Pre-loading Steps

ParaView Support
1

Hi,

I’ve ran a model on FLAC3D and have 4 steps in 1 in each output vtk files. I highlight and drag the 4 files into paraview into the pipeline browser and after sometime they load in as 1 item with a * at the end of the file name. They’re about 350mb each for reference

The problem i’m running into is that when i go to view each step after i’ve run like a clip on the model is that every single time i click the time button (top bar) to view each time step it takes a while to show the next time step, as if the model is loading in every time to the program.

I find this strange since i can bring all 4 time steps in separately to the pipeline browser and swap between them easily. I don’t do this though because it makes it hard to then replicate the same filter on each step.

My question is how can i load all the 4 time steps into RAM or into the program properly so there isn’t any delay between the time steps for loading in. This is particularly annoying with large data sets since it can take sometimes half a minute to show the next step.

Cheers,

2

Hi @mattmuso

  • Animation Cache in the general settings
  • If not available, use Temporal Cache filter

Best,

3

Like @mwestphal says, ParaView has a built in cache for the animation, but to enable it you first have to go to settings and turn on the Cache Geometry For Animation feature. To be clear, you first have to hit play image and let ParaView cycle through each of the time steps. As it visits each time step, ParaView will cache the rendered geometry of your data. After ParaView goes through that once, you can then switch between time steps without having to reload the data.

One word of warning, the animation cache does not actually save the data that you are loading from the file directly. Rather, it is saving the geometry at the end of the pipeline that is being rendered. That means if you make a change to your visualization, such as adding a filter, the cache will get cleared and ParaView will load the data from file all over again. So, in your case I would recommend the other option @mwestphal suggested, the Temporal Cache filter.

After you open your data in ParaView, add the Temporal Cache filter to the reader. Set the Cache Size to the number of time steps you have (in your case, 4). Once again, you have to hit play image or otherwise let ParaView visit each time step. But once you do so, ParaView will hold the data for the time step in memory.

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4

Thank you for your help, this worked perfectly. and thanks to @mwestphal aswell.

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