# City-scale wind simulation with topography?

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/city-scale-wind-simulation-with-topography/7649
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [July 19, 2021, 7:18pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/city-scale-wind-simulation-with-topography/7649 "2021-07-19T19:18:10Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![sous\_3dm](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@sous\_3dm](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/sous_3dm)
#### Post date: [July 19, 2021, 7:18pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/city-scale-wind-simulation-with-topography/7649/1 "2021-07-19T19:18:10Z")

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**Q: Are there precedents for urban-scale outdoor windflow models, with topography?**

Hi everyone- I am coming from the AEC/3d modeling/Rhino-Grasshopper world. Following [a great series of tutorials](https://vimeo.com/showcase/7101158), I am at a point where I can get a OpenFOAM Case File and ‘slice’ it and visualize it to show results. I have been inputting buildings of an urban block, usually simplified to a single plane, and then seeing the results @ a person’s height for ‘human comfort’ simulations.

I have now been requested to do this but with topography. I have managed to get a mesh with some results, but I am not sure how to visualize these results for people who don’t recognize the terminology “CFD.” (which still includes me, really)

The input STL looks like below - a pretty large area with foothills

 ![image](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/2X/7/7029a6e655646305826167220b3b8976eb371ae4.jpeg)

If I slice through the results at a Z normal, the results look as such (U magnitude Time 6)

 ![image](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/2X/0/0f9e6018d87799ae54ba07ad138277e1cf3b13f8.png)

 ![image](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/2X/a/abc84c17538620e03a91dc6aa9da8e63367faa02.jpeg)

I think ideally we would still talk about pedestrian comfort (roughyl 1.5 m from base plane)… is there a way to offset the topography STL and use that to create a sliced result?

Or is there a better way to visualize this that I haven’t considered? Thank you!

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### Author: ![MBG](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@MBG](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/MBG)
#### Post date: [July 20, 2021, 9:50am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/city-scale-wind-simulation-with-topography/7649/2 "2021-07-20T09:50:56Z")

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Hi, see plugin [GitHub - mobigroup/ParaView-plugins: ParaView plugins](https://github.com/mobigroup/ParaView-plugins) which allows to load DEM as GeoTIFF or NetCDF file and even place image (Google Satellite map for example) on it.

 ![lineaments2](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/2X/5/5be44fc0f92421f8ade07fa4cd187a1b56c54240.jpeg)

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### Author: ![fvg](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@fvg](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/fvg)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2021, 8:33am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/city-scale-wind-simulation-with-topography/7649/3 "2021-08-02T08:33:27Z")

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I have used the following in the past:

- load in the volumetric results
- Load in the bottom surface / topography as stl
- transform the surface with 1.5m upwards
- Resample with dataset, source foam, destination transform  
results in:

 ![resample with dataset](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/2X/1/1b6630d96d7ed626a49b69828f6f0ddf597a1822.png)
