User’s Guide for Smokeview Version

 2.0 – A Tool for Visualizing Fire

Dynamics Simulation Data

Glenn P. Forney

Kevin B. McGrattan

NISTIR 6761

/ NISTIR 6761

User’s Guide for Smokeview Version

2.0 – A Tool for Visualizing Fire

Dynamics Simulation Data

Glenn P. Forney

Kevin B. McGrattan

Building and Fire Research Laboratory

July 2001

U.S. Department of Commerce

Donald L. Evans, Secretary

National Institute of Standards and Technology

Karen H. Brown, Acting Director

Disclaimer

The US Department of Commerce makes no warranty, expressed or implied, to users of Smokeview, and

accepts no responsibility for its use. Users of Smokeview assume sole responsibility under Federal law for

determining the appropriateness of its use in any particular application; for any conclusions drawn from the

results of its use; and for any actions taken or not taken as a result of analysis performed using this tools.

Users are warned that Smokeview and the companion program FDS is intended for use only by those

competent in the fields of fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, combustion, and heat transfer, and is intended

only to supplement the informed judgment of the qualified user. These software packages may or may not

have predictive capability when applied to a specific set of factual circumstances. Lack of accurate predictions

could lead to erroneous conclusions with regard to fire safety. All results should be evaluated by an informed

user.

Throughout this document, the mention of computer hardware or commercial software does not constitute

endorsement by NIST, nor does it indicate that the products are necessarily those best suited for the intended

purpose.

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Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Overview ............................................ 1

1.2 What’s New in Version 2.0 ................................... 3

2 Getting Started 4

3 Using Smokeview 5

3.1 Data Files ............................................ 5

3.1.1 Particle ......................................... 5

3.1.2 Slice .......................................... 6

3.1.3 Boundary ........................................ 6

3.1.4 Isosurface ........................................ 8

3.1.5 Plot3D ......................................... 8

3.2 Visualizing Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3.2.1 Manipulating the Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3.2.2 Setting data bounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3.2.3 Plot3D Viewing Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3.3 Examining Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3.3.1 Debugging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.3.2 Editing Blockages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

4 Summary 16

A Smokeview Command Line Options 18

B Menu Options 18

B.1 Main Menu Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

B.2 Load/Unload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

B.3 Show/Hide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

B.3.1 Geometry Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

B.3.2 Animated Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

B.3.3 Particles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

B.3.4 Boundary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

B.3.5 Animated Vector Slice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

B.3.6 Animated Slice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

B.3.7 Plot3D 2D Contours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

B.3.8 Plot3D 3D Contours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

B.3.9 Heat detectors, Sprinklers, Thermocouples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

B.3.10 Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

B.4 Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

B.4.1 Shades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

B.4.2 Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

B.4.3 Rotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

B.4.4 Max Frame Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

B.4.5 Render . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

B.4.6 Viewpoint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

B.4.7 Font Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

v
B.4.8 Aperture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

B.4.9 Stereo 3-D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

B.4.10 Set Bounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

B.4.11 Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

B.4.12 Edit Geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

C Keyboard Shortcuts 25

D File Formats 26

D.1 Smokeview Preference File Format (.ini files) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

D.1.1 Color parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

D.1.2 Size parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

D.1.3 Time and value bound parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

D.1.4 Data loading parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

D.1.5 Viewing parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

D.2 Smokeview Parameter Input File (.smv file) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

D.2.1 Geometry Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

D.2.2 File Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

D.2.3 Sensor Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

D.2.4 Miscellaneous Keywords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

D.3 Data File Formats (.iso, .part, .sf, .bf and .q files) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

D.3.1 Isosurface File Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

D.3.2 Particle File Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

D.3.3 Slice File Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

D.3.4 Boundary Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

D.3.5 Plot3D Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

E Sample FDS Input Files 42

E.1 Plume Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

E.2 Townhouse Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

F Frequently Asked Questions 45

F.1 How can I keep up with new releases and other information about FDS and Smokeview? . . 45

F.2 Smokeview doesn’t look right on my computer. What’s wrong? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

F.3 How do I make a movie of a Smokeview animation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

References 46

Acknowledgements 47

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List of Figures

1 Diagram illustrating data files and programs used in the NIST Fire Dynamics System (FDS). 2

2 Particle file snapshots of an isolated plume at t=0.0, 1.0 and 2.0 seconds. ........... 7

3 Slice file snapshots of shaded temperature contours in a vertical plane centered at the fire

origin at t=30, 60 and 240 seconds after ignition. ....................... 7

4 Vector slice file snapshots of shaded vector plots in vertical plane centered at the fire origin at

t=30, 60 and 240 seconds after ignition. ............................ 7

5 Boundary file snapshots of shaded wall temperatures at t=30, 60 and 240 seconds after ignition. 9

6 Isosurface file snapshots of mixture fraction levels at t=30, 60 and 240 seconds after ignition. 9

7 Plot3D contour and vector plot examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

8 Plot3D isocontour example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

9 Motion Dialogue Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

10 Bounds Dialogue Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

11 Ceiling jet visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

12 Blockage Edit Dialogue Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

13 Modifying the base FDS case in steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

List of Tables

1 Output Quantities used by Slice and Plot3D Visualizations .................. 6

2 Output Quantities used by Boundary File Visualizations. ................... 8

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viii
User’s Guide for Smokeview Version 2.0 - A Tool for

Visualizing Fire Dynamics Simulation Data

Glenn P. Forney

Kevin B. McGrattan

Abstract

Smokeview is a software tool designed to visualize numerical predictions generated by the NIST Fire

Dynamics Simulator (FDS), a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of fire-driven fluid flow. These

two tools are typically used in concert to respectively simulate and visualize the flow of smoke induced by

a fire. Smokeview visualizes FDS modelling results by animating tracer particle flow, 2D or 3D shaded

contours of data such as temperature and flow vectors showing flow direction and magnitude. Smokeview

also visualizes static data at particular times again using 2D or 3D contours of data such as temperature and

flow vectors showing flow direction and magnitude. Examples of each visualization type are given.

Windows PC versions of Smokeview and FDS and their documentation may be obtained at the web

site http://fire.nist.gov/smokeview. Versions for other computer platforms such as Redhat Linux 6.x/7.x,

Silicon Graphics and some other UNIX systems are also available and may be obtained by contacting the

authors at glenn.forney@nist.gov or kevin.mcgrattan@nist.gov.

1 Introduction

1.1 Overview

Smokeview is a software tool designed to visualize numerical predictions generated by the NIST Fire Dynamics

Simulator (FDS), a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of fire-driven fluid flow. This report documents

version 2.0 of Smokeview updating material found in Ref. [1]. FDS[2, 3, 4, 5] and Smokeview are used

in concert to respectively model and visualize fire phenomena. Smokeview performs this visualization by

presenting animated tracer particle flow, animated contour slices of computed gas variables and animated

surface data. Smokeview also presents contours and vector plots of static data anywhere within a simulation

scene at a fixed time. An analysis of the Cherry Road townhouse fire analyzed with FDS and Smokeview

using some of these visualization techniques is given in Ref. [6].

New visualization features implemented in Smokeview version 2.0 are animated isosurfaces and animated

flow vector fields. An isosurface animation of a flame sheet and a constant smoke density surface occurring in

another townhouse kitchen fire may be viewed in the lower left corner by shuffling the odd pages of this report

from back to front. A shaded temperature contour animation of an outdoor tank farm fire may be viewed in

the lower right corner by shuffling the even pages of this report from front to back. The frame and time are

indicated in each image. The input files used to generate the data for these animations are found in Appendix

E.

Normally Smokeview is used in a post-processing step to visualize FDS data after a calculation has

completed. Smokeview may also be used during a calculation to monitor a simulation’s progress and before a

calculation to visualize blockage, vent, sprinkler and/or heat detector placement etc. in order to set up correct

1
Particle

(.part)

Boundary

(.bf)

PLOT3D

(.q)

CONFIG

(.ini)

FDS

Input

(.data)

Graphics

Slice/Vect

or slice 

(.sf)

Iso-surface

(.iso)

Smokeview

Smokeview

Input (.smv)

Figure 1: Diagram illustrating data files and programs used in the NIST Fire Dynamics System (FDS).

FDS input files more quickly. Smokeview version 2.0 allows one to create new blockages and modify existing

ones.

Figure 1 gives an overview of how data files used by the NIST Fire Dynamics Simulator and Smokeview

are related. A typical procedure for using FDS and Smokeview is to:

1. Set up an FDS input file, a file with a .data extension (e.g., a file named “casename.data”).

2. Run FDS. (e.g. by typing fds < casename.data at a command line). The fire model FDS then

creates one or more output files with extensions .smv, .part, .sf, .q, .bf, .iso . These files are

the Smokeview file, particle file, slice file, Plot3D file, boundary file and isosurface file, respectively.

3. Run Smokeview to analyze the output files generated by step 2. (e.g. by either double-clicking (on the

PC) on the file named casename.smv or by typing smokeview casename at a command line.)

Smokeview may also be used to create new blockages and modify existing ones. The blockage changes

are saved in a new FDS input data file.

This report documents step 3. Steps 1 and 2 are documented in reference [4].

Data files may be visualized with Smokeview by clicking the right-mouse button and selecting the desired

Load/Unload menu option. Other menu options are discussed in Appendix A. Many menu commands

may also be executed using keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts are listed in Smokeview’s help menu and are

described in Appendix C. Visualization features not controllable through the menus may be changed by using

the Smokeview customization file, smokeview.ini, discussed in Appendix D.1.

2
Smokeview is written using the 3D graphics library OpenGL[7, 8] and the Graphics Library Utility Toolkit

(GLUT)[9]. Smokeview uses the GLUT software library so that most of the development work can be spent

implementing the visualizations rather than creating an elaborate user interface.

1.2 What’s New in Version 2.0

Smokeview version 1.0 is documented in Ref.[1]. The major new features in Smokeview version 2.0 are the

two new ways of visualizing fire dynamics data: animated isosurfaces and animated flow vectors. These and

other new features are detailed below.

Visualizations Two new methods for visualizing fire dynamics data have been added to Smokeview,

animated isocontours and animated flow vectors. Isosurface animations may be used to represent

flame boundaries, layer interfaces and/or regions in the simulation where sprinklers or heat

detectors would have activated. Multiple isocontours may be stored in one file, allowing one to

simultaneously visualize several levels for the same variable. Isosurfaces may also be generated

for any gas variable such as temperature, density, heat release rate per unit volume (HRRPUV)

etc. To reduce storage requirements, isosurface data stored in files with the extension .iso may

be compressed using the standard compression program gzip (supplied with Smokeview).

Flow vector animations, though similar to slice file animations (the vector colors are the

same as the corresponding slice file colors), are better than slice file animations at highlighting

flow changes. Data needed to visualize animated flow vectors may be generated by selecting (in

an FDS input file) U, V and/or W velocity slice files in addition to whatever other slice files are

desired.

Menus The Smokeview menus have been reorganized to accommodate new features. Commands affecting the appearance of a visualization are now grouped under the Option Menu.

Dialogue boxes Several dialogue boxes have been added, allowing for easier Smokeview input. These

are: an “open file” dialogue box for opening other Smokeview cases, a dialogue box for changing

data bounds, a dialogue box for moving/rotating the scene and a dialogue box for creating and

editing FDS blockages. These dialogue boxes may be accessed from the Option menu.

