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Welcome
Welcome to the flowVC-utils documentation this utility project provides documentation and tooling to assist in utilizing the flowVC software for computing Finite Time Lyoponove Exponents
Project Organization
It is recomended that before starting your project is organized into the following directory structure, with a subdirectory being created for each of the simulation cases. Note the trailing "_" in the subdirectory names, this is necissary for the code to to generate and identify file names throughout the process.
└── project_root
├── case1_
│ ├── input_bin
│ ├── input_vtu
│ │ ├── case1_00000.vtu
│ │ ├── case1_00050.vtu
│ │ └── case2_00100.vtu
│ ├── output_bin
│ └── output_vtk
└── case2_
├── input_bin
├── input_vtu
│ ├── case2_00000.vtu
│ ├── case2_00050.vtu
│ └── case2_00100.vtu
├── output_bin
└── output_vtk
The input_vtu stores the input data files in a ".vtu" file format. This would often be the velocity data from a CFD simulation that you wish to generate FTLE fields for.
Step 1: Create Binary Files using
vtu2bin
FlowVC requires the velocity data be converted into binary files prior to exectution. These binary files contain the velocity data as well as the coordinate and connectivity information of your dataset and can be created using the vtu2bin command.
If you are using the recomended layout the best way to use this is from the project_root direcory running the following command with the –batch flag enabled.
python -m flowvcutils vtu2bin START STOP --batch
Where START and STOP is the starting and stopping timestep for your data set. This will generate the binary files for all of the simulation cases that you have with a single command.
Step 2: Create the input settings (.in) file
Inigenerator
The inigenerator utility is utilized to create the flowVC input files for multiple simulations. The inigenerator utility helps managing the following settings:
- Directory paths (where input data is stored, where outputs go, etc.)
- Mesh bounds for the data (e.g., xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax, zmin, zmax), streaching the mesh slighly to ensure cubic cells as required by flowVC
- Resolution in each dimension (xres, yres, zres) based on the cell size.
- Time direction settings (forward or backward) for the FTLE-related output.
- Name prefixes and other run-time details that go into the final configuration so the output FTLE files are identifiable for each simulation case.
All of the other settings can be set by updating the configuration file located:
/src/config/config.inigenerator.cfg
As the inigenerator creates absolute file paths, it is recomeded that this utility is ran from the directory and computer/server that will be executing the flowVC calculations. If the folder is moved re-run the generator to update filepaths.
If you are using the recomended layout the best way to use this is from the project_root direcory running the following command with the –batch flag enabled.
python -m flowvcutils inigenerator --batch