Newbie question: Paraview not working

[TheDude]

Hello,
I am completely new to FEM and Elmer. I have installed Elmer (Windows binary).
I have been trying to go through Tutorial 1 using the documentation and this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkbaWYAz1XU

I can successfully run the Solver and I see the Convergence plot.

After that, I try to run Paraview but nothing happens.

Q1. Do I also have to run ElmerPost?
Q2. I have a suspicion that Paraview is a separate install (this is nowhere mentioned in the installation!). Please confirm, thanks.

[vencels]

1) No, ElmerPost is not needed for ParaView.
In *.sif file, if you have this line
Exec Solver = never
inside ResultOutput solver, then remove it or comment out.

2) https://www.paraview.org/

[kevinarden]

Paraview is a separate program and separate installation it does not come packaged with Elmer.

[TheDude]

OK, so I installed Paraview. I can open that app.

Then, I reloaded my Elmer project, re-run the Solver, got the Convergence plot again.

Then, select Run>Start Paraview...

and nothing happens. Absolutely nothing. What do I do?

Is this covered somewhere in the documentation?

Thanks.

[kevinarden]

No not covered.

The menu selection from Elmer is just trying to call the paraview executable, but it assumes you have set your path variable so it can locate it. If you don't know how to set and change the windows path variable then you can investigate that.

I just run paraview directly from menu, or start it from file manager using the paraview exectuble, and then open the vtu files from within paraview.

If you want Elmer to start paraview from the elmer menu then you have to set the path variable to define where the paraview executable is.

[TheDude]

Thanks kevinarden, but could you please be a bit more specific on what exactly do I need to do with the Windows PATH environment variable (I know how to edit that). Do I need to add the path to Elmer or to Paraview?

Do I need to define an ELMER user variable?

I then tried to open the "vtu files", of which there is one, 1390 kB large, with Paraview. Nothing shows up--just a gray background.

This is very frustrating. I am missing steps that must be obvious to any experienced Elmer user, but don't seem to be documented clearly, if at all.

Suggestions for Elmer team:
- make is clear that Paraview is a separate installer
- write a new "Tutorial 0", where EVERY step is described in detail
- make a YouTube video (WITH SOUND PLEASE--in Finnish if it needs to be) that goes through Tutorial 1 starting from a fresh install

Thanks.

[TheDude]

Making progress. I can now see the visualization in Tutorial 1.
I have to click the little "eye" icon in the pipeline browser. Duh!

I guess I need to learn Paraview

The only thing that did not work in Tutorial 1 was the re-meshing at the beginning. When I do View>Cad model... nothing happens.

Visualization of tutorial 8 still looks somewhat strange.

It would be nice to be able to start Paraview from Elmer and have it load the VTU file automatically...



Thanks.