The   button in the toolbar permits to launch Viewmerical:

If a grid or solution icon is selected, Viewmerical will be launched to open that file automatically.

In the solver execution panel, the View button will launch the default post-processor.

The default post-processor of FENSAP-ICE can be selected in the Preferences panel:

Once configured, the main visualization option in the menus will be Viewmerical. Using the option View with VIEWMERICAL on a solution file will load the selected grid and solution from FENSAP automatically:

At any time, any alternate post-processor (including Viewmerical) can be launched to view input/output datasets.

 

16.2.1.3.1. From the Run View

Right-click an input/output icon and select View with...:

 

16.2.1.3.2. From the Execution Panel

Holding the Ctrl key will switch the view button from View to View with..., which will enable you to select the post-processing viewer to use:

Viewmerical can be launched standalone; it does not require a FENSAP-ICE main window or project and can be used on any compatible input file.

At the top of the 3D display, a toolbar permits to switch between the main view modes which are normally accessible via mouse + keyboard combinations. See Interactive Menu for the equivalent keyboard/mouse bindings, and the operation description.

Table 16.4: Toolbar

Action	Icon
Toolbar
Rotation
Zoom Box
Pick
Screenshot
MENU	See Interactive Menu.

Clicking in the axis window will trigger a view change.

Right-clicking the axis window provides additional view options:

A Ctrl left-click in the 3D display, or the usage of the Menu button   shows the interactive menu:

When Viewmerical is launched standalone, or when additional data is to be loaded, this file selection dialog appears:

The loaded data can be either grid only or grid and solution.

Boundaries Only

Loads only the grid boundaries, not the 3D cells. This will be faster and use less memory. In this mode, it is not possible to display cutting planes or 3D iso surfaces.

The Objects panel permits to manage the loaded datasets:

  Opens the Open files dialog, to load an additional Grid/Solution.

  Removes the currently selected object.

  Selects all the datasets for modification. (See Lock Selection).

The check box at the left of an object in the object list permits to modify the global visibility of that object.

Regions of a dataset (typically, boundary conditions), can be shown/hidden using the same check box.

Some operations are available or not depending on what the current selection is in the object list.

Object (grid) selected:

Surface (boundary condition) selected:

The current selected boundary condition (if any) is shown using a white contour and white wireframe:

In addition to the current selection, multiple selection can be used to perform operations on multiple items in the object list:

Holding down Shift enables adjacent selections from the current item to and including the item clicked.

Holding down Ctrl enables items to be selected and deselected discretely.

The last item clicked becomes the current selection and, similar to the current selection, is highlighted with a white contour and white wireframe only if it is a boundary condition.

In a single operation, selected items can be modified in the following ways:

Modifications on multiple selections that include datasets may affect all boundary conditions of the selected dataset.

The lock selection is used to select all datasets in addition the current item and/or multiple selection items. Operations in a locked selection work similarly to a basic multiple section. This selection can be enabled by clicking the Lock button in the Object Browser (See Adding/Removing Datasets). Locked selection permits similar operations to the shared mode and also enables all data set to the be selected and modified in one operation particularly useful for synchronizing data-field operations or expanding the scope of such operations to include all datasets. The Shared button is in the LUT range dialog (See Shared Range).

This feature is particularly useful when the loaded grids have no associated solution and the LUT range dialog is hidden.

The shading mode is selected at the top of the object panel:

Figure 16.3: Wireframe

Figure 16.4: Colored

Figure 16.5: Colored+Wireframe

Figure 16.6: Shaded

Figure 16.7: Shaded+Wireframe

Figure 16.8: Smooth Shaded

Figure 16.9: Metallic

Figure 16.10: Metallic+Smooth

Wire (wireframe lines) and Cell (facets) color can be changed. Click the colored box to access the color picker.

Opacity permits to change the transparency of both wireframe and facets.

Object (grid) selected: The new wire/cell color is applied to all sub-objects.

Surface (boundary condition) selected: The color is applied only to the specified boundary condition.

The Repeat options permits to duplicate symmetric data.

Figure 16.11: No Repetition (Z-Symmetric Grid)

Figure 16.12: Z-Axis Repetition Enabled

This permits to split the 3D window in two, showing datasets either top/bottom or left/right. The camera position between the two halves is locked, the display are always exactly at the same position.

The split-screen selection applies to the currently selected object, in the Objects list.

Different objects can have different split-screen settings:

Figure 16.13: Grid Adaptation, Before Adaptation/After Adaptation

Figure 16.14: CHT Solution – Static Temperature. External Wall/Internal Wall

To load multiple datasets from FENSAP-ICE:

The dataset and data-field are also visible in the combo-boxes at right side the status bar. These combo-boxes can also be used to switch the dataset and data-field:

The   button allows you to define an expression for custom fields using existing fields in the dataset.

The   icon offers the option to reload the data from the disk.

This will reload and display the current dataset, field and step (See Unsteady or Numbered Solutions).