Colorbar/Timebar Several options have been added for altering the color and time bar in order to allow

one to more easily identify features and behaviors found in the simulation data. One may

now flip or reverse the order of colors in the colorbar. One may also click in the colorbar

and slide the mouse to highlight data values in the scene. These options may be found under

Options/Shades menu.

Similarly, the user may now click in the timebar and slide the mouse to change the simulation

time displayed. One use for the timebar and colorbar selection modes might be to determine

when smoke of a particular temperature enters a room.

A large font is now available to display text for both the colorbar and timebar.

Visualizing blockage and vent opening/closing New Smokeview keywords, HIDE_OBST, OPEN_VENT

and CLOSE_VENT, have been added to the .smv file to allow Smokeview to visualize when a

blockage should be hidden and when a vent should opened or closed. These keywords are added

to the .smv file automatically by FDS version 2.0. They may be manually added to .smv files

generated with FDS versions 1.0 and 1.01.

New smokeview.ini keywords The viewpoint and orientation coordinates may be saved in the smokeview.ini file so that one may restore a scene to a desired location. Keywords for specifying data

bounds have been expanded so that databounds may be specified independently for each variable

3
type (e.g. one may now specify min’s and max’s for oxygen, temperature, or any other quantity

independently).

Units Smokeview and FDS use SI units by default. Alternate units may be displayed for temperature

(K and F instead of C) and for velocity (f/s and mph instead of m/s) by using the Options/Units

menu item. Smokeview may also be configured at run time to display other alternate units by

using the UNITS keyword described in Appendix D.1.

Scene rendering Smokeview scenes are now rendered using version 2.0 of the GD graphics library [10,

Appendix 4]. This library supports “full color” conversion allowing for more realistic scene

representations. The former version of the library (used in Smokeview version 1.0) allowed

only 256 distinct colors to be saved into an image file. This resulted in banding or contouring in

the saved image where none was present in the original display. Images in Smokeview 2.0 are

saved in either JPEG or PNG formats. GIF support was dropped in GD 2.0 and is therefore not

available in Smokeview 2.0.

Scene clipping Complicated geometries such as those found in cases involving rack storage are difficult

to visualize due to the number of obstructed surfaces. These interior obstructed surfaces may

now be seen more easily by “clipping” part of the scene away.

Line drawing Line drawing quality has improved by using anti-aliasing (by drawing lines more smoothly).

Max Frame Rate A “real time” option has been added to the max frame rate menu, so that animations

can be displayed in real time or multiples of real time if desired.

Stereo 3-D Smokeview can now produce stereo 3-D images by drawing a “left” and a “right” version of

each frame displayed. This feature has been tested on Silicon Graphics workstations and PC’s

with video cards that support the use of quad buffering or equivalently stereo with OpenGL.

2 Getting Started

Smokeview may be obtained at the web site http://fire.nist.gov/smokeview . This site gives links to a Setup

program for PC installation. It also contains documentation for Smokeview and FDS, sample FDS calculations,

software updates and mechanisms for requesting feedback about the software.

After obtaining the setup program, install Smokeview on the PC by either entering the setup program

name from the Windows Start/Run... menu or by double-clicking on the downloaded Smokeview setup

program. The setup program then steps through the program installation. It copies the Smokeview executable,

the GLUT graphics libraries and the Smokeview preference file smokeview.ini to the default directory

c:\nist\fds . The setup program also defines PATH variables and associates the .smv file extension to

the Smokeview program so that one may either type Smokeview at any command line prompt or double click

on any .smv file. The installation program assumes that OpenGL has been installed which is true for all

but the very first release of Windows 95. Though the OpenGL libraries could be found on the internet and

installed on a PC running the first release of Windows 95, it is recommended that Windows be upgraded to a

more current release. Windows 98, 2000, NT 4.0 and all later versions of Windows 95 contain the OpenGL

libraries.

Most computers purchased today (May 2001) are perfectly adequate for running Smokeview with the

caveat that additional memory should be obtained to bring the memory size up to at least 512mb in order

to display results without “swapping” to disk and hence slowing down the visualizations. For Smokeview

it is more important to obtain a fast graphics card than a fast CPU. If the computer will run both FDS and

Smokeview then it is important to obtain a fast CPU as well. For example, the townhouse case found in

Appendix E consisting of over 110,000 grid cells and used in many of the Figures in this report, required 8

4
hours of CPU time on a Pentium III 1GHZ Linux system. Cases with more grid cells and longer simulation

times (the townhouse case simulated 180 seconds of smoke flow) would clearly benefit from a faster CPU

which are now becoming available.

3 Using Smokeview

Smokeview may be started on the PC by double-clicking the file named casename.smv where casename

is the name specified by the CHID keyword defined in the FDS input data file. The Load/Unload menu

may be used to read in the data files to be visualized. The Show/Hide menu may be used to change how the

visualizations are presented. For the most part, the menu choices are self explanatory. Menu items exist for

showing and hiding various simulation elements, creating screen dumps, obtaining help etc. Menu items are

described in Appendix A.

To use Smokeview from a “command line”, open a DOS (if running on a PC) or UNIX shell, change to

the directory containing the FDS case to be viewed and type:

smokeview casename

where again casename is the name specified by the CHID keyword defined in the FDS input data file. Data

files may be loaded and options may be selected by clicking the right mouse button and picking the appropriate

menu item.

Smokeview opens two windows, one displays the scene and the other displays status information. Closing

either window will end the Smokeview session. Multiple copies of Smokeview may be run simultaneously if

the computer has adequate resources.

Normally Smokeview is run during an FDS run or after it has completed. Smokeview may also be used

as an aid in setting up FDS cases by visualizing geometric components such as blockages, vents, sensors, etc.

One can then verify that these modelling elements have been defined and located as intended. One may select

the color of these elements using color parameters in the smokeview.ini to help distinguish one element

from another. Smokeview.ini file entries are described in section D.1.

3.1 Data Files

FDS generates several data files visualized by Smokeview. Each file type may be loaded or unloaded using

the Load/Unload menu described in Appendix B.2. These data files are described below.

3.1.1 Particle

Particle files contain the locations of the tracer particles used to visualize the flow field. Particles may be

colored with various gas properties. Colors are selected from a user definable color palette defined using the

COLORBAR keyword documented in Appendix D.1. Figure 2 shows several snapshots of a developing fire

plume visualized using particles where particles are colored according to their temperature. Sprinkler water

droplets are colored blue. Particles are stored in files ending with the extension .part and are displayed by

selecting the desired file from the Load/Unload menu.

To specify particles colored by temperature add the line:

&PART QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’ /

to the FDS input file found in Appendix E.1. To specify heat release rate per unit volume use HRRPUV above

instead of TEMPERATURE.

5
Table 1: Output Quantities used by Slice and Plot3D Visualizations

Quantity Description Units

DENSITY density kg/m3

TEMPERATURE gas temperature C

U-VELOCITY velocity component m/s

V-VELOCITY velocity component m/s

W-VELOCITY velocity component m/s

VELOCITY velocity magnitude m/s

3.1.2 Slice

Slice files contain data recorded within a rectangular array of grid points at each recorded time step. Continuously shaded contours are drawn for simulation quantities such as temperature, gas velocity and heat release

rate. All or part of a plane is selected when setting up the FDS input data file. Figure 3 shows several snapshots

of a vertical animated slice where the slice is colored according to gas temperature. Slice files have file names

with extension .sf and are displayed by selecting the desired file from the Load/Unload menu.

To specify a vertical slice 1.5 m from the y = 0 boundary colored by temperature, add the line:

&SLCF PBY=1.5 QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’ /

to the FDS input file found in Appendix E.2 Some other quantities that can be specified are given in Table 1.

A more complete list may be found in [2].

Animated vectors are displayed using data contained in two or more slice files. The direction and length

of the vectors are determined from the U, V and/or W velocity slice files. The vector colors are determined

from the file (such as temperature) selected from the Load/Unload menu. Figure 4 shows a sequence of

vector slices corresponding to the shaded temperature contours found in Figure 3.

Recall that the FDS input line:

&SLCF PBY=1.50,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’ /

was used to generate the shaded contours in Figure 3. The additional input lines:

&SLCF PBZ=1.50,QUANTITY=’U-VELOCITY’ /

&SLCF PBZ=1.50,QUANTITY=’V-VELOCITY’ /

&SLCF PBZ=1.50,QUANTITY=’W-VELOCITY’ /

would then be used to record the U, V and W velocity data used to create the vector plot snapshots found in

Figure 4. Alternatively, adding VECTOR=.TRUE. to &SLCF line in a FDS 2.0 data file as in:

&SLCF PBY=1.50,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

may be used to record temperature data and three components of velocity for 3D simulations.

3.1.3 Boundary

Boundary files contain simulation data recorded at boundary or wall surfaces. Continuously shaded contours

are drawn for quantities such as wall surface temperature, radiative flux, etc. Figure 5 shows several snapshots

of a boundary file animation where the surfaces are colored according to their temperature. Boundary files

have file names with extension .bf and are displayed by selecting the desired file from the Load/Unload

menu.

A boundary file containing wall temperature data may be generated by adding:

6
0.0 s 1.0 s 2.0 s

Figure 2: Particle file snapshots of an isolated plume at t=0.0, 1.0 and 2.0 seconds. The data file used to

generate these snapshots was generated by adding the line: “&PART QUANTITY="TEMPERATURE" /” to

the FDS input file found in Appendix E.1.

30 s 60 s 240 s

Figure 3: Slice file snapshots of shaded temperature contours in a vertical plane centered at the fire origin at

t=30, 60 and 240 seconds after ignition. The data file for these contours was generated by adding the line,

“&SLCF PBY=1.5,QUANTITY="TEMPERATURE" /” to the FDS input file found in Appendix E.2.

30 s 60 s 240 s

Figure 4: Vector slice file snapshots of shaded vector plots in a vertical plane centered at the fire origin at t=30,

60 and 240 seconds after ignition. The data files for these vector plots were generated by adding the line,

“&SLCF PBY=1.5,QUANTITY="TEMPERATURE",VECTOR=.TRUE. /”, to the FDS input file found

in Appendix E.2.

7
Table 2: Output Quantities used by Boundary File Visualizations.

Quantity Description Units

RADIATIVE_FLUX radiative flux kW/m2

CONVECTIVE_FLUX convective flux kW/m2

WALL_TEMPERATURE wall temperature C

&BNDF ’WALL_TEMPERATURE’ /

to the FDS input file found in Appendix E.2. Table 2 gives other quantities that can be specified on a &BNDF

line. A more complete list of quantities is given in Ref. [2].

3.1.4 Isosurface

The surface where a quantity such as temperature attains a given value is called an isosurface. An isosurface

is sometimes also called a level surface or 3D contour. Isosurface files contain data specifying isosurface

locations for a given variable at one or more levels. These surfaces are represented as triangles. Figure 6

shows a snapshot of an isosurface file animation at several time steps for a fire (mixture fraction level=0.3)

and a layer interface (mixture fraction level = 0.001). Isosurface files have file names with extension .iso and

are displayed by selecting the desired file from the Load/Unload menu.

