Summary
dfnWorks currently writes legacy ASCII .vtk files for flow and transport visualization output. These should be replaced with XML .vtu (VTK Unstructured Grid) files and .pvd (ParaView Data Collection) time series files.
Motivation
Legacy VTK is a deprecated format. XML VTU/PVD offers several concrete advantages:
- Time series support —
.pvd files encode actual simulation times, so ParaView's time slider maps to physical time rather than sequential file indices
- Modern format —
.vtu is the current VTK standard and is better supported by ParaView, VisIt, and downstream Python tooling (pyvista, vtk)
- Extensibility — XML VTU supports binary and compressed data arrays, which will matter as mesh sizes grow
- Consistency — the new TOUGH output parser (
parse_tough_output) already writes VTU/PVD; the PFLOTRAN parser should match
Scope
parse_pflotran_h5 — currently writes legacy .vtk; switch to .vtu + .pvdparse_pflotran_vtk_python — same- Any other dfnWorks routines that write
.vtk output
- Update output directory names from
pflotran_vtk_outputs → pflotran_vtu_outputs for consistency
- Update documentation and example notebooks
Summary
dfnWorks currently writes legacy ASCII
.vtkfiles for flow and transport visualization output. These should be replaced with XML.vtu(VTK Unstructured Grid) files and.pvd(ParaView Data Collection) time series files.Motivation
Legacy VTK is a deprecated format. XML VTU/PVD offers several concrete advantages:
.pvdfiles encode actual simulation times, so ParaView's time slider maps to physical time rather than sequential file indices.vtuis the current VTK standard and is better supported by ParaView, VisIt, and downstream Python tooling (pyvista,vtk)parse_tough_output) already writes VTU/PVD; the PFLOTRAN parser should matchScope
parse_pflotran_h5— currently writes legacy.vtk; switch to.vtu+.pvdparse_pflotran_vtk_python— same.vtkoutputpflotran_vtk_outputs→pflotran_vtu_outputsfor consistency