 

16.2.6.1.1. Unsteady or Numbered Solutions

If the loaded solution file is in the format of name.###### (six-digit numbered file) or name.######## (eight-digit numbered file), the Step number, without preceding zeroes, is shown in the panel as well as slider and an Play/Pause button. The slider permits to sweep through the steps, loading/displaying the new solution for each step. The play/pause button triggers a sweep animation for the steps in a continuous loop. If there were initially none included, step animations for the selected datasets are added to the animation item list when an animation is triggered.

Color Range Panel

The scalar field loaded is displayed using the settings of this panel. The minimum/maximum values can be edited by modifying the numerical values, or by moving with the mouse the minimum/maximum boundary in the colored box.

Entering an empty value for the minimum/maximum (with the Enter key), will reset the value to the minimum/maximum value of the dataset (as displayed below).

Invert

Inverts the direction of the spectrum.

Real-Time Update

Permits to display immediately any change made to the minimum/maximum of the color table.

 

16.2.6.1.2. Color Range

Modes other than Spectrum will use a textured color-mapping table and will permit to have smoother display, but might not be compatible with all 3D display drivers.

Using a color range will give more gradient detail, visible mostly when a facet contains values near the min and the max of the data range.

Spectrum (Linear Interpolation Shading)

Other colormaps, can show the full gradient of the data:

 

16.2.6.1.3. Shared Range

The check box Shared is useful only if multiple solutions of the same type are loaded. Using this option will:

• Select the same datafield in all loaded solutions.

• Apply any datafield operations to the other loaded solutions.

• The global minimum/maximum of all datafields is used for the colormap minimum/maximum.

Example 16.1: Multiple Solutions

• Solution1 = 260 to 320 K.

• Solution2 = 274 to 406 K.

• Shared range = 260 to 406 K.

 

16.2.6.1.4. Global Range

If disabled, the Global setting will use the minimum/maximum only from the visible surfaces.

Default - Global range:

Local data range - With Global check box unchecked and a subset of the surfaces visible:

 

16.2.6.1.5. Advanced Options

Hide Values out of Range

When a facet has no node within the data range, it will not be drawn (completely invisible).

Point Cloud for out of Range

If a node is not in the data range, it is marked with a white point. This option is useful to identify mesh regions where the data is over/under a given threshold.

---

Important:  This option will show a point for each node of the grid, not only surface nodes, this might be many of points to display, if the range is not carefully chosen.

---

Show Legend

Toggles the display of the legend panel, in the 3D view, for this dataset.

Top/Bottom

Selects the position of the legend panel in the 3D view.

Enabled - Surfaces

This option will display contour lines on the surfaces.

Enabled - Volumes

This option will display 3D Iso-Surfaces.

The position of the surface can be adjusted using the color range minimum/maximum values.

Advanced settings are available by clicking the   icon:

The options are the same than for the cutting plane (See Cutting Plane Panel).

This panel is available only if the loaded solution contains recognized X/Y/Z vector datafields.

 

16.2.6.3.1. Vector Scaling

The default vector scale is 1. Meaning that a vector of magnitude 1 will be displayed as size 1 in the scale of the grid. Usually, the vector scale must be changed to be suitable for display, enter a scaling value or use +/- to change it:

Relative and Normalized Scaling

The scaling mode will either display vector with length relative to their magnitude (Relative scaling) or all of the same length (Normalized scaling):

Figure 16.15: Relative Scaling

Figure 16.16: Normalized Scaling

 

16.2.6.3.2. Coordinate Clamping

This menu entry permits to switch between XYZ, XY, YZ, XZ, X, Y, Z clamping modes. In these modes, only the enumerated coordinate will be used for display.

Some data files contains mesh displacement information (such as ALE timebc used for grid displacement). This panel is visible if the Displacement magnitude option is selected. The scaling permits you to deform the grid from the displacement vector. The default range is 0-10 with 0 being the default value:

 

16.2.6.4.1. Real-Time Update

Enabling the Real-time update option allows the modifications to be applied immediately to the dataset while moving the slider:

 

16.2.6.4.2. Advanced Settings

Enabling the advanced setting expose controls to modify the minimum and maximum of the range for the displacement factor multiplier:

This mode can be enabled in the Advanced panel (double-click the panel header).

It will render the data for use with red/cyan or red/blue filter 3D glasses:

The Angle and Depth settings can be fine-tuned using the sliders.

Grayscale or black & white data is well suited for this type of display.

The currently loaded scalar data-field is used for 2D plots:

The 2D plot data is computed onto the mesh intersections with a cutting plane.

The Target specifies the surfaces onto which the cutting plane will be applied.

To work only on a single wall, on a multi-wall dataset:

In the plot area:

X/Y/Z/Distance: Selects the coordinate to use for the plot horizontal scale. Distance is the distance from the previous point.

Print: Send the plot to the default printer.