Isosurfaces are specified in the FDS input file (version 1.01 or higher) with the &ISOF keyword. To

specify isosurfaces for mixture fraction with values 0.03 and 0.001 as illustrated in Figure 6 add the line:

&ISOF QUANTITY=’MIXTURE_FRACTION’,VALUE(1)=0.03,VALUE(2)=0.001 /

to the input file found in Appendix E.2. Other quantities may be specified using values given in Table 1. A

more complete list may be found in [2]

3.1.5 Plot3D

Data stored in Plot3D[11] files use a format developed by NASA and used by many CFD programs for

representing simulation results. Plot3D files store five data values at each grid cell. FDS uses Plot3D files to

store temperature, three components of velocity (U, V, W) and heat release rate by default. Other quantities

may be stored if desired. In addition the Plot3D format allows one to specify internal blockages so that contour

data need not be displayed where the physical domain is blocked off.

An FDS simulation will typically create Plot3D files at several times throughout the simulation. Plot3D

data is visualized in three ways: as 2D contours, vector plots and isosurfaces. Figure 7a shows an example

of a 2D Plot3D contour. Vector plots may be viewed if one or more of the U,V and W velocity components

are stored in the Plot3D file. The vector length and direction show the direction and relative speed of the

fluid flow. The vector colors show a scalar fluid quantity such as temperature. Figure 7b shows vectors in a

doorway. Note the hot flow (red color) leaving the fire room in the upper part of the door and the cool flow

(blue color) entering fire room in the lower part of the door. Figure 8 gives an example of isosurfaces for two

different temperature levels. Plot3D data are stored in files with extension .q .

To specify a 30 seconds time interval between Plot3D files stored with default gas variables add the line:

&PL3D DTSAM=30.0 /

to the FDS input file. To change the gas variables stored use the QUANTITIES keyword picking quantities

from Table 1, for example:

8
30 s 60 s 240

Figure 5: Boundary file snapshots of shaded wall temperatures at t=30, 60 and 240 seconds after ignition.

The data file for these snapshots was generated by adding the line:

“&BNDF QUANTITY="WALL_TEMPERATURE"/” to the data file found in Appendix E.2.

30 s 60 s 240 s

Figure 6: Isosurface file snapshots of mixture fraction levels at t=30, 60 and 240 seconds after ignition. The

data file for these snapshots was generated by adding the line:

“&ISOF QUANTITY=’MIXTURE_FRACTION’,VALUE(1)=0.03,VALUE(2)=0.001 /”, to the

FDS input file found in Appendix E.2.

9
&PL3D QUANTITIES="DENSITY","PRESSURE","WMPUV","VELOCITY","TEMPERATURE" /

It is recommended however that U-VEL, V-VEL, W-VEL be stored so that vector plots may be drawn.

The format used to store each of the above data files is given in Appendix D.3 so that Smokeview may be

used to visualize data generated by other fire models.

3.2 Visualizing Output

3.2.1 Manipulating the Scene

The scene may be rotated or translated either directly with the mouse or by using the scene movement

dialogue box as illustrated in Figure 9. Clicking on the scene and dragging the mouse horizontally, vertically

or a combination of both results in scene rotation or translation depending upon whether the SHIFT, CTRL

or ALT keys are depressed or not during mouse movement. These effects are described below.

Smokeview uses a standard right handed coordinate system. Left and right scene motion occurs along the

X axis, up and down scene motion occurs along the Y axis while in and out scene motion occurs along the Z

axis. Axis labels are displayed, if desired, by selecting the Axis label menu item under the Show/Hide

menu.

The modifier keys effect scene movement in the following ways:

No modifier key depressed Horizontal(vertical) mouse movement results in scene rotation parallel to

the XY (YZ) plane. Note that rotation parallel to the YZ plane is disabled while eye view is

in effect. The view is switched between eye view and world view by either depressing the e

key or by selecting the Show/Hide view menu item. Equivalently, horizontal(vertical) mouse

movement results in scene rotation about the Z(X) axis.

SHIFT key depressed Horizontal(vertical) mouse movement results in scene rotation parallel to the

XZ(YZ) plane. Equivalently, horizontal(vertical) mouse movement results in scene rotation

about the Y(X) axes respectively.

CTRL key depressed Horizontal mouse movement results in scene translation from side to side along

the X axis. Vertical mouse movement results in scene translation “in and out” of the computer

screen along the Y axis.

ALT key depressed Vertical mouse movements results in scene translation along the Z axis. Horizontal

mouse movement has no effect on the scene.

The scene motion dialogue box may be used to move the scene in a more controlled manner. For example,

clicking on the “Rotate X” button in Figure 9 and dragging the mouse results in scene rotation about the “X”

(and only the “X”) axis. Similarly, clicking the mouse in the “Translate Y” button results in scene translation

along the “Y” axis. This dialogue box is opened from the Option menu.

The Reset View menu may be used to reset the scene back to either an external viewpoint, an internal

(to the scene) viewpoint or a previously saved viewpoint.

3.2.2 Setting data bounds

Normally, Smokeview determines data bounds automatically when it loads data. Sometimes, however, it is

desirable to override Smokeview’s choice, for example so that several loaded files can have the same bounds.

This allows for consistent shading when displaying several files simultaneously.

10
a) shaded 2D temperature contour plots in a vertical plane through the fire and a horizontal

plane below the ceiling

b) shaded temperature vector plot in a vertical

plane through the doorway. The “a” key may

be depressed to alter the vector sizes. The “s”

key may be depressed to alter the number of

vectors displayed.

Figure 7: Plot3D contour and vector plot examples.

a) isosurface at 140 ◦C b) isosurface at 320 ◦C

Figure 8: Plot3D isocontour example.

|

Figure 9: Motion Dialogue Box. Rotate or translate the scene by clicking an “arrow” and dragging the mouse.

11
Data bounds may be set using either the dialogue box in Figure 10 or using smokeview.ini keywords.

Using the configuration file smokeview.ini to set data bounds is explained in Appendix D.1.

The Bounds Dialogue Box is opened from the Options menu. Each file type in Figure 10 (slice,

particle, Plot3D etc) has a set of “radio buttons” for selecting the variable type that data bound are to be applied

too. These variable types are determined from the files generated by FDS and are automatically recorded in the

.smv file. The data bounds are set in a pair of edit boxes. Check boxes adjacent to the edit boxes determine

whether or not Smokeview should use the entered data bounds. The new bounds become activated after the

data has been reloaded. The Plot3D portion of the dialog box uses radio buttons instead of check boxes in

order to implement an additional loading option. Portions of the plot as illustrated in Figure 11 are not drawn

when this option, labelled “chop”, is selected.

Data bounds may be saved by creating a smokeview.ini file using theInitmenu found underLoad/Unload

.

3.2.3 Plot3D Viewing Options

Plot3D files are more complicated to visualize than time dependent files such as particle, slice or boundary

files. For example, only the transparency and color characteristics of a time file may be changed. With Plot3D

files however, many attributes may be changed. One may view 2D contours along the X, Y and/or Z axis of

up to six1 different simulated quantities, view flow vectors and iso or 3D contours. Plot3D file visualization

is initiated by selecting the desired file from the Load/Unload Plot3D sub-menu and as with time files

one may change color and transparency characteristics.

2D contours Smokeview displays a 2D contour slice midway along the Y axis by default when a Plot3D

file is first loaded, To step the contour slice up by one grid cell along the Y axis, depress the “space bar”.

Similarly to step the contour slice down by one grid cell along the Y axis, depress the “-” key. To view a

contour along either the X or Z axis, depress the x or z keys respectively. Depressing the x, y or z keys

while the contour is visible will cause it to be hidden. The Plot3D variable viewed may be changed by either

depressing the “p” key or by selecting the Solution Variable sub-menu of the Show/Hide menu.

Iso-Contours Iso-contours also called 3D contours or level surfaces may be viewed by depressing the “i

key or by selecting the Plot3D 3D Contours sub-menu of the Show/Hide menu.

Flow vectors If at least one velocity component is present in the Plot3D file then the “v” key may be

depressed in order to view flow vectors. The length and direction of the vector indicates the flow direction

and speed. The vector color indicates the value of the currently displayed quantity. A small dot is drawn at

the end of the line to indicate flow direction. The vector lengths as drawn may be changed by depressing the

“a” key. Vector plots may be very dense when the grid is finely meshed. The “s” key may be depressed in

order to skip vectors. For example, all vectors are displayed by result. If the “s” is depressed then every other

vector is skipped.

3.3 Examining Input

The previous section describes how Smokeview is used to visualize FDS output. This section explains how

Smokeview may be used to setup FDS input files.

1The FDS software stores temperature, three components of velocity (denoted u, v and w) and heat release per unit volume. If at least

one velocity component is stored in a Plot3D file then Smokeview adds speed to the Plot3D variable list.

12
Figure 10: Bounds Dialogue Box. Select a variable, select a bounds type “check box/radio button”, then enter

a bound. Then either reload the data file or update the bounds.

Figure 11: Ceiling jet visualization created by “chopping data” below a specified temperature using a

V_PLOT3D keyword entry of: “1 2 360.0 1 420.0” for the first (temperature) Plot3D variable. The

same effect can be achieved by using the Bounds Dialogue Box

as illustrated in Figure 10.

13
One of the most difficult tasks in setting up an FDS input file is defining the geometry (blockage, vent

locations etc} properly. Smokeview may be used to debug input FDS files by making short runs and observing

whether blockages, vents and other geometric features of a run are located correctly. A new feature in

Smokeview version 2.0 is the ability to create new blockages and edit existing ones. This is done with the

“Edit Blockage” dialogue box called from the Option menu. The next two sections indicate how these

tasks may be performed.

3.3.1 Debugging

The following is a general procedure for identifying problems in FDS input files. Assume that the FDS input

data file is named testcase1.data.

1. Add SET_UP=.TRUE. to the &MISC line. This causes FDS to read the input file and create a .smv

file without running the case.

2. After the input file has been modified, run the FDS model by typing:

fds < testcase1.data

FDS creates a file named testcase1.smv containing information that Smokeview uses to visualize

data.

3. To visualize the input file, open testcase1.smv with Smokeview by either typing smokeview

testcase1 at a command shell prompt or if on the PC by double-clicking the file testcase1.smv.

If Smokeview was already running (i.e. from an earlier iteration in this debugging cycle) re-read

testcase1.smv into Smokeview with the Reload testcase1.smv menu item.

4. Make corrections if necessary. Use the BLOCK_COLOR option2 of the FDS keyword OBST to more

easily identify blockages to be edited. For example, to change a blockage’s color to red use:

&OBST XB=0.0,1.0,0.0,1.0,0.0,1.0 BLOCK_COLOR=’RED’ /

Save testcase1.data file and go back to step 2.

5. If corrections were not necessary, then change the TWFIN keyword back to the desired final simulation

time, remove any unnecessary FDS BLOCK_COLOR, VENT_COLOR and SET_UP keywords and run

the case.

3.3.2 Editing Blockages

The Blockage Edit dialogue box shown in Figure 12 may be used to create new blockages and edit existing

ones. This dialogue box is opened from the Options menu. Blockage modifications are saved to a file

named casename.data_new where casename.data is the original file name.

The following is a short tutorial on how to create the roomfire.data example case distributed with

FDS and Smokeview using the Blockage edit dialogue box to create the blockages. The results of each step

are illustrated in Figure 13

2The FDS BLOCK_COLOR and VENT_COLOR keywords may have values: RED, BLUE, GREEN, MAGENTA, CYAN, YELLOW, WHITE

or BLACK.

