CEI. Animating and Presenting Simulation Results. Kent P. Misegades, President Computational Engineering International Inc.

Transcription

1 CEI the world s leader in visualization for science and engineering Animating and Presenting Simulation Results Kent P. Misegades, President Computational Engineering International Inc.

2 Topics What this Presentation Is and Isn t Tips for Creating Impressive Images What About the Color-Blind? Types of Animation Animation Dos and Don ts, or how to keep em awake Presenting Animations from a Laptop Presenting Animations on High-End Display Systems

3 What this Presentation Is and Isn t IS an overview of what has worked well for us examples from CEI and its customers ISN T sales pitch see for CEI product information

4 Software Tools from CEI Harpoon automatic (mostly) hex mesh generator EnSight general-purpose engineering postprocessor EnSight Gold visualization for very large models and virtual reality EnLiten platform-independent rich geometry viewer EnLiten Gold virtual reality presentation tool EnVideo platform-independent animation player EnVe engineering video editor

5 Tips for Creating Impressive Images

6 Tips for Creating Impressive Images Part Colors avoid fully saturated; pastels are warmer and print better use banded color palettes that provide strong contrasts avoid using more than one color palette / image; confuses Shading adjust lighting parameters to mimic realistic conditions intensity, diffusion, highlights use a single white light source, adjust position to enhance comprehension of surface curvature Anti-Aliasing SGI hardware does this automatically, very nice images otherwise use line thickness of at least 2 pixels

7 Tips for Creating Impressive Images Fully-saturated colors Pastel colors Alpha-blending transparency Wire-frame to expose internals

8 Tips for Creating Impressive Images Continuous color palette Banded color palette Banded color palette with black contours Which palette tells you more?

9 Tips for Creating Impressive Images Low diffusion, low highlighting High diffusion Moderate diffusion and highlighting Static light source above & to right

10 Tips for Creating Impressive Images Light source at eye of observer Static light source fixed to the left of the model

11 Tips for Creating Impressive Images No anti-aliasing Anti-aliasing

12 Tips for Creating Impressive Images Background Colors choose best color for contrast, black is normally best most image editing software likes black backgrounds complicated backgrounds distract viewer from model Perspective while orthographic views may have engineering advantages, humans respond best to realistic images, thus use it Transparency most effective means to expose internal details alpha blending is far superior to screen door method

13 Tips for Creating Impressive Images perspective on perspective off alpha blending screen door

14 Tips for Creating Impressive Images Overlay CAD Model overlay transparent CAD data to CFD results provides understandable reference to the non-analyst complicated backgrounds distract viewer from model Reduce Dimension of Model flow features instead of numerous clips, traces, isos, etc. vortex cores, separation lines, shock surfaces, BL profiles, etc. developed (unwrapped) quadric surfaces Annotation avoid text cluttering a beautiful image consider adding high-quality text later, i.e. in Photoshop

15 Tips for Creating Impressive Images Too many traces! Fewer traces shown as ribbons Fewer traces shown as tubes Reduce dimension of visual (next slide)

16 Tips for Creating Impressive Images Sep/attachment lines (green/magenta) Vortex core (orange) Surface traces (dark blue) Reduce dimension of visual by depicting features, not raw data

17 Tips for Creating Impressive Images Close-ups several close-up views are generally better than one overall strong perspective adds excitement, motion Display of Computational Grid for modern, high-res models, generates too many lines looks old-fashioned, difficult to reproduce sharply use wire frame to show model features Particle Traces use as few as possible; too many = spaghetti and confusion display as ribbons or tubes to add shading animate; shaded spheres with tails are best for comprehension

18 Tips for Creating Impressive Images

19 Typical Print Formats JPEG & TIFF best choices for PowerPoint and HTML creation save from a large size to give best image quality RGB perhaps the best pixel format, from SGI large file size GIF Unisys now demanding royalties, so let s not use it anymore PostScript vector PS best choice for use in printed documents since scalable vector with tiff preview and eps options are best, but seldom available in OpenGL applications raster postscript defeats the purpose! EVO CEI s own compressed image format, play with CEI s EnVideo good compromise between image quality and file size API to create these available at

20 What About the Color-Blind? Color deficiencies are common amongst males 8% of all caucasian males 5% of all asiatic males Most common forms six types of dyschromatopsia have been identified most are dichromatic, only two of three primary colors seen typically, either red- or green-sensitive pigment is missing actual color-blind are only 0.003% of caucasian males

21 What About the Color-Blind? To help the color deficient: avoid red and green in color palettes and part coloring use banded colors and black, delineating contours use high brightness levels and shades only of one color gray scales also work well special color palette in EnSight Check your images and web pages VISCHECK web site input is your image output is image as seen for the selected color deficiency

22 What About the Color-Blind? normal vision red/green deficiency Above: typical rainbow color palette, below: special palette for color red/green deficiency normal vision red/green deficiency

