If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, creating reports for CFD analyses can be inelegant gluttony. Generating images is resource-intensive and error-prone. Why not use Tecplot’s Python API to simplify this? As described in this article, this script opens a layout and generates a series of images at different time steps – and in parallel! You say Gourmand, I say Gourmet?

CFD models can be huge so organizing data to suit your workflow is key. As the number of entities grows you can find yourself struggling to track dependencies and relationships. Where-used queries are a standard database query: how about for CFD? See this Glyph script: select one or more connectors and it tells you which domains they’re used by – and which layers those domains are on.

You shouldn’t be surprised at how many CAD companies are listed in the results of a search for “dumb solid model“: an assembly hierarchy is often thought to contain enough design intent that sharing an assembly file will reveal intellectual property. Exporting the model as a polygonal file such as STL is one of the steps designers resort to, but given the loss of fidelity that entails, there are better options. Read this short article on how you can easily use them. Start with any CAD format as input and create one or more of several different formats.

Using zones to break data-sets into useful sub-sets is fundamental to most numerial modeling, but unfortunately the word useful is an adjective (among other uses that it is used for). What if the zones defined by the solver are not suited for post-processing? This script shows how you can combining both cell- and vertex-centered zones. Don’t forget to check the Python API for other automation functions for data-sets.

Flexibility and control are fundamental to grid-generation using Pointwise. This is great most of the time, but too many choices can lead to cognitive dissonance. Automation is, as in so many other contexts, a good option. This Glyph script is a great example: enter or copy beginning and end spacing, specify a maximum value, and the script figures out the dimension. Go ahead and give it a try!

As any engineer who has sent or received CAD data knows, errors are not limited to data formats only. When done manually it’s all too easy to mis-spell file name, get the folder wrong, duplicate a file, overlook a file … And as any programmer knows, automation can help eliminate the tedium and errors. This article has more details, as does this video.