14
Step 1 - Create base case: Start by adding the following line to a file named case1.data.

&HEAD CHID=’case1’,TITLE=’Sample fire in multiple room layout’ /

Run this file with FDS by typing:

fds < case1.data

The resulting output is illustrated in Figure 13a. Note that by default FDS assumes that the input domain is a

unit cube.

Step 2 - Defining the Geometry and the Grid: Assume that the input domain dimensions are 9.6 m×4.8 m×2.4 m

and that each grid cell is 0.1 m on a side. The FDS input lines to implement these assumptions are given by:

&HEAD CHID=’case1a’,TITLE=’Sample fire in multiple room layout’ /

&GRID IBAR=96, JBAR=48, KBAR=24 /

&PDIM XBAR=9.6,YBAR=4.8,ZBAR=2.4 /

&MISC SETUP=.TRUE. /

&TIME TWFIN=0. /

These input lines result in output illustrated in Figure 13b.

Step 3 - Adding Blockages: The next step is to add blockages for the fire and the two walls. Assume that

the blockage for the fire has dimension 0.5 m×0.5 m×0.3 m and is located at the front, left, bottom corner.

Open the Blockage Edit Dialogue Box and click in the New button. This creates a new blockage one grid cell

in size located in the lower, left, front part of the simulation domain. Expand the blockage to the desired size

(0.5 m×0.5 m×0.3 m) by either 1) typing in the proper dimension into the edit boxes or by 2) clicking in the

stretch/move arrows to stretch/move the blockage to the proper location/size.

Repeat this process twice more, once for each wall. Each wall is 0.2 m thick. The first wall is 9.6 m×2.4 m

and is located in the middle of the short (‘Y’) side from 2.4 m to 2.6 m. The second wall is 4.8 m×2.4 m

and is located in the middle of the long (‘X’) side from 4.8 to 5.0 m. Again these blockages may be entered

by either 1) typing in the proper dimension into the edit boxes or 2) clicking in the stretch/move arrows to

stretch/move the blockage to the proper location/size.

The FDS input lines to complete these steps are generated by clicking the “Update” button and are given

by:

&HEAD CHID=’case1b’,TITLE=’Sample fire in multiple room layout’ /

&GRID IBAR=96, JBAR=48, KBAR=24 /

&PDIM XBAR=9.6,YBAR=4.8,ZBAR=2.4 /

&MISC SETUP=.TRUE. /

&TIME TWFIN=0. /

&OBST XB=0.000000, 0.500000, 0.000000, 0.500000, 0.000000, 0.300000/

&OBST XB=0.000000, 9.600000, 2.400000, 2.600000, 0.000000, 2.400000/

&OBST XB=4.800000, 5.000000, 0.000000, 4.800000, 0.000000, 2.400000/

The results of these input lines are illustrated in Figure 13c.

Step 4 - Adding Doors (“subtracting blockages”) Doors and windows are “added” by removing portions

of pre-existing blockages. To add the first door, select the longer of the two walls by clicking on it. Next click

on the radio button labelled ‘Openings’ and then click on the ‘New’ button. Type in the door coordinates in

the edit boxes or click in the stretch/move arrows to stretch/move the door to the proper location/size.

15
Step 5 - Completing the case To complete the case add input lines for vents (&VENT commands) and

keywords for various output files as shown in the input file:

&HEAD CHID=’case1c’,TITLE=’Sample fire in multiple room layout’ /

&GRID IBAR=96, JBAR=48, KBAR=24 /

&PDIM XBAR=9.6,YBAR=4.8,ZBAR=2.4 /

&TIME TWFIN=0. /

&OBST XB=0.000000, 0.500000, 0.000000, 0.500000, 0.000000, 0.300000/

&OBST XB=0.000000, 3.000000, 2.400000, 2.600000, 0.000000, 2.000000/

&OBST XB=0.000000, 9.600000, 2.400000, 2.600000, 2.000000, 2.400000/

&OBST XB=4.000000, 7.000000, 2.400000, 2.600000, 0.000000, 2.000000/

&OBST XB=8.000000, 9.600000, 2.400000, 2.600000, 0.000000, 2.000000/

&OBST XB=4.800000, 5.000000, 0.000000, 3.500000, 0.000000, 2.000000/

&OBST XB=4.800000, 5.000000, 4.500000, 4.800000, 0.000000, 2.000000/

&OBST XB=4.800000, 5.000000, 0.000000, 4.800000, 2.000000, 2.400000/

&SURF ID=’BURNER’,HRRPUA=1000. /

&VENT XB=0.00,0.50,0.00,0.50,0.30,0.30, SURF_ID=’BURNER’ /

&VENT XB=5.50,6.60,0.00,0.00,1.00,2.00, SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&PART QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,NPSAM=2/

&ISOF QUANTITY=’MIXTURE_FRACTION’,VALUE(1)=0.03,VALUE(2)=0.001 /

&SLCF PBX=3.60,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBX=7.50,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBY=0.30,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBY=1.30,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBY=3.90,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBZ=2.30,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&BNDF QUANTITY=’WALL_TEMPERATURE’ /

&PL3D DTSAM=20. /

and illustrated in Figure 13e. Figure 13f shows the sample case run to 10 seconds with a mixture fraction

isosurface representing the a layer of constant smoke density.

4 Summary

This report documented the use of Smokeview version 2.0 to visualize predictions generated by the NIST

Fire Dynamics Simulator. Various visualization techniques such as animated tracer particle flow, contour

plots and isosurfaces were implemented to enable the user to better understand fire and smoke behavior under

investigation.

The next step in this research project will be to investigate additional visualization techniques for characterizing and understanding fire dynamics data. For example, the isosurface algorithms presently used in

Smokeview calculate only the location of a level surface such as that corresponding to a flame sheet. By

coloring the level surface according to the value of a second variable such as temperature, one could see the

effects of temperature on combustion. In general, techniques that help one better understand the simulated

environment will be investigated.

16
Figure 12: Blockage Edit Dialogue Box. Click on ‘New’ to create a new blockage or click on an existing

blockage to change its size or location. Change the size or location by entering blockage bounds directly or

clicking on an ‘arrow’ and/or direction buttons. Windows or doors may be ‘carved’ out of existing blockages

by selecting the Opening rather than Blockages ‘radio button’.

a) base case b) added geometric info c) added walls

d) added doors e) added vent e) isosurface at 10 seconds

Figure 13: Modifying the base FDS case in steps.

17
A Smokeview Command Line Options

Smokeview may be run from a command shell. Further, command line options may be invoked in order to

alter Smokeview’s startup behavior. Normally these options are not necessary. However, they may be used

for cases with very large particle files or to generate a preference or customization file. To obtain a list of

command line options, type:

smokeview -help

without any arguments which results in output similar to:

The -nopart option is used to prevent a particle file from being loaded at startup as in:

smokeview casename -nopart

The -points or -frames options may be used to load more than the default 5,000,000 points or 500 frames

where a frame is data for one time step. To load up to 6,000,000 points and 1000 frames then type:

smokeview casename -points 6000000 -frames 1000

where in both cases casename is the basename of the FDS output files. The same effect may be achieved

by using:

MAXPOINTS

6000000

MAXFRAMES

1000

in the smokeview.ini or casename.ini file. This file may be created with the -ini option and

contains many other customizable Smokeview parameters. The -benchmark option is used to measure

the performance of Smokeview. When particle files are displayed Smokeview outputs the rate that points

(particles) are displayed per second. Similarly, when isosurfaces (3D Plot3D contours) are displayed the

-benchmark option causes Smokeview to output the rate that triangles are displayed per second.

B Menu Options

The design philosophy used to develop Smokeview has been to avoid complicated, non-portable user interfaces

that are costly to implement. As a result, most of the development effort has gone into the visualization (display

of particle flow, contour plots etc) rather than user interface design and implementation. The graphics library

utility toolkit GLUT[9] based on OpenGL[7, 8] is used to implement the “pop up” menus used by Smokeview

to manipulate various features of the graphical scenes. The user interacts with Smokeview via 1) menus, 2)

keyboard shortcuts and 3) the .ini file.

A “pop up” menu is displayed when the right mouse is clicked anywhere within the scene. The main

menu options are: Load/Unload , Show/Hide, Max Frame Rate, Render, Tour, Reset View,

Help and Quit. Several of these menu options have sub-menus. These menus are described in the following

sections.

18
B.1 Main Menu Items

Load/Unload This menu option allows one to load or unload particle, slice, Plot3D or boundary files.

The three time dependent files (particle, slice and boundary) may be viewed simultaneously,

but not concurrently with the time independent Plot3D files. However, only one particle, one

boundary and one Plot3D file may be viewed at a time. Multiple slices for the same variable

may be viewed simultaneously. This menu may also be used to load and create preference files

.ini files and to re-read the .smv file. For more details see Appendix B.2.

Show/Hide This menu item allows one to show or hide the loaded data files and various scene attributes

such as time/color bars, internal blockages etc. As a file type is shown or hidden (or loaded and

unloaded), the color and time bars are changed to reflect the currently visible data files. More

details are given in Appendix B.3.

Options This menu allows one to specify various smokeview options such as specifying frame rates,

dumping the screen to a PNG or JPEG file, changing font sizes, selecting dialogue boxes etc.

Tour Causes the scene to rotate about its center.

Reset Resets the simulation scene back to an alternate view. The three choices are 1) exterior view, 2)

interior view and 3) saved view. A viewpoint may be saved using the Viewpoint sub-menu of

the Options menu. If a time file (particle, slice and/or boundary) is visible then two sub-menus

occur allowing one to reset the view back to the original position or the time bar back to the

initial time.

Help Displays a list and explanation of keyboard equivalent commands.

Quit Quit smokeview.

B.2 Load/Unload

Five types of files may be visualized with Smokeview. They are particle, slice, boundary, isosurface and

Plot3D files. Note that vector slice animations use two or more slice files to display the animated vector

slices. The format of the data contained in these files is described in Appendix D.3. A sub-menu is present

under Load/Unload for each file type generated for the simulation. Selecting one of the files appearing in

the sub-menu causes it to be loaded and then displayed. The data may be unloaded or freed by selecting an

Unload menu item appearing under the file list. Selecting Unload All as expected will unload all files.

If the wish is to temporarily hide a data file, then the appropriate Show/Hide menu option (depending on

the file type to be hidden) should be selected.

The Smokeview input data file contains information about all data files appearing in the Load/Unload

menu item. The FDS field modelling software creates this file. (See Appendix D.2 for documentation on the

format of this file).

The character “*” occurring before a file name in one of the sub-menus indicates that the file has already

been loaded. If the file below is loaded but not visible, then use the appropriate Show/Hide option to make it

visible.

19
Open Smokeview (.smv) This menu item allows one (on the PC) to use a dialogue box to open other

FDS cases.

Isosurface File (.iso) This menu item gives the name of all isosurface files and also the option to unload

the currently loaded isosurface file.

Particle File (.part) This menu item gives the name of the particle file and also the option to unload

the currently loaded particle file.

Vector Slice File (.sf) This menu item gives the name of all slice files that have one or more associated

U, V and/or W velocity slice files. These slice files must be defined for the same region (or slice)

in the simulation.

Slice File (.sf) This menu item gives the name of all slice files and also the option to unload the currently loaded slice files. New in Smokeview version 2.0 is the ability to view several slice files

simultaneously.

