surface. This way, no matter how the mesh is oriented on the screen, you can look through the outer surface to see details inside.
For looking at fields (once they have been loaded), the "e" and "b" buttons in the SLAC Toolbox display pseudocolored electric and magnetic field magnitudes (respectively) on the mesh surface.
To see particles once they have been loaded, pressing the "Toggle Show Particles" button will toggle the display of particles. Particles should always be inside the mesh, so they may not be visible unless the mesh is displayed using the "Show Wireframe Front and Solid Back" style. Particles are rendered as white dots.
To create a line plot of the current field along the z axis, press the "Make a plot of the field along the Z axis" button. The field type for the plot will be the same as the displayed field type.
Boundary Selection and Identification
Improved Particle Display and Particle Paths
Finding a Mesh Node's Id and XYZ Location
Improved Display of Curved Elements
The first method is to load the surface midpoints by clicking "Read Midpoints".
The other method is to use averaged surface normal.
- Load internal volume by click "Read Internal Volume" and Apply.
- Hide the "External Surface" by clicking on the eye icon to it's left in the Pipeline Browser.
- Select the "Internal Volume" in the Pipeline Browser.
- Apply "Filter -> Alphabetical -> Extract Surface"
- Then filter the extracted surface "Filter -> Alphabetical -> General Surface Normal"
- Adjust the "Feature Angle" property if sharp creases appear in areas which should be smooth, or vice versa.
A third approach combines the first two. Generating surface normals when midpoints are loaded produces better results than either approach alone.