I’m looking at some older scivis contest data, and the data contains many file time series with files named like 000.vtu, 001.vtu, 002.vtu, 003.vtu,…
I expected the ParaView file browser to recognize these files as a series and group them together so that I could load the group and play them as a time series. But I was surprised to find that ParaView does not group files like this. Apparently, if the file is only a number, it will not be grouped.
So, my main question is, what is the easiest way to load these files as a time series? I tried selecting all the files in the browser and click OK, but instead of loading as a time series, it creates a separate reader for each and loads them all in at the same time. I know I could work around the problem by renaming the files or creating a .series file. But the data has over 100 such time series, each with about 100 files, so modifying the files is a headache.
As a secondary question, is this the desired behavior for ParaView? Is there a reason ParaView should not treat files that are just numbers as a group?
Thanks, @cory.quammen. I was just about to do that, but you beat me to it.
On a related note, is there a reason that if you select multiple files in a browser that they are loaded in different readers instead of a time series?
I think the assumption is that if you select individual files, that means you don’t want them grouped into a time series. I believe files will be read as a time series only if a group is selected in the dialog.
I guess that assumption also assumes that anything that is a time series is grouped. That seems like a brash assumption. What if you had a series of series (e.g. from restarts)? What if the grouping just didn’t put the files together (like now). It would be nice if there was a workaround to treat the multiple selections as a group. Maybe a button in the browser that says “group these files”?
Fair point. Selecting files and designating them as a group makes sense. It we implemented that along with the current grouping identification (and ability to expand the group and select individual files from with the group), I think that would give users the power to group or ungroup as needed.