Plot3D File (.q) This menu item gives the name of all Plot3D files and also the option to unload the

currently loaded Plot3D file.

Boundary File (.bf) This menu item gives the name of all boundary files and also the option to unload

the currently loaded boundary file.

Init File (.ini) The init or preference file contains configuration parameters that may be used to customize Smokeview’s appearance and behavior. This menu item lets one create (or overwrite)

a preference file named either smokeview.ini or casename.ini. A preference file contains parameter settings for defining how Smokeview visualizes data. This file may be edited

and re-read while Smokeview is running.

Smokeview parameter input file (.smv) This menu item is used when debugging FDS input files. It

allows one to reload a Smokeview case (.smv file). A debugging cycle can then be performed

consisting of 1) editing FDS input file, 2) running FDS and 3) reloading an updated Smokeview

input file.

Unload All This option causes all data files to be unloaded.

B.3 Show/Hide

The Show/Hide menu item allows one to show or hide various parts of the simulation. This menu item contains

sub-menus for Particles, Boundary, Animated Slice, Plot3D 2D and 3D contours, sensors (thermocouples, heat

detectors and sprinklers), Color and time Bars and Geometry. These menu items only appear if they pertain

to the simulation. For example the Particles sub-menu only appears if a particle file has been loaded.

Similarly, the Plot3D contouring sub-menus only appear if a Plot3D file has been loaded. The “*”

character is used to indicate whether the visualization feature corresponding to the menu item is set or active.

B.3.1 Geometry Options

Blockages The three blockage viewing options are Show All, Show Frame and Hide. The first and

last option are self explanatory. The Show Frame option allows one to view only a frame or

20
outline of each blockage. This makes it easier to see other simulation features when the scenario

has many blockages. Blockages may be displayed in different colors. This allows one to more

easily set up FDS input files by identifying blockages and verifying that they have been defined

as intended.

Grid This option allows one to visualize the grid used to perform the numerical calculations. One

selects xy plane, xz plane or yz plane to visualize a single plane or Show All, Hide

All to show or hide all grids. (Keyboard shortcut: g)

Outline Show or hide the outline that frames the simulation scene.

Floor Show or hide the floor.

Ceiling Show or hide the ceiling

Vents Show or hide the vents.

Walls Show or hide the walls.

Show All Show all geometric features described above.

Hide All Hide all geometric features described above.

B.3.2 Animated Surface

An isosurface is represented in Smokeview as a collection of triangles. Each triangle consists of three edges

and three vertices.

Solid Display the isosurface by shading the triangles.

Outline Display the isosurface by only showing the triangle edges.

Points Display the isosurface by only showing the triangle vertices.

“quantity” levels Display the desired isosurface level (when more than one isosurface is stored in an

isosurface file).

Smooth Display the isosurface using smoothed vertex normals.

B.3.3 Particles

Smoke (tracer) Toggle the visibility of the particles. If water/sprinkler droplets are present in the particle

file then sub-menus exist for both smoke and water to allow one to show or hide smoke and water

droplets independently.

Sprinkler Toggle the visibility of sprinkler (water droplets).

B.3.4 Boundary

Exterior Show or hide all data contained in a boundary (.bf) file pertaining to the exterior walls.

Interior Show or hide all data contained in a boundary (.bf) file pertaining to interior blockages.

Front, Back, Left, Right, Up, Down Toggle the visibility of whatever exterior boundary surface is selected. Note an exterior boundary menu option only appears if its data is present in the boundary

file.

21
B.3.5 Animated Vector Slice

Toggle the visibility of the animated vector slice file.

B.3.6 Animated Slice

Toggle the visibility of the animated slice file.

B.3.7 Plot3D 2D Contours

Solution Variables A Plot3D data file contains five solution variables. If one or more of the velocity

components denoted

√ u, v and w are present in the Plot3D file then speed, calculated using

u2 + v2 + w2, appears in the menu. Any velocity components missing from the Plot3D file

are set to 0.0 when calculating speed. This menu item allows one to select the Plot3D solution

variable to be visualized. (Keyboard shortcut: p)

xy, xz, yz planes These three menu items, appearing beneath the Solution Variables menu item,

allow one to select which plane (xy, xz or yz) is displayed. (Applicable keyboard shortcuts:

space bar, -, left/right cursor, up/down cursor, page up/down, 1...9)

Flow vectors Toggle visibility of flow vectors. The magnitude and direction of the vectors are determined

by the U,V andW components of velocity. The vector color is determined by the solution variable

selected. (Applicable keyboard shortcuts: a, s, v)

Continuous Display contours as smooth continuous shades or as stepped constant shades. (Keyboard

shortcut: c)

Show All Show all three (xy, xz and yz) Plot3D planes at once.

Hide All Hide all three Plot3D planes.

B.3.8 Plot3D 3D Contours

Solution Variables Same as for 2D contours. This menu item allows one to select the solution variable

used to generate the 3D or iso-contour to be displayed.

Solution Value Select the 3D contour level to display. The axis label shown in red corresponds to the 3D

contour level displayed.

Block Size To increase the drawing speed, adjacent grid cells may be combined when viewing 3D contours. Selecting 1 will result in highly resolved contours but may take longer to draw. Selecting

5 will have the opposite effect.

Hide Hide the 3D contour.

B.3.9 Heat detectors, Sprinklers, Thermocouples

Toggle the sensor visibility. The currently implemented sensors are heat detectors, sprinklers and thermocouples.

B.3.10 Labels

Color Bars, Time Bars, Title, Axis labels, Frame Rate Show or hide the individual scene element.

22
Show All Show all scene elements.

Hide All Hide all scene elements.

B.4 Options

B.4.1 Shades

Flip Background Flip the background color between a dark and light shade. A dark background shade

looks better on a computer monitor while a light shade looks better on the printed page.

Flip Colorbar Reverse the order of the colors displayed in the colorbar.

Cycle Colorbar Cycle the colors in the colorbar.

Reset Colorbar Return the colorbar to the original display.

Color Toggle scene colors between color and shades of gray. This option currently does not convert all

scene colors to shades of gray. It was felt that contours and blockages were the most important

to convert.

Transparent Toggle contours between opaque and transparent. Transparent colors allow one to view the

scene behind the contours giving the one a better sense of scale. Transparent colors, however,

may make the scene look too confusing when the geometry is complex.

B.4.2 Units

Select alternate temperature or velocity units. The UNIT keyword described in Appendix D.1 may be used to

incorporate additional unit changes into Smokeview.

B.4.3 Rotation

Eye Centered Rotate and move the scene relative to the observer’s “eye”. Eye centered views make it

easier to move around within the scene itself as in modern computer games. (Keyboard shortcut:

e. The “e” keyboard shortcut toggles the view between an eye centered and a world centered

perspective.)

World Centered Rotate and move the scene relative to the scene’s center. (Keyboard shortcut: e. The “e”

keyboard shortcut toggles the view between an eye centered and a world centered perspective.)

B.4.4 Max Frame Rate

This option controls the rate at which image frames are displayed. The sub-menus allow one to specify a

maximum frame rate. The actual frame rate may be slower if the scene is complex and the graphics card is

unable to draw the scene sufficiently fast. The unlimited menu item allows one to display frames as

rapidly as the graphics hardware permits or to step through the frames manually. The Real Time menu

item allows one to draw frames so that the simulation time matches real time. The step menu item allows

one to step through the simulation one time step at a time. This menu item may be used in concert with the

Render menu item described below to create images at the desired time and view orientation for inclusion

into reports. This is how figures were generated in this report.

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B.4.5 Render

This option allows one to create PNG or JPEG image files of the currently displayed scene. The graphics

library, GD 2.0, was used to create the rendered versions. GD 1.0 is documented in reference [10, Appendix

4]. GD 2.0 now creates images using “full color” allowing for more realistic scene representations eliminating

the color banding that occurred with the previous version because of the limited number (256) of colors used

to represent images. Due to patent disputes, GD 2.0 has dropped support for the GIF file format and uses

JPEG or PNG instead.

The Render sub-menus allow one to specify an integer between 1 and 20 indicating the number of

frames between rendered images. This allows one to generate images encompassing the entire time duration

of the simulation which in turn can be converted into movie files (mpeg, mov, avi etc) using software

available on the internet. This is how movies were displayed http://fire.nist.gov/smokeview were generated.

Rendering may be stopped by selecting Cancel.

Smokeview scenes are now rendered using version 2.0 of the GD graphics library [10, Appendix 4]. This

new library supports “full color” conversion allowing for more realistic scene representations. The former

version of this library (used in Smokeviewversion 1.0) allowed only 256 distinct colors to be saved into an

image file. This resulted in banding or contouring in the saved image where none was present in the original

display. Due to patent disputes the library GD 2.0 has dropped support for the GIF file format. Images in

Smokeview 2.0 are saved in either JPEG or PNG formats. The keyboard shortcut for the render option is r.

B.4.6 Viewpoint

This option allows one to save the location and orientation relative to the observer of the scene.

B.4.7 Font Size

This option allows one to display text in either a normal or a large font.

B.4.8 Aperture

This option allows one to change the perspective used to display the scene which is equivalent to changing

the focal length of a camera lens.

B.4.9 Stereo 3-D

Provides stereo 3-D output on systems equipped with supported video cards. Stereo 3-D requires a computer

graphics card, monitor, software drivers and shuttered glasses. This option only appears if Smokeview is

started from the command line using the ‘‘-stereo’’ command line option.

B.4.10 Set Bounds

Open the dialogue box for specifying data bounds.

B.4.11 Movement

Open the dialogue box for controlling scene movement. To use the movement arrows, click and hold the

mouse in one of the arrows while simultaneously moving the mouse to achieve the desired movement.

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B.4.12 Edit Geometry

Open the dialogue box for editing FDS blockages.

C Keyboard Shortcuts

Many menu commands have equivalent keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts are described here and are also

briefly described under the Help menu item from within Smokeview itself.

a Alter the arrow size used to display velocity vectors.

b To increase the drawing speed, adjacent grid cells may be combined into coarser pseudo-grid

cells when generating and viewing 3D contours. The “b” key is used to increment the number

of grid cells that are combined (between one and five grid cells) when generating 3D contours.

Using one grid will result in highly resolved contours but may take longer to draw. Using five

grid cells will have the opposite effect, i.e. will result in coarse contours that can be drawn

quickly.

c Toggle the Plot3D 2D contour display between solid banded contours and continuously shaded

contours.

e Toggle how the scene is manipulated between an “eye view” where scene motion is relative to

the observer and a “world view” where the scene motion is relative to the scene center.

g Toggle the grid visibility. When the grid display option is active, the x, y and z keys may be used

to show or hide the grid perpendicular to the x, y and z axes respectively.

i Toggle the visibility of iso-contours (3D surface contours).

o Reset a time dependent animation to the initial time.

p Show the next variable in the Plot3D data set.

r Render the current scene as a JPEG or a PNG file which can be viewed in a web browser or

inserted into a word processing document.

s Increment the number of vectors skipped. Useful for making vector displays more readable

when grids are finely meshed.

t Toggle the time stepping mode. Time stepping mode allows one to step through the simulation

one time step at a time.

v Toggle vector visibility. This option is only active when there are U, V and/or W velocity

components present in the Plot3D data set.

w Toggle window clipping on and off. If window clipping is on then the x/X, y/Y, z/Z keys may be

used to clip the scene along the min/max x, y and z axes respectively. The “<” and “>” keys are

used to control the location of the selected clipping plane by decreasing or increasing the plane

location respectively.

x, y, z Toggle the visibility of the Plot3D data planes perpendicular to the x, y and z axes respectively

(parallel to the yz, xz and xy planes).

