Users will first notice new direct reader options when loading AcuSolve results files. The AcuSolve direct reader includes new options to control the information read into AcuFieldView. Users have the option to read the extended output by toggling the “Read Extended Variables” checkbox and/or read duplicate boundaries by toggling the “Read Duplicate Boundaries” checkbox.  By default, both of these options are off.  This does represent a change in behavior with respect to previous releases.  When loading results with more than one time step (transient dataset), the Time Step Selection panel now has the option to “Read as Steady State”. These settings, along with coding optimizations within with AcuSolve direct reader reduce the time needed to read data into AcuFieldView. These optimizations have made the direct read times nearly equivalent to the time necessary to convert the data using AcuTrans and read via the FV-UNS format.  The following table summarizes the read performance.

Performance of AcuSolve data read operations using AcuFieldView V13.0 and V14.0

A "Read Extended Variables" button has been added to the AcuSolve direct reader data input panel.  When turned on, “Read Extended Variables” gives users access to additional variables from the AcuSolve solution database.  This allows post-processing and visualization of additional quantities, but comes at the expense of slower read times.

If active, the extended and derived quantities are added to the nodal output variables to form the variable list that is presented to the user.  The extended variable list can be expanded further by setting the environment variable FV_ACUSOLVE_GRAD. This will cause AcuFieldView to read the gradients of the transport variables. By allowing the user to specify whether the extended variables should be read gives additional control, allowing for faster read times and more succinct data inquiry.  Note that in releases of AcuFieldView prior to V13.0, the option to read extended variables was on by default and was controlled by an environment variable.

The AcuSolve direct reader data input panel now contains an option to read duplicate boundary surfaces.

When turned on, AcuFieldView will create duplicate boundary surface entries for surfaces that are reproductions of each other. For example, if the collection of faces present within a simple boundary condition command and a surface output command are identical, these surfaces are assumed to be duplicates.  By default, only one boundary surface entry will be created for the duplicated pair.  If the "Read Duplicate Boundaries" option is turned on, however, AcuFieldView will create a unique boundary surface entry for each instance of the duplicated surface.  Note that in releases of AcuFieldView prior to V13.0, duplicate surfaces were always read.  This option eliminates these duplicates, yielding simplified lists of surfaces in the boundary surface creation panel.

A “Read as Steady State” button has been added to the Time Step Selection panel when using the AcuSolve direct reader. When active, AcuFieldView will load a specific time step of a multiple time step dataset, as selected by the user, then treat it as static data. This feature is added to provide consistent behavior between the FV-UNS data import route and the AcuSolve direct reader import route.  When reading FV-UNS files, AcuFieldView checks for sequences in the file name, then prompts you to indicate whether the data is steady or transient.  The “Read as Steady State” button provides this same functionality for the AcuSolve direct reader.  Note that this option has implications for particle path display behavior as well as the availability of special annotation strings  such as  Time=%%T or Time Step=%%N.  The dataset needs to be read as transient, with the “Read as Steady State” option turned off, to restore the behavior of the direct reader to that of releases prior to V13.0.

Starting with AcuFieldView 13.0, AcuFieldView has the ability to display multiple windows, called Mult-Window Layouts. The number, size and layout of the windows can be stored to a Multi-Window Layout Restart file, which can be opened during an AcuFieldView session.

Since defining complex layouts can be tiresome, especially when trying multiple windows of the exact same size, the AcuFieldView installation directory now provides a number of default Layout Restart files, under

<Install Directory>/fv/fvx_and_restarts/layout_restarts

These Restart files can be applied to an AcuFieldView session through the following menu:

File > Open Restart > Multi-Window Layout

Particles can now be rendered as growing lines, even for transient datasets. This will let users visualize not only the current particle's location but also its trajectory over time. This capability is limited to Particle Paths written to the STREAKLINE format, i.e., for which all time steps have been written to a single file. It is not supported for the high per­formance PARTICLE SET format, which stores no information about trajectories. For particles computed in AcuFieldView with the Streamlines panel, the environment variable FV_SINGLE_FILE_STEAKLINES can be set to write particles information to the single file STREAKLINE format. The growing lines are synced to the solution time. A sphere indicates the start of each growing line.

A radio button 'From File' has been added to the Seed Density options for SURFACE RESTRICTED FLOW on the Vortex Cores/Surface Flows panel. When 'From File' is first selected, a file browser will come up automati­cally. To change from a previously read file, click the Browse... button to bring up the browser explicitly.

The seeds location file can be generated in a number of different ways:

After the seeds location file has been selected with the browser, click Calculate on the Vortex Cores/Surface Flows panel to read it in and generate and display the flow lines.

Each surface flow object may have a unique seeds location file. Points that do not lie on a visible Boundary Surface will be ignored. File paths will be saved with restarts.

The maximum number of points for user-defined seeding locations for surface flows is the same as the limit for streamline seeds, currently 2000 streamlines per rake.

AcuFieldView has expanded and simplified the process for selecting predefined and user defined colormaps. Predefined colormaps are now shown directly in the colormap selector tab of a given coordinate surface, boundary surface, streamline rake, etc. The predefined colormaps are also accessible from .fvx scripts by specifying the colormap name.

41 predefined colormaps have been added to the Colormap selector. They appear under the User... section following the original 8 colormaps. The scroll bar on the right accesses all options. AcuFieldView now displays an icon in front of each colormap, making it easier to identify them. This is especially beneficial now that the list includes 50 colormaps.

User defined colormaps can now be referenced by AcuFieldView by including the .col files in specific directories. At startup, AcuFieldView will look for two directories:

<Install Directory>\fv\data\colormaps

$HOME/FieldView/colormaps

AcuFieldView scans these directories for .col files and will include them in the colormap selector panel. One of the two directories mentioned above will always be found if AcuFieldView is installed. The basename of each .col file will be added to the User section of the Colormap selector.

FVX support for defined scalar colormap names has been extended from 8 to 49 options.

If scalar_colormap.name does not match a defined colormap name, AcuFieldView assumes the string represents a filename, including path, of a colormap file.

The complete list of predefined colormap names is given in the following table.