Last week I wrote about how simple is to create a eye-pleasing rendering in few clicks, but it turns out that things are even better! 😮
The ray-tracing capability in ParaView is really slick. Many commercial applications offer similar rendering solutions, but what I find peculiar of ParaView is that in just 10 clicks you can go from the very default rendering, to good looking animation. As I spent more time with it, I found that the benefit are not limited to photorealistic renderings.
Particles visualization
Visualizing particles in a FEA analysis is usually overlooked by software publishers, and ParaView is not making things incredibly easier.
In my attempt below I had to adjust the background colors to get a high-contrast animation. I have not applied any photorealistic texture to render the animation quickly, but
Fracture visualization
When your simulation predicts failure, it is important to be able to visualize it and I think this is where photorealistic rendering is a must. In this simulation I have ballistic model entirely rendered with ParaView. I use a white background to light up the components as all reflections absorb light from the environment.
Photorealistic renderings offer limited value for engineers; contour plots remain essential. Ray tracing can enhance contour plots by creating sharp images with beautiful shadows. Below, I present the velocity magnitude within the target component. Given the projectile is a rigid body, I applied the previous texture map and also sliced the projectile. Additionally, by making the mesh lines very thin, I provide an insight into the FEA mesh refinement without distracting from the velocity field and crack propagation.
Finally, I wanted to focus the animation on the broken region and I wanted to show the full shape of the cylindrical projectile. The problem I faced is that the bottom part of the component did not receive much light and that’s easy to see in the previous animation. After a quick Google search I found that ParaView allows to control, adjust, add and remove lights. All I needed to do was to move the three default lights so that the bottom part received direct light, and this is the result:
Conclusions
This experience motivated me to dive deeper into ParaView, and I learned a lot. ParaView is a very capable tool, but it could benefit from better documentation and improved GUI design. Navigating the various menus and filters can be a bit annoying. While everything can be scripted, a GUI exists for a reason, and ParaView’s GUI is no longer very modern.
On the other hand, the rendering capabilities are a real discovery and have saved me a lot of time: where I previously needed to chain Blender, I can now achieve the desired results within ParaView.