Can't animate *.cas.h5 files from ANSYS

ParaView Support
1

Hello all,
I am trying to animate the output files from ANSYS but the video is weird. I have attached both what it is supposed to look like and what it looks like and how I am doing it. I have also attached the data file here. Any help is appreciated. Thank you

2

Hi!
Welcome to the ParaView community! :slight_smile: The animation is not working because the whole series is not loaded in ParaView. I saw your shared video, wherein you see the files as a group in the file selection dialog and you are selecting the Group, which indeed give an impression that the whole series is going to be read. I think the reader that you use to open the group of files does not support loading a group (time series). As a solution, I tried converting a few files to *.vtkhdf format and then loaded that group in ParaView, and then the animation was working. You can do the same by converting the files to a suitable format you like, but I think the important thing is that the reader should support series files.

For conversion, you may write some python code inside paraview (recommended) or outside paraview.

Remember to mark this as a solution, if this resolves your question.

3

Hello Sherin,
Thank you for your help! Do you have any documentation or a tutorial I can refer to on how to convert the .cas.h5 files to .vtkhdf files?

Thank you!

4

I don’t have a script in hand because I manually converted couple of files in ParaView for testing. It is not practical for you to do a manual conversion of all files one by one in ParaView.

If you use Tools → Start Trace , then you will be able to record your actions in ParaView. The recording will generate Python code, which you can save and rerun later without performing any manual steps in ParaView.

  1. After enabling the trace (“Start Trace”), open a single cas.h5 file, and then go to File → Save Data, choose vtkhdf, hit Save, and finally click on Tools → Stop Trace
  2. This will generate you a python code on “how to” converting a single file.
  3. Modify the python code to introduce a simple loop to go through all files and do the conversion.
  4. Run the modified code to convert all files.

If you want to look at some relevant documentation, there are subchapters 12.6 and 12.7 in 12. Python & Batch: ParaView & Python — ParaView Documentation 5.12.0 documentation

1 Like
5

Hello Sherin,
I appreciate your guidance. However, I am not able to find an option to save the file as a vtfhdf file when I try to save the data. I have attached a video here for your reference. I appreciate your help.

6

Would you be able to share a video of how you are loading it? That would help me understand better. Thank you!

7

You are note seeing .vtkhdf because you are not using the latest ParaView (which is 5.13). Try the latest ParaView binaries and you should be able to convert.

8

Hi Sherin,
Thank you for that information. Do you recommend I use version 5.13.0 or 5.13.1?

Thank you,
Abishek

9
  • both versions are fine in terms of the availability of .vtkhdf exports.
  • I recommend that one should always try to use the latest version because it will have the latest features and bug fixes.
10

Hi Sherin,
Thank you for your help. I am now able to convert files to .vtfhdf format. However, it still does not load as a time series. I have attached a video here. Thank you again for all your help.

11

The naming of your files is causing the problem now. Can you try renaming those four files to f1, f2, f3, f4 and try again? I think if you use just numbers in the filename, it may not get grouped by ParaView.

1 Like
12

Thank you so much for your help. That worked!