AcuFieldView supports grouping of elements into
collections called regions. Information regarding which elements are grouped into a specific
region is contained in an ASCII text file that is named with a
.fvreg file extension (FieldView Region File).
AcuTrans writes this file whenever it converts data to the FV-UNS
format. Note that AcuTrans does not provide full support
for all of the flexibility that is provided by AcuFieldView through the regions file. Some examples of
options that are supported within the region file but not supported by AcuTrans are the specification of rotating reference frames
and cylindrical coordinate systems.
The benefits of using regions in
AcuFieldView is that it permits you to toggle element groups on and off. This enables more precise control over the visualization. For example, it is possible to turn off all regions that are fluid or solid by using the Region Controls panel in
AcuFieldView.
AcuTrans supports the
-fvr or
-fieldview_region option to control how the elements are
grouped within the FV-UNS file. The default setting for this option is single. When
this option is exercised, all elements are written into a single region.
AcuTrans also supports the options of
element_set and
subdomain. When
element_set is selected, each
AcuSolve element set is identified as a separate region. When
subdomain is selected, the elements are grouped according to
their domain decomposition. Each subdomain appears as a separate region. For
example, acuTrans -out -to fieldview -fvr subdomain produces a combined FV-UNS file
with a separate region defined for each subdomain.
Note: When using AcuFieldView with parallel server processes, the
distribution of elements among the processes is controlled by the regions that
are present in the FV-UNS file. The regions are sequentially distributed to each
of the parallel processes. To obtain optimal balance of the parallel
post-processing, it is necessary to convert the data to FV-UNS using the
-fvr subdomain option.