Left/Right Cursor Increment/decrement the Plot3D plane location displayed in the xz plane.

Page Up, Page Down Increment/decrement the Plot3D plane location displayed in the xy plane.

Up/Down Cursor Increment/decrement the Plot3D plane location displayed in the yz plane.

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- Decrement Plot3D data planes, Plot3D iso-contour levels or time step displayed.

space bar Increment Plot3D data planes, Plot3D iso-contour levels or time step displayed.

1...9 Increment amount for time frame or Plot3D slice.

D File Formats

D.1 Smokeview Preference File Format (.ini files)

Smokeview uses preference files to set input parameters not settable using menus or the keyboard and to save

the “state” of a visualization. Smokeview looks for preference files in three locations in the following order:

1. a file named smokeview.ini in a global directory defined by the SMOKEVIEWINI environment

variable. On the PC, the directory C:\nist\fds\smokeview.ini is the default location for this

preference file. The SMOKEVIEWINI environment variable may be defined on the PC by adding the

line:

set SMOKEVIEWINI=dir

to the c:\autoexec.bat file where dir is the directory where the global customization file is

stored. This step is performed automatically by the Smokeview installation program. This environment

variable may be defined on a UNIX workstation by adding the line:

setenv SMOKEVIEWINI dir

to a .login or .cshrc start up file again where dir is the directory containing the global customization file. Changes to this smokeview.ini file apply to all cases visualized on the computer unless

overridden by preference files named or located in directories named in steps 2. and 3.

2. a file named smokeview.ini in the directory containing the case being visualized. Changes

to this smokeview.ini file apply to all cases in the current directory unless overridden by the

casename.ini file contained in this directory.

3. a file named casename.ini in the directory containing the case being visualized where casename if

the name of the case.

The smokeview.ini file may be created by typing:

smokeview -ini

from the command line or by selecting the Write smokeview.ini menu item. The casename.ini

preference file can be created via the menus or by copying a previously created smokeview.ini file.

Smokeview reads the globalsmokeview.inifile first (step 1. above), followed by the localsmokeview.ini

file (step 2. above), followed by the casename.ini file. The global smokeview.ini file is used to customize parameters for all Smokeview runs. The local smokeview.ini file is used to customize parameters

for just those Smokeview runs contained in the local directory. The casename.ini file is used to customize

parameters for only those Smokeview runs with the prefix casename.

All preference file parameters unless otherwise noted consist of a KEYWORD followed by a value, as in:

KEYWORD

value

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D.1.1 Color parameters

All colors are specified using a 3-tuple: r g b where r, g and b are the red, green and blue components of the

color respectively. Each color component is a floating point number ranging from 0.0 to 1.0 where 0.0 is the

darkest shade and 1.0 is the lightest shade. For example the 3-tuple 1.0 0.0 0.0 is bright red, 0.0 0.0 0.0 is

black and 1.0 1.0 1.0 is white.

AMBIENTLIGHT Sets the color used for specifying ambient light. (default: .6 .6 .6)

BACKGROUNDCOLOR Sets the color used to visualize the scene background. (default: 0.0 0.0

0.0)

BLOCKCOLOR Sets the color used to visualize internal blockages. (default: 1.0 .8 4.0)

BOUNDCOLOR Sets the color used to visualize floors, walls and ceilings. (default: 0.5 0.5 0.2)

COLORBAR Entries for the color palette in rgb (red, green, blue) format where each color component

ranges from 0.0 to 1.0 . The default values (rounded to 2 digits) are specified with:

COLORBAR

12

0.00 0.00 1.00

0.00 0.28 0.96

0.00 0.54 0.84

0.00 0.76 0.65

0.00 0.91 0.41

0.00 0.99 0.14

0.14 0.99 0.00

0.41 0.91 0.00

0.65 0.76 0.00

0.84 0.54 0.00

0.96 0.28 0.00

1.00 0.00 0.00

COLOR2BAR Miscellaneous colors used by Smokeview. The default values are specified using:

COLOR2BAR

8

1.0 1.0 1.0 :white

1.0 1.0 0.0 :yellow

0.0 0.0 1.0 :blue

1.0 0.0 0.0 :red

0.0 1.0 0.0 :green

1.0 0.0 1.0 :magenta

0.0 1.0 1.0 :cyan

0.0 0.0 0.0 :black

27
where the 8 indicates the number of colors defined and the character string after the ‘‘:’’ are

ignored.

COLORBARFLIP Specifies whether the colorbar is flipped (1) or not flipped (0) (default: 0)

DIFFUSELIGHT Sets the color for specifying diffuse light (default: 0.5 0.5 0.5)

FLIP Specifies whether to flip (1) or not to flip (0) the foreground and background colors. By default

the background color is black and the foreground color is white. Setting FLIP to 1 has the effect

of having a white background and black foreground. (default: 0).

FOREGROUNDCOLOR Sets the color used to visualize the scene foreground (such as text labels).

(default: 1.0 1.0 1.0)

ISOCOLORS Colors and parameters used to display animated isocontours. Default:

ISOCOLORS

10.000000 0.800000 : shininess, transparency

0.700000 0.700000 0.700000 : specular

3

0.960000 0.280000 0.000000

0.750000 0.800000 0.800000

0.000000 0.960000 0.280000

SENSORCOLOR Sets the color used to visualize sensors. (default: 1.0 1.0 0.0)

SETBW The parameter used to set whether color shades (0) or shades of grey (1) are to used for coloring

contours and blockages. (default: 0)

SPRINKOFFCOLOR Sets the color used to visualize sprinklers before they activate. (default: 1.0

0.0 0.0)

SPRINKONCOLOR Sets the color used to visualize sprinklers after they activate. (default: 0.0 1.0

0.0)

TIMEBARCOLOR Sets the color used to visualize the timebar. (default: 0.6 0.6 0.6)

VENTCOLOR Sets the color used to visualize vents. (default: 1.0 0.0 1.0)

D.1.2 Size parameters

The parameters described in this section allow one to customize the size of various Smokeview scene elements.

LINEWIDTH Defines the width of lines3 in pixels. (default: 2.0)

PARTPOINTSIZE Defines the size in pixels of smoke or tracer particles. (default: 1.0)

SENSORABSSIZE Defines the sensor size drawn by smokeview using the same units as used to specify

the grid coordinates. (default: 0.038)

3Except lines used to draw vents

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SLICEOFFSET Defines an offset distance4 animated slices are drawn from adjacent solid surfaces.

(default: 0.10)

SMOOTHLINES Specifies whether lines should be drawn (1) or not drawn (0) using anti-aliasing (default: 1).

SPRINKLERABSSIZE Defines the sprinkler size drawn by smokeview using the same units as used to

specify the grid coordinates. (default: 0.076)

VECTORLENGTH Defines the length of Plot3D vectors. A vector length of 1.0 fills one grid cell. Vector

lengths may also be changed from within Smokeview by depressing the “a” key. (default: 4.0)

VECTORPOINTSIZE Defines the size in pixels of the point that is drawn at the end of a Plot3D vector.

(default: 3.0)

VENTLINEWIDTH Defines the width of lines used to draw vents in pixels. (default: 2.0)

VENTOFFSET Defines a distance used to offset vents drawn from adjacent surfaces. (default: 0.10

(units of fraction of a grid cell width))

WINDOWHEIGHT Defines the initial window height in pixels. (default: 480)

WINDOWWIDTH Defines the initial window width in pixels. (default: 640)

D.1.3 Time and value bound parameters

This section describes parameters used by Smokeview to 1) modify the time intervals used to load data

(keywords beginning with T_ ) and 2) over-ride the minimum and maximum data values (keywords beginning

with V_) used to convert data to color values. By default, Smokeview reads in data for all time values and

does not over-ride minimum and maximum data values. Each time and data bound keyword (except for

V_PLOT3D) has the format:

KEYWORD

minflag minvalue maxflag maxvalue

where minflag can be either 0 or 1. If it is 1 then, the subsequent number, minvalue is used by Smokeview

to scale the data otherwise if minflag is 0 then minvalue is ignored. The next two parameters maxflag

and maxvalue are defined similarly. The V_PLOT3D keyword contains data bound entries for each variable

in the Plot3D data file. If a Plot3D “speed” variable was constructed by Smokeview then the V_PLOT3D

keyword will contain six entries instead of five.

T_BOUNDARY Defines the minimum and maximum times used to include particles in a visualization.

To load boundary data between 20 and 150 seconds use:

T_BOUNDARY

1 20. 1 150.

(default: 0 1.0 0 0.0)

T_PARTICLES Defines the minimum and maximum times used to include particles in a visualization.

To load particle data between 20 and 150 seconds use:

4distance is relative to the maximum grid cell width

29
T_PARTICLES

1 20. 1 150.

T_SLICE Defines the minimum and maximum times used to include particles in a visualization. To load

slice data between 20 and 150 seconds use:

T_SLICE

1 20. 1 150.

(default: 0 1.0 0 0.0)

V_BOUNDARY Defines the minimum and maximum data bounds used to convert boundary data values

to color indices. (default: 0 1.0 0 0.0)

The V_BOUNDARY keyword has an optional parameter allowing one to specify which type

of data the bounds should apply to. For example, to specify boundary file bounds for temperature

(30.0 ◦C, 600.0 ◦C) use:

V_BOUNDARY

1 30.000000 1 600.000000 TEMP

where TEMP is the Smokeview colorbar labels displayed when showing the boundary file.

These suffixes are added automatically when the Bounds dialogue box is used to set data

bounds.

V_PARTICLES Defines the minimum and maximum data bounds used to convert particle data values

to color indices. (default: 0 1.0 0 0.0)

V_PLOT3D Defines the minimum and maximum data bounds used to convert Plot3D data values to color

indices. The default values are given by:

V_PLOT3D 5 1 0 1.0 0 0.0 2 0 1.0 0 0.0 3 0 1.0 0 0.0 4 0 1.0 0 0.0

5 0 1.0 0 0.0

where the initial 5 indicates the number of subsequent entries, the first integer on each line

indicates the Plot3D data variable being specified and all other parameters on each line are

defined as above.

To cause Smokeview to set the minimum and maximum data values to for the first quantity

(usually temperature) to 20 and 600 use:

V_PLOT3D511 20.0 1 600.0 2 0 1.0 0 0.0 3 0 1.0 0 0.0 4 0 1.0 0

0.0 5 0 1.0 0 0.0

The integer “1” occurring before the “20” or “600” causes Smokeview to use the next number

30
as a minimum or maximum value respectively otherwise if “0” is specified then Smokeview

ignores the subsequent min/max value.

In addition to 0 and 1, the V_PLOT3D keyword may use 2 as a bound indicator. In

the above example, if 2 rather than 1 is used to define Plot3D bounds, then Smokeview does

not draw contour5 levels smaller than 20 or contours greater than 600. The Plot3D bound

line 1 2 360.0 1 420.0 indicates that temperatures below 360 ◦C are not drawn and that

temperatures above 420 ◦C are drawn with the “highest” color (black in black and white mode,

red in color mode). This bound line could also be implemented with the “Set Bounds” dialog

box as illustrated in Figure 10 resulting in a contour plot as illustrated in Figure 11.

