# How do I get a graph of a global variable versus time?

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-do-i-get-a-graph-of-a-global-variable-versus-time/7186
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Tags:** exodus
**Created:** [May 10, 2021, 3:58am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-do-i-get-a-graph-of-a-global-variable-versus-time/7186 "2021-05-10T03:58:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![wei\_peng](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/wei_peng/32/6227_2.png) [@wei\_peng](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wei_peng)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2021, 3:58am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-do-i-get-a-graph-of-a-global-variable-versus-time/7186/1 "2021-05-10T03:58:20Z")

</div>

Dear All,

Now, I have a series of exodus files, where the value of each element is known, such as elastic energy density \rho\_{elstic}, and the mesh is an adaptive mesh.

Need to calculate the elastic energy E = \iint\rho\_{elstic}dS in the entire area, so my question is how to calculate the global value when the value of each element (\rho\_{elstic}) is known (E)?

Afterwards, a graph of the global value versus time is obtained.

Finally, the paraview version I used is 5.9.0-RC2 in win10.

Thank you,  
wei

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/mwestphal/32/17_2.png) [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2021, 6:27am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-do-i-get-a-graph-of-a-global-variable-versus-time/7186/2 "2021-05-10T06:27:00Z")

</div>

Python Programmable Filter would be the way to go imo.

> 5.9.0-RC2

Please use an actual release.