 : Permits to accumulate multiple plots in the same display. For example ice cuts at different cutting plane positions, or different icing time. All the plots must be sharing the same dataset mode (For example, you cannot mix a temperature plot with a heat flux plot).

Up/Down: Permits the 2D plot panel to be resized vertically. Horizontal resize is done with the view port and tab splitter grip which affects all the panels.

Figure 16.17: 2D Plot Menu

Save one file: Save all the date from plot to one plain text file.

Save multiple files: Save data from plot in one plain text file per curve.

Curve Settings: This opens a dialog to edit the width, color and style of visible curves.

Clicking the 3D data when in picking mode   (Alt + click or P +click) will select the closest node to the XYZ point clicked upon.

The currently selected node is shown as a white dot:

The node ID is shown in the Node field (node identifiers start at 1).

The node coordinate is in X/Y/Z fields.

The node scalar value, for the currently selected datafield is shown in Value.

If the scalar value is a velocity magnitude, the individual X/Y/Z components are also displayed.

Figure 16.18: Node Selection Tool

To expand the panel, double-click the Compute header.

Figure 16.19: Compute Panel Window

Ice Cover

Displays the ice in white, over a metallic base mesh. The ice is only displayed where the threshold is respected. For example if the ice thickness is more than the specified value. This is used to clip the display of near-zero values. Multiple threshold variables are available.

The default threshold is Ice Growth which is accounting for all the growth since the start of the computation(s). Ice thickness and Instant Ice Growth are based on data relative to the last ICE3D simulation.

Table 16.17: Display Mode

Mode	Displays
Ice cover - shaded	As ice cover, but with some shading on the ice shape.
Ice cover (only)	Only displays the ice cover, the shading options and color settings of the current object apply to the ice cover.
Ice solution - Overlay	swimsol scalar data is applied to the ice shape grid (shown with the threshold).
Ice solution	swimsol scalar data mapped on the ice.grid shape grid.
Surface solution	swimsol scalar data mapped on the map.grid.
Glaze/Rime/Film	Displays in colors the zones of Glaze/Rime/Film.
CAD output	CAD Output

The CAD Output mode permits to select an iced zone - using the same threshold used for the ice cover display - and save the ice shape to a .stl or point cloud file.

Such files can then be used with CAD or 3D printing software to reconstruct the ICE shape.

From the ice cover:

The surface for the CAD would be:

Select the most appropriate threshold, to avoid CAD artifacts.

The surface can be saved to a CAD-friendly file using the options from the gray cube menu.

 

16.2.9.2.1. CAD Surface Cleanup

If the CAD surface contains islands (small surfaces disconnected to the main iced surface), such as:

Or holes in the iced surface:

Use the Cleanup options to correct these artifacts.

 

16.2.9.2.2. Boundary Edge Smoothing

To remove sharp edges in the CAD boundary, such as:

Use the Edge smoothing function:

Additional triangles will be added, to smooth the external edges of the CAD (not present in the original grid, but reusing original node coordinates).

Angle:

More degrees will lead to more smoothing.

Iterations:

Number of times this process is repeated.

 

16.2.9.2.3. Output

Use the   icon to access the output commands:

The CAD surface can be exported to a .stl file, readable by most CAD software, or to a point list file.

STL output will write two files: FILE.stl and FILE_surf.stl, FILE.stl is the displaced ice surface, FILE_surf.stl is the base wing surface:

Labels:

For .stl files, from this setting each triangle patch will be saved in a different zone named for each boundary condition (or by Patch/Boundary Conditions+Patches).

Snap edges to map.grid:

In the case of a 3D ice shape (not a 2D periodic/symmetric grid) if the two files are joined together, they can be assembled in a gap-free 3D shape suitable for 3D printing. For a perfectly gap-free shape, Snap edges to map.grid is required, as it will use the coordinates of the wing surface for each of the boundary edges of the iced surface.

Maximum combined cross-section (MCCS) is a method developed at NASA Glenn Research Center to represent and document ice shapes obtained on 3D swept wings. These wings accrete ice with scallop and lobster-tail features which are quite variable in the spanwise direction. Extracting ice shape tracings for 2D data plotting is not representative of the 3D variations along the span. The state-of-the-art to document these type of ice shapes include laser scanning the ice to digitize its shape in STL format. Once available in digital form, several data cuts perpendicular to the leading edge are done and combined into a single ice shape curve that traces the silhouette of these cuts. This silhouette is not the real ice shape, but a combination of all the ice shapes along a section of the span. Viewmerical does not directly provide a way to produce the MCCS curve, but it can be used to make such cuts along the span that can be combined into the MCCS using a python script provided with this installation package of FENSAP-ICE. The file is located at fensapice/data/templates/scripts/mccs.py. This script requires Python version 3 and above, and the libraries pandas and shapely to be installed. These libraries are not provided by Ansys but can be downloaded from their providers. These libraries are available with BSD licenses without any warranties. You can review each library license disclaimer and terms of use before using the mccs.py script provided by Ansys.

The process to use the MCCS script is as follows (Linux):