V_SLICE Defines the minimum and maximum data bounds used to convert slice data values to color

indices. (default: 0 1.0 0 0.0)

The V_SLICE keyword has an optional parameter allowing one to specify which type

of data the bounds should apply to. For example, to specify separate slice file bounds for

temperature (30.0 ◦C, 600.0 ◦C) and the U component of velocity (-1.0 m/s and 1.0 m/s) use:

V_SLICE

1 30.000000 1 600.000000 TEMP

V_SLICE

1 -1.0 1 1.0 U-VEL

where TEMP and U-VEL are the Smokeview colorbar labels displayed when showing the slice

file.

These suffixes are added automatically when the Bounds dialogue box is used to set data

bounds.

D.1.4 Data loading parameters

The keywords in this section may be used to reduce the memory required to visualize FDS data. Keywords

exist for limiting particles and frames. Other keywords exist for compressing particle data and skipping

particles and frames.

BOUNDFRAMESTEP Defines the number of intervals or steps between loaded boundary file frames.

(default: 1)

ISOFRAMESTEP Defines the number of intervals or steps between loaded isosurface file frames (default: 1)

MAXFRAMES Specifies the maximum number of particle frames that can be read in. (default: 501)

MAXPOINTS Specifies the maximum number of particle points that can be read in from a particle file.

(default: 5000000)

NOPART Indicates that a particle file should not (1) or should (0) be loaded when Smokeview starts up.

This option is used when one wants to look at other files besides the particle file. (default: 0)

PARTFRAMESTEP Specifies the interval or steps between loaded particle frames. A particle frame is

all the particles loaded at one particular time step. For example, if PARTFRAMESTEP is set to

5This is true for “stepped” or discrete contours. If “continuous” contours are drawn, then “2” and “1” have the same effect.

31
3 then every 3rd particle frame is read in. This and the PARTPOINTSTEP options may be used

together to dramatically reduce the memory required to view particle files. These options should

be used when displaying Smokeview files on computers with limited memory. (default: 1)

PARTPOINTCOMPRESS Specifies how Smokeview stores particle data. Each particle is represented

using three position coordinates and one data value. Using full precision (PARTPOINTCOMPRESS

value of 0), Smokeview uses four bytes per position coordinate and one byte for the data value

or 13 bytes to represent each particle point. If this keyword is set to 1 then Smokeview uses

one byte per position coordinate and one byte for the data value or 4 bytes per particle point.

Finally if this keyword has value 2 then 2 bytes are used to store each position coordinate and

one byte for the data value or 7 bytes per particle point. (default: 2) The recommended value is

2. Using 0 results in almost twice the memory usage without any extra precision in positioning

particles. Using 1, though using less memory than the “2” option, results in granularity effects

when displaying particles which one may find annoying. (default: 2)

PARTPOINTSTEP Specifies the interval or steps between loaded particle points. For example, if

PARTPOINTSTEP is set to 5 then every 5th particle or only 20 per cent of the particle file

is read in. (default: 1)

SLICEFRAMESTEP Specifies the number of interval or steps between loaded slice file frames. (default:

1)

D.1.5 Viewing parameters

The keywords in this section define how a scene is viewed. Keywords exist for showing or hiding various

scene elements and for modifying how various scene elements appear.

AXISNUM Specifies whether Smokeview should (AXISNUM set to 1) or should not (AXISNUM set to

0) calculate data minimums and maximums based upon statistical limits. For example, if this

parameter is set to 1 then Smokeview will set the minimum and maximum data bound to be the

1st and 99th percentile of the data respectively. (default: 1)

AXISSMOOTH Specifies whether axis numerical labels should be smoothed (AXISSMOOTH set to

1) or not smoothed (AXISSMOOTH set to 0). (default: 1)

CULLFACES Hide (1) or show (0) the back side of various surfaces.

EYEVIEW Specifies whether the scene should be rotated relative to the observer (EYEVIEW set to 1) or

the scene center (EYEVIEW=0). (default: 0)

EYEX, EYEY, EYEZ The parameters EYEX, EYEY, EYEZ specify the x, y and z location respectively of the viewing origin (where your eyes are). (default: 0.5 -0.9 1.5)

FRAMERATEVALUE Specifies the maximum rate (frames per second) that Smokeview should display

frames. This value is an upper bound. Smokeview will not display frames faster than this rate but

may display frames at a slower rate if the scene to be visualized is complex. (default: 1000000)

P3CONT2D The parameterP3CONT2Dmay be set to 0, 1 or 2. If P3CONT2D is set to 0 then Plot3D color

contours are drawn by coloring each node and letting OpenGL interpolate colors between nodes.

If P3CONT2D is set to 1 then discrete or stepped shaded contours are drawn. If P3CONT2D is

set to 2 then contour lines are drawn. (default: 1)

P3DSURFACETYPE Specifies how Plot3D isosurfaces should be drawn. If P3DSURFACETYPE is

set to 1 then Plot3D isosurfaces are drawn using shaded triangles. If P3DSURFACETYPE is

32
set to 2 or 3 then Plot3D isosurfaces are drawn using triangle outlines and points respectively.

(default: 1)

P3DSURFACESMOOTH When drawing Plot3D isosurfaces using shaded triangles, this option specifies whether the vertex normals should be averaged (P3DSURFACESMOOTH set to 1) resulting in smooth isosurfaces or not averaged resulting in isosurfaces that have sharp edges

(P3DSURFACESMOOTH set to 0). (default: 1)

RENDERFILETYPE Specifies whether PNG (RENDERFILETYPE set to 0) or JPEG (RENDERFILETYPE set to 1) should be used to render images. (default: 1)

SHOWBLOCKS Specifies how a blockage should be drawn. A value of 0, 1 or 2 indicates that the

blockages are invisible, drawn normally or drawn as outlines respectively. (default: 1)

SHOWCEILING Specifies whether the ceiling (upper bounding surface) should be drawn (1) or not

drawn (0). (default: 0)

SHOWCOLORBARS Specifies whether the color bars should be drawn (1) or not drawn (0) (default:

1)

SHOWFLOOR Specifies whether the floor (lower bounding surface) should be drawn (1) or not drawn

(0) (default: 1)

SHOWFRAMERATE Specifies whether the frame rate label should be drawn (1) or not drawn (0).

(default: 0)

SHOWSMOKEPART Specifies whether smoke or trace particles should be drawn (1) or not drawn (0)

(default: 1)

SHOWSPRINKPART Specifies whether sprinkler droplet particles (if present in the particle file) should

be drawn (1) or not drawn (0). (default: 1)

SHOWTIMEBAR Specifies whether the timebar should be drawn (1) or not drawn (0). (default: 1)

SHOWTITLE Specifies whether the title should be drawn (1) or not drawn (0). (default: 1)

SHOWWALLS Specifies whether the four walls (four vertical bounding surfaces) should be drawn (1)

or not drawn (0). (default: 1)

SURFINC If not zero, this parameter specifies the increment between displayed Plot3D surface values.

That is, two Plot3D isosurfaces are displayed and the SURFINC value specifies the interval

between the two surfaces. (default: 0)

TRANSPARENT Specifies whether 2D and 3D contours should be drawn with solid colors (0) or transparent colors(1). (default: 1)

UNIT This keyword defines how to calculate colorbar label values for non-default units. Note that in

the following example all text to the right of the ‘//‘ characters is not part of the keyword but is

used to explain the format.

default:

UNIT

temperature // text appearing in smokeview unit menu

1 // number of FDS variables that have temperature units

temp // FDS variable, appears in colorbar heading

3 1 // number of units, default unit number

C // first unit

1.0 0.0 // newunitval = 1.0*oldunitval + 0.0

33
F // second unit

1.8 32.0

K // third unit

1.0 273.15

UNIT

velocity // text appearing in smokeview unit menu

4 // number of FDS variables that have velocity units

U-VEL // first variable

V-VEL // second variable

W-VEL // third variable

Speed // fourth variable

3 1 // number of units, default unit number

m/s

1.0 0.0

mph

2.236932 0.0

f/s

3.280833 0.0

USEVIEWPOINT Specifies whether the stored viewpoint parameters should (1) or should not (0) be

used to restore the viewpoint of a scene. (default: 0)

VECTORSKIP Specifies what vectors to draw. For example, if this parameter is set to 2 then every 2nd

vector is drawn when displaying vectors. (default: 1)

VIEWPOINT Specifies the internal Smokeview parameters used to record a scene’s viewpoint and orientation. This parameter is set automatically by Smokeview when a .ini file is created. (default:

none)

D.2 Smokeview Parameter Input File (.smv file)

The FDS software outputs simulation results into the Smokeview input file with extension .smv and various

output data files whose format is documented in the next section. A .smv file is a formatted ascii file (ie. a

regular text file) consisting of a set of KEYWORD followed by DATA describing an FDS case’s geometry,

file name and contents, sensor information etc.

D.2.1 Geometry Keywords

GRID This keyword specifies the number of grid cells in the X, Y and Z directions. For example,

GRID

10 20 30

specifies that there are 10, 20 and 30 grid cells in the X, Y and Z directions respectively.

PDIM This keywords specifies the physical length of the simulation domain in the X, Y and Z directions.

For example,

34
PDIM

6.0 12.0 5.0

specifies that the length of the X, Y and Z directions is 6.0, 12.0 and 5.0 m respectively.

HIDE_OBST This keyword specifies when a blockage should be opened. For example,

HIDE_VENT 10 120.1

specifies that the tenth blockage should be opened at 120.1 seconds. This keyword is automatically added to the .smv file by FDS version 2.0 . This (and the OPEN_VENT, CLOSE_VENT)

keyword may be added by hand to FDS version 1.0 files.

OBST The keyword specifies internal blockages. A FORTRAN 90 code segment describing the format

of OBST data is given by:

read(5,*)nb

do i = 1, nb

read(5,*)dummy

end do

do i = 1, nb

read(5,*)ib1(i), ib2(i), jb1(i), jb2(i), kb1(i), kb2(i)

end do

where ib1, ib2, jb1, kb1, kb2 are integer arrays containing boundary nodes.

TRNX,TRNY,TRNZ The TRNX, TRNY, TRNZ keywords specify grid nodes in the X, Y, Z coordinate directions. A FORTRAN 90 code segment describing the format of TRNX data is given

by:

read(5,*)nx

do i = 1, nx

read(5,x)idummy

end do

do i = 1, nx

read(5,*)xplt(i)

end do

TRNY and TRNZ data entries are defined similarly. The first nx data items are not required by

Smokeview.

VENT The keyword specifies vent coordinates. A FORTRAN 90 code segment describing the format

of VENT data is given by:

35
read(5,*)nv

do i = 1, nv

read(5,*)dummy

end do

do i = 1, nv

read(5,*)iv1(i), iv2(i), jv1(i), jv2(i), kv1(i), kv2(i)

end do

where iv1, iv2, jv1, kv1, kv2 are integer arrays containing vent coordinates.

OPEN_VENT(CLOSE_VENT) These keywords specifies when a vent should be opened(closed). For

example,

CLOSE_VENT

3 15.6

specifies that the third vent should be closed at 15.6 seconds.

XYZ The XYZ keyword defines the .xyz or Plot3D grid file name. A FORTRAN 90 code segment

describing the format of XYZ data is given by:

read(5,"(a)")xyzfilename

where xyzfilename is a character variable containing the name of the .xyz file.