23 Types of Animation Streamline Animation massless or massed, streamlines or pathlines Plane Sweep Animation XYZ, IJK, arbitrary planes, quadric surfaces, lines Isosurface Animation isosurfaces or isovolumes (isosolids) Transient Solution Animation often with moving meshes Keyframe Animation fly-arounds, walk-throughs, part explosions Linear Load and Mode Shape Animation (CSM)

24 Animation Dos and Don ts or how to keep em awake Follow Tips for Creating Impressive Images Create short segments, composite later (EnVe) Start with a fly-around, stopping every 90 o Fade away obstructing model parts using transparency Animate while object fixed in space 30 frames/second remains recording rule of thumb Better to repeat short, quick animation than show long, slow animation; KISS

25 Animation Dos and Don ts or how to keep em awake Recording options best are digital video formats (see below) preview speed during creation is not playback speed playback speed depends on many factors format used animation player used system performance and memory image size and total length videotape now considered obsolete, few companies have VCRs

26 Typical Animation Formats MPEG small file size, but poor image quality huge variation in MPEG formats, players best played on Unix systems, Windows like Russian Roulette AVI good image quality, but huge files unless compressed compression tools not generally available due to license issues best played on Windows systems, Unix like Russian Roulette Animated GIF Unisys now demanding royalties, so let s not use it anymore Quicktime Apple s solution; anyone remember the Mac? EVO CEI s own compressed image format good compromise between image quality and file size create anywhere, play anywhere using CEI s free EnVideo player

27 Presenting Animations from a Laptop Most common playback today; PowerPoint is preferred tool How To: link an animation file to an object link to a separate image of the animation s initial frame animation file separate from.ppt file, smaller files but less portable.ppt Action Settings... > Hyperlink to: > Other File animation file inserted (embedded) as an object into.ppt file initial frame of animation appears automatically in presentation works well for MS-native formats, OLE players of which there are few increases.ppt file size by length of animation files,.ppt huge but portable

28 Sample Animations Model courtesy Advantage CFD

29 Sample Animations Model courtesy Modine Manufacturing

30 Sample Animations Model courtesy Advantage CFD

31 Presenting Geometry from a Laptop Less common today but has major advantages show the entire geometry with color, annotations, legends, etc. rotate, translate, zoom, animate models from laptop existing standard formats few, file size can be very large How To: VRML (.wrl file type) now defunct effort to create a standard geometry format many programs can export VRML 1.0, fewer support VRML 2.0 SGI s free but unsupported COSMO product one of few reliable viewers CEI s scenario files and free EnLiten viewer (.els file type) create scene, i.e. rendered model plus animations, in EnSight view, move, animate model in CEI s free EnLiten create anywhere, play anywhere, free on

32 Presenting Geometry from a Laptop VRML.wrl EnLiten.els

33 Stereo (3D) Viewing No longer an exotic technology most modern graphics processors now stereo ready require monitor displaying at 60 Hz or better active (shutter) glasses relatively cheap, under $200/bundle CEI s supports stereo viewing in all products on all platforms stereo-capable projectors still expensive, but prices will drop soon Most common stereoscopic display methods Active left/right eye images interleaved vertically or horizontally LCD shutter glasses synchronized by infrared signal or simple wire Passive two polarized images created using two projectors or LCD monitor panel throw-away plastic or cardboard polarizing eyewear Red/Green or Red/Blue poor quality, but inexpensive eyewear, easily printed, use in.ppt

34 Stereo (3D) Viewing active stereo passive stereo red/green stereo

35 Presenting Animations on High-End Display Systems What is High-End? one or more large display screens with edge blending ceiling hung or back projection stereo viewing 3D or 6 DOF input device using tracker head tracking driving scene Becoming more common as costs fall automotive styling engineering design review centers in aero and auto industries oil exploration architectural firms - buildings, major industrial construction defense laboratories EnSight Gold designed for such systems

36 Presenting Animations on High-End Display Systems In 2009, virtual reality tools will be used for the interpretation of results. Michael Engelman, VP of Technology, Fluent Inc. Technology Trends in CFD Detroit, March, 1999

37 Software Tools from CEI Auto Meshing Solvers & Formats CFD CSM CEM CAD Thermodynamics Imaging Experiments etc..cas.els EnSight - Full Featured.evo EnSight Gold VR and Parallel EnVe engineering video editor Presentation Tools EnLiten, EnVideo, EnVe EnLiten - Geometry EnVideo - Animations

38 Concluding Remarks A good animation starts with impressive images Plan your animation as would a cartoonist, make sketches KISS Experiment with quality vs. file size vs. playback speed Test your animations on multiple computers Good productivity = 1 minute of animation created / day Use stereo viewing to enhance understanding and impress Use high-end display systems if available in your organization See > News > White Papers for more info

39 Thank You