EnSight's native data format is useful as a general data format for unstructured or structured grids. EnSight has three native data formats (from oldest to newest, EnSight5, EnSight6 and EnSight Case Gold) which are well defined and well documented so that they can be easily interfaced to your analysis code. All licensed versions of EnSight read all three versions of EnSight formats, with the exception of a special, bundled EnSight for Converge which reads only Converge Case Gold translator output. EnSight5, which is now considered a legacy format, used a global coordinate array and supported unstructured meshes only. EnSight6 format again used a global coordinate array but added support for structured meshes. EnSight Case Gold (often just called Case format) is the most recent (and recommended) format. Case Gold defines geometry on a part by part basis and uses element index for connectivity. Case Gold format is tuned to the EnSight internal data structure and is the fastest and most memory efficient format available for EnSight.
A dramatic speed up in performance can sometimes be realized simply by
reading in data in the given format and saving it back out as Case Gold, then re-reading the
data back in using the native Case Gold reader. However, a number of solvers now output data
directly into the well-documented Case format. Preference and Setup File Formats. The application ens_checker is included with EnSight to enable error
checking of the Case and EnSight 6 formats output by third-party software.
Described below is the process for reading the latest (Case & EnSight 6) and the legacy (EnSight 5) native formats:
In order to use this reader, you must be familiar with the basic data reader and part loader dialogs discussed previously (see Reader Basics).
EnSight6 and EnSight Gold are input using the exact same process. The data consists of the following files:
Case file (required)
Geometry file (required)
Variable files (optional)
Measured/Particle files (optional)
Measured/Particle geometry files
Measured/Particle variable files
Rigid body file (optional)
The Case file is a small ASCII file which points to all other files which pertain to the model. The Case file names the geometry and variable files and records time information. The geometry file is a general finite-element format describing nodes and Parts, each Part being a collection of elements, and/or structured ijk blocks. The variable file contains scalar (one value), vector (three values) or tensor (six or 9 values) data at each node and/or element. Measured/Particle files contain data about discrete Particles in space from the simulation code or information directly from experimental data.
EnSight data is based on Parts. The Parts defined in the data are always available on the Server. However, all Parts do not have to be loaded to the client for display. Large flow fields for CFD problems, for example, are needed for computation by the server, but can be loaded non-visual.
EnSight data can be transient. The geometry as well as the variables can change with each timestep. The casefile contains the filenames or filename patterns for the transient data.
Simple Interface Data Load
Load your casefile (typically named with a suffix .case) using the Simple Interface method.
Advanced Interface Data Load
Load your casefile (typically named with a suffix .case) using the Advanced Interface method.
| Data Tab | |
| Format | Use the Case format to read EnSight6 or EnSight Gold data. |
| Set Case | Select the casefile (typically .case) and click this button |
| Format Options Tab | |
| Endian |
Native, Big or Little-Endian. Since all modern platforms use the Intel platform, which is little-endian we no longer automatically do this check. Legacy files written from Unix platforms will need this pulldown set to big-endian to read correctly. |
See Read Data.
EnSight5 input data consists of the following files:
Geometry file (required)
Result file (optional)
Variable files (optional)
Measured Particle Files (optional)
Measured/Particle geometry files
Measured/Particle results files
Measured/Particle variable files
The geometry file is a general finite-element format describing nodes and Parts, each Part being a collection of elements. The result file is a small ASCII file allowing the user to name variables and provide time information. The result file points to variable files which contain the scalar or vector information for each node. Measured/Particle files contain data about discrete Particles in space from the simulation code or information directly from actual experimental tests.
EnSight5 data is based on Parts. The Parts defined in the data are always available on the server. However, all Parts do not have to be loaded to the client for display. Large flow fields for CFD problems, for example, are needed for computation by the server, but do not generally need to be seen graphically.
EnSight5 data can have changing geometry, in which case the changing geometry file names pattern is contained in the results file. However, it is still necessary to specify an initial geometry file name in the (Set) Geometry field.
Simple Interface Data Load
Load your geometry file (typically named with a suffix .geo) using the Simple Interface method.
Advanced Interface Data Load
Load your geometry and result files (typically named with a suffix .geo and .res) using the Advanced Interface method.
|
Data Tab | |
| Format |
Use the EnSight5 format. |
| Set geometry |
Select the geometry file (typically .geo) and click this button |
| Set results |
Select the results file (typically .res), and click this button. |
|
Format Options Tab | |
| Set measured |
Select the measured file and click this button. |
| Endian |
Native, Big or Little-Endian. All modern platforms use the Intel platform, which is little-endian. Legacy files from Unix will be big-endian. |
See Read Data.