D.2.2 File Keywords

BNDF The BNDF keyword defines the .bf file name along with character labels used to describe the

data contents of the boundary file. A FORTRAN 90 code segment describing the format of

BNDF data is given by:

read(5,"(a)")longlabel

read(5,"(a)")shortlabel

read(5,"(a)")unit

where longlabel, shortlabel, unit are character variables of length 30.

INPF The INPF keyword specifies a file containing a copy of the FDS input file.

ISOF The ISOF keyword defines the .iso file name along with character labels used to describe the

data contents of the isosurface file. A FORTRAN 90 code segment describing the format of

ISOF data is given by:

read(5,"(a)")longlabel

36
read(5,"(a)")shortlabel

read(5,"(a)")unit

where longlabel, shortlabel, unit are character variables of length 30.

PART The PART keyword defines the .part file name along with character labels used to describe

the data contents of the particle file. A FORTRAN 90 code segment describing the format of

PART data is given by:

read(5,"(a)")longlabel

read(5,"(a)")shortlabel

read(5,"(a)")unit

where longlabel, shortlabel, unit are character variables of length 30.

PL3D The PL3D keyword defines the .q file name along with character labels used to describe the

data contents for each Plot3D variable. A FORTRAN 90 code segment describing the format of

PL3D data is given by:

do i = 1, 5

read(5,"(a)")longlabel(i)

read(5,"(a)")shortlabel(i)

read(5,"(a)")unit(i)

end do

where the character arrays longlabel, shortlabel, unit each have length 30.

SLCF The SLCF keyword defines the .sf file name along with character labels used to describe the

data contents of the slice file. A FORTRAN 90 code segment describing the format of SLCF

data is given by:

read(5,"(a)")longlabel

read(5,"(a)")shortlabel

read(5,"(a)")unit

where longlabel, shortlabel, unit are character variables of length 30.

D.2.3 Sensor Keywords

HEAT TheHEATkeyword defines heat detector location data. A FORTRAN 90 code segment describing

the format of HEAT data is given by:

read(5,*)nheat

37
do i = 1, nheat

read(5,*)xheat(i),yheat(i),zheat(i)

end do

where nheat is the number of heat detectors and xheat, yheat, zheat are the x, y,

z coordinates of the heat detectors.

HEAT_ACT The HEAT_ACT keyword defines heat detector activation data. A FORTRAN 90 code

segment describing the format of HEAT_ACT data is given by:

read(5,*)iheat, heat_time

where heat_time is the activation time of the iheat’th heat detector.

SPRK The SPRK keyword defines sprinkler location data. A FORTRAN 90 code segment describing

the format of SPRK data is given by:

read(5,*)nsprink

do i = 1, nsprink

read(5,*)xsprink(i),ysprink(i),zsprink(i)

end do

where nsprink is the number of sprinklers and xsprink, ysprink, zsprink are the

x, y, z coordinates of the sprinklers.

SPRK_ACT The SPRK_ACT keyword defines sprinkler activation data. A FORTRAN 90 code segment

describing the format of SPRK_ACT data is given by:

read(5,*)isprink, sprink_time

where sprink_time is the activation time of the isprink’th sprinkler.

THCP The THCP keyword defines thermocouple location data. A FORTRAN 90 code segment describing the format of THCP data is given by:

read(5,*)ntherm

do i = 1, ntherm

read(5,*)xtherm(i),ytherm(i),ztherm(i)

end do

where ntherm is the number of thermocouples and xtherm, ytherm and ztherm are

the x, y and z coordinates of the thermocouples.

38
D.2.4 Miscellaneous Keywords

ENDIAN The ENDIAN keyword defines whether a big or little endian6 system is used to represent the

data. The PC (both Windows and LINUX) uses the little endian system for representing numbers

while most UNIX workstations use the big endian system. The PC version of Smokeview uses

this keyword to determine whether data should be converted between these two systems before

it is visualized. The valid ENDIAN parameters are BIG or LITTLE.

SYST The SYST keyword defines which system the FDS case was run on. The PC version of Smokeview uses this information (if the ENDIAN keyword is absent) to swap data bytes if the FDS

case was run on a computer with a different “endian” format than the PC.

TITLE1/TITLE2 The TITLE1 and TITLE2 keywords allow one to specify extra information documenting a Smokeview case. These keywords and associated labels are added by hand to the

smokeview (.smv) file using the format:

TITLE1

first line of descriptive text

TITLE2

second line of descriptive text

D.3 Data File Formats (.iso, .part, .sf, .bf and .q files)

Smokeview visualizes fire dynamics data using isosurface, particle, boundary, slice and Plot3D data files

described in this section along with a Smokeview parameter input file described in the previous section. This

section documents the data format of each data file by showing FORTRAN program code segments used to

write the data out. All files are unformatted and are opened using OPEN statements of the form:

OPEN(UNIT=IUNIT,FILE=FILENAME,FORM="UNFORMATTED")

where IUNIT is the FORTRAN unit number used for output and FILENAME is a character variable containing

the file name. In the following code segments the standard FORTRAN naming convention of associating

variables beginning with I through N to integer variables and all other alphabetic characters to REAL variables

is used. It is assumed that all variables take up four bytes. Variables having DUMMY in the name indicates

that they are not used by Smokeview.

D.3.1 Isosurface File Format

Isosurface files are used to store one or more surfaces where each surface represents a region where the

solution take one a particular value. The FDS software outputs isosurface frames at fixed time intervals. A

“pseudo-code” representation of the isosurface file is given by:

version (int)

len1,len2,len3 (3*int)

label1,label2,label3 ((len1+len2+len3+4)*char)

6Big-endian and little-endian are terms that describe the order in which a sequence of bytes are stored in computer memory. Big-endian

is an order in which the big end (most significant value in the sequence) is stored first (at the lowest storage address). Little-endian is

an order in which the little end (least significant value in the sequence) is stored first. The terms big-endian and little-endian are derived

from the Lilliputians of Gulliver’s Travels, whose major political issue was whether soft-boiled eggs should be opened on the big end or

the little end.

39
nlevels (int)

level_1, level_2, ..., level_nlevels (nlevels*float)

for each time:

time (float)

for each level

nvertices (int)

ntriangles (int)

vertices_1, ..., vertex_nvertices (3*short*nvertices)

triangles_1, ..., triangle_ntriangles (3*short*ntriangles)

end level

end time

D.3.2 Particle File Format

Particle files are used to store smoke/tracer particles and/or sprinkler droplet information. The particle file

consists of a header and a series of particle frames. Each frame contains particle/droplet positions and data

values for each particle in that frame. The FDS software outputs particle frames at fixed time intervals but

there is no requirement by Smokeview for this to happen. Smokeview reads in the data one frame at a time

noting the time read in for each frame. The header can be described using the code segment:

WRITE(IUNIT) DUMMY,DUMMY,DUMMY,IPART,NPPS

WRITE(IUNIT) IBAR,JBAR,KBAR

WRITE(IUNIT) (DUMMY,I=0,IBAR),(DUMMY,J=0,JBAR),(DUMMY,K=0,KBAR)

WRITE(IUNIT) NB

DO N=1,NB

WRITE(IUNIT) IB1(N),IB2(N),JB1(N),JB2(N),KB1(N),KB2(N),1

END DO

WRITE(IUNIT) NV

DO N=1,NV

WRITE(IUNIT) IV1(N),IV2(N),JV1(N),JV2(N),KV1(N),KV2(N),2

END DO

WRITE(IUNIT) NSPR

DO N=1,NSPR

WRITE(IUNIT) XSP0(N),YSP0(N),ZSP0(N)

END DO

where DUMMY is written by FDS but not needed by Smokeview, IPART is the index of the scalar quantity

associated with the particles, NPPS is the maximum number of particles per frame, IB1, IB2, etc are the

indices of blocked grid cells, IV1, IV2, etc indicate vent cell nodes, and XSP0, YSP0, ZSP0 are the

coordinates of the sprinklers. Grid coordinates are obtained by Smokeview from the Smokeview parameter

input file. A particle frame is written using:

WRITE(IUNIT) TIME,NP,IDUMMY,(ISPR(N),N=1,NSPR)

WRITE(IUNIT) (XP(I),I=1,NP),

. (YP(I),I=1,NP),

. (ZP(I),I=1,NP),

. (BP(I),I=1,NP)

IF (NASPR.GT.0) THEN

40
WRITE(IUNIT) NSP

WRITE(IUNIT) (XSP(I),I=1,NSP),(YSP(I),I=1,NSP),(ZSP(I),I=1,NSP)

ENDIF

where NP is the number of particles in this frame, ISPR denotes whether the sprinkler has activated, NSPR is

the number of sprinklers, XP, YP, ZP are the particle coordinates, BP is the particle value, NASPR is the

number of active sprinklers, NSP is the number of sprinkler droplets, and XSP, YSP, ZSP are the droplet

coordinates.

D.3.3 Slice File Format

Slice files are unformatted. The slice file header is written out using:

WRITE(IUNIT) CDUMMY

WRITE(IUNIT) CDUMMY

WRITE(IUNIT) CDUMMY

WRITE(IUNIT) I1,I2,J1,J2,K1,K2

where CDUMMY is character strings of length 30. Smokeview obtains this information from the Smokeview

parameter input file and not from the slice file. The sextuple (I1,I2,J1,J2,K1,K2) denotes the bounding

grid cell nodes of the slice to be displayed. The sextuple indices correspond to grid cell nodes, or corners, thus

the entire grid would be represented by the sextuple (0,IBAR,0,JBAR,0,KBAR). The grid node positions

are obtained from the Smokeview parameter input file.

The FDS software outputs slice frames at fixed time intervals but there is no requirement by Smokeview

for this to happen. Each slice frame is written using:

WRITE(IUNIT) TIME

WRITE(IUNIT) (((QQ(I,J,K),I=11,I2),J=J1,J2),K=K1,K2)

where TIME is the time in seconds when the data is ouput and QQ are the data values.

D.3.4 Boundary Files

The boundary files are unformatted. The header is written out using:

WRITE(IUNIT) QUANTITY

WRITE(IUNIT) SHORT_NAME

WRITE(IUNIT) UNITS

WRITE(IUNIT) NPATCH

DO 10 I=1,NPATCH

WRITE(IUNIT) IP1(I),IP2(I),JP1(I),JP2(I),KP1(I),KP2(I)

10 CONTINUE

where QUANTITY, SHORT_NAME and UNITS are character strings of length 30, NPATCH is the number

of planes (or “patches”) that make up the solid boundaries plus the external walls. The sextuple arrays

(IP1,IP2,JP1,JP2,KP1,KP2) defines the cell nodes of each patch. The user does not prescribe these.

The FDS software outputs boundary frames at fixed time intervals but there is no requirement by Smokeview for this to happen. The boundary file frame is written using:

WRITE(IUNIT) TIME

DO 10 I=1,NPATCH

WRITE(IUNIT) (((QQ(I,J,K),I=IP1(I),IP2(I)),J=JP1(I),JP2(I)),K=KP1(I),KP2(I))

10 CONTINUE

41
D.3.5 Plot3D Data

Field data is dumped periodically by FDS in a format used by the graphics package Plot3D[11]. The Plot3D

data sets are single precision (32 bit reals), whole and unformatted. