FieldView 22 with Improvements to the Auto Partitioner

Easier Data Input Workflow

The legacy cascade menu has been replaced with a single panel, letting you read your CFD results with fewer clicks.

  • All Data Input settings are now available from a single menu
  • Last used format is remembered from session-to-session
  • The new Local Parallel options automatically adjusts the number of MPI processes
  • Use the new icon to open the Data Input menu

Simpler Restart Menus

Loading and saving Restarts has been simplified.

  • Load & save your work with fewer clicks
  • The last used Restart format is remembered
  • Icons give you a direct access to Complete Restarts, the most frequent Restart mode

Transparent Streamlines

Highlight flow structures without hiding underlying surfaces with Transparent Streamlines.

  • Compatible with all Streamline display types
  • Uses the same fast and high-quality transparency as surfaces
  • Works great with Presentation Rendering for more realistic filaments and ribbons

Transparent Particle Paths

  • Same new customizable transparency.
  • Per Particle Path Rake attribute.

New ANSYS-Fluent CFF Reader

FieldView has a brand-new reader for the Ansys-Fluent CFF format.

  • Partnership gave us access to Ansys’ own CFF SDK
  • Full-featured: unsteady, face-based results on boundary conditions, streamlines wall marking, …
  • Supported on Windows and Linux (not macOS)

Improved Auto Partitioner

Same increased parallel performance for structured datasets, but now without any visible impact on your grid numbering and dimensions.

  • Auto Partitioner is now fully transparent
  • Grids are only modified “under the hood” to obtain better load balancing

More Improvements

  • 3x smaller installation package.
  • MP4 is the recommended video format, MPEG export has been deprecated.
  • myFVMPI now available to users with PFV32 licenses and above.
  • Over twelve bug fixes.

FieldView 21 and the New Auto Partitioner

New Auto Partitioner

Finally benefit from MPI Parallel even when your data has a single grid or has poorly balanced node counts across grids.

  • FieldView will automatically compute an optimal partition on the fly, at read time.
  • MPI Parallel speeds up most operations: Data Input, Surfaces Creation…
  • When running on a cluster, MPI Parallel gives you access to more distributed memory, allowing you to load larger datasets.
  • Ghost cells can be added automatically.
  • Currently supported for structured datasets (PLOT3D and OVERFLOW readers).
  • Available to all customers with licenses for FieldView Parallel 32 and above.

New License Manager

RLM provides best-in-class ease-of-use and reliability.

  • Point FieldView to a license right from its interface, from the Help > Licensing panel.
  • Easily setup the License Manager with RLM’s browser-based interface.
  • Use the new Roaming feature to run FieldView even when you can’t connect to your license server.
  • Simplified procedures for Single-Systems, License Transfers and for running the License Manager on a Virtual Machine (VM).
  • Use a single License Manager to serve seats for all our products: FieldView, Tecplot 360, Tecplot RS…

Linear Duplication

Get a more global view of your periodic simulations.

  • Duplicate your dataset in any direction.
  • Control the number of copies and the period for each direction.
  • Streamlines and Surface Flows automatically extend across periodic boundary conditions.

New Signed Installation Packages

FieldView is now safer to install and execute.

  • Our installation packages and executables are digitally signed (Windows and macOS)
  • FieldView is now a macOS app, for easier installation.

FieldView 20 Comes Loaded with New Capabilities

More Hybrid Parallelism with Multithreading

Up to 15x Faster Vortex Cores, Surface Flows and Formulas

  • Building on the success of the new multithreading technique introduced in FieldView 19, more features now benefit from this speed up.
  • Vortex Cores, Separation and Re-attachment Lines, all types of Surface Flows as well as all Formula Operators will now be computed in parallel on all threads.
  • Multithreading works out the box, for all types of data, and can be combined with MPI Parallel.

Redesigned Icons

Unified Color Scheme Makes Useful Information Pop

  • New users will more easily understand the action behind each icon.
  • Existing users will not have to learn a new interface: icons remain similar in shape and are all in the same locations.
  • New icons are being introduced for buttons that were only using text so far.

Native File Dialog on WindowsTM

Faster, Full-Featured Browser

  • On Microsoft WindowsTM, FieldView now uses the native file dialog box.
  • Customizable favorites, mapped drives and remote machines are all enabled.
  • Navigation is much faster than in previous versions, especially on remote storage or in folders containing many files.
  • Retrieving files is easy with the search bar.

Optimized Time Step Changes

Up to an Order of Magnitude Faster Transients Sweeps and Animations

  • Visualization objects that do not change in the next time step are now preserved whenever possible.
  • This yields maximum time savings for animations with multiple datasets where only one of them changes over time.
  • Surfaces no longer disappear when they go out of range for a portion of the simulation time.

Better Support for Zero Thickness Surfaces

Scalar Values Can Now Be Viewed on Both Sides of Baffles, Thermal Shells and Other Zero Thickness Boundary Surfaces

  • In previous FieldView versions, one variable took precedence regardless of which side was displayed.
  • Both sides will now display the correct values.
  • Surface front and back can be flipped if the initial view is incorrect.

New Source of Speedups with Shaders

50x Faster Vector Rendering

  • Rendering vector fields with 2D arrow heads makes images more readable but requires the 2D heads to be aligned with the screen in real time.
  • This operation has now been pushed to the graphic card through the use of a shader function, making vector rendering 50 times faster.

Quicker XDB Format

20% Faster Read and Write

  • Users who want to optimize their extracts-based workflow can now turn off encryption of the XDB files to save I/O time.
  • The former more secured XDB format is still used by default and should continue to be used when sharing results with people outside of your organization for viewing with XDBview.

Boundary Surface Clipping for Structured Datasets

Easily Clip Boundary Surfaces by X, Y and Z (Or by Cylindrical Coordinates)

  • Boundary Surfaces can now be truncated by all three Cartesian or cylindrical coordinates at the same time. The pre-existing Threshold features remains available for clipping by a scalar.
  • The Boundary Surface panel has been reorganized to make room for this new feature.
  • Boundary Surface Clipping is also supported in FVX and python.

And Many More FieldView 20 Improvements

  • Updated readers for Altair ultraFluidX, Altair AcuSolve and Ensight.
  • And 14 new other improvements and fixes.

FieldView 19 Introduces Hybrid Parallelism with Multithreading

This new version will speed your work, bring greater clarity to your CFD solutions and provide improved ease of use.

Hybrid Parallelism with Multithreading – Up to 13x Faster Streamlines and Curved Vectors

FieldView has been using MPI parallel for years. FieldView 19 is our first version to also use multithreading to take advantage of multi-core processors and speed up operations that are not well suited for MPI parallel. Hence the term hybrid parallel.

Streamlines and curved vectors are now computed concurrently on all threads, whether you’re running in serial or MPI parallel mode, on a laptop or a cluster, giving you great speed ups.

More operations will benefit from multithreading in future releases.

New “Arrows & Lines” Display Type for Surface Flows – Show the Direction of Complex Flows With a Still Image

Surface Flows are a great way to show separation and reattachment. This new display option adds arrows on top of your flow lines to show the flow’s local direction.

The size and number of arrows can easily be adjusted.

In addition, Surface Flows and Streamlines can now be limited by duration even when computed in both directions from a seed location.

Colormap Selector Improvements – Faster, Easier, More Customizable Selection of Colormaps

Select colormaps from the Colormap tab or from the main tab with a more graphical version of the menu.

Bring your favorite colormaps to the top of the list and make any colormap your default. Get a preview of all colormaps with the large icons.

The taller menu in FieldView 19 provides easier access to user defined and all 53 predefined colormaps.

Achromatic Colormaps – Use the Right Colormap to Understand and Communicate Your Results

Four new colormaps are being introduced: Inferno, Magma, Plasma and Viridis. Their linearly varying luminance provides better insight than traditional maps, prints well in gray scale and remains clear even for those having troubles seeing colors (see comparison with default colormap Spectrum below).

New colormaps are now highlighted in the list to make them easier to find.

Boundary Surface Clipping – Easily Clip Boundary Surfaces by X, Y and Z (Or by Cylindrical Coordinates)

Boundary Surfaces can now be truncated by all three Cartesian or cylindrical coordinates at the same time. The pre-existing Threshold features remains available for clipping by a scalar.

The Boundary Surface panel has been reorganized to make room for this new feature.
Boundary Surface Clipping is also supported in FVX and python.

This feature is currently limited to unstructured datasets.

And Many More FieldView 19 Improvements…

  • Filter Bar on Function Selections help you get to the functions you need quickly.
  • License manager update for greater security. Note: This license manager update is required to run FieldView 19.
  • Scripting, FVX and Python improvements make it easier to do more in batch.
  • Updated readers for Altair ultraFluidX, Altair AcuSolve and Ensight.
  • And about 20 new other improvements and fixes.