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Dr. Mesh: STAR-View |
 As
I help myself to another gin and tonic, my thoughts often
turn to those less fortunate than myself. Every day, around
the world, a large number of non-CFD users struggle to understand
the results of flow simulations presented as faded twodimensional
pictures at the back of some report. While you and I are
free to explore every detail of a flow simulation, rotating
and zooming to our hearts content, these unfortunates are
forced to extract useful engineering information from a limited
number of views that were pre-selected by the author of the
report.Understanding someone else's CFD plots is never an easy task. Industrial CFD results are inherently three-dimensional; in order to properly understand a flow solution you need to explore it. Luckily, STAR-View, a new utility for STAR-CD and STAR-CAD Series, makes the viewing of CFD results a whole lot more interactive. STAR-View allows you to distribute your postprocessed simulation results as "scene files". Scene files contain a three-dimensional representation of the stored CFD plot. When viewed using STAR-View, scene files allow the viewer to zoom, pan and rotate the stored model and post-processing data using the mouse, as if the model were in pro-STAR. Now anyone, whether a CFD user or not, can have the luxury of fully exploring a CFD solution. STAR-View is free to distribute, requires no license and is small in size, which means that you can simply attach it to an email with a selection of scene files. Most of all, STAR-View is so easy to use that anyone (no matter how CFD illiterate they are) can master it in a matter of minutes. To view a file using STAR-View, save the "starview" executable to your Windows Desktop and simply drag scene files onto it. Alternatively save "starview.exe" to the same directory as the scene views you wish to view and (at the Windows command prompt) type starview casename.scn. Once loaded, the plot in the scene file can be zoomed, panned, or rotated using the standard pro-STAR mouse buttons.   Writing a scene file is as simple as creating any other plot in STAR-CD. With pro- STAR in glm mode, simply select Utilities -> Write Scene File from the toolbar at the top of the screen. Alternatively you can type the command SCENE casename.scn at the command prompt. For users of STAR-CAD Series, scene files can be created directly from the pro-Vis toolbar using Window -> Write STAR Scene File.  The
scene file supports pro- STAR's LAYER functionality, so that you can
use all of the tricks you learnt in my last article when making plots
to distribute with STAR-View. The basic rule is that if you can plot
it in pro-STAR (or pro-Vis), then you can store it as a scene file. On
www.cd-adapco.com/drmesh you can download STAR-View for free plus two
example scene files. Until next time, Dr. Mesh's surgery is now open. Please send comments,  suggestions, or scene files to dr.mesh@cd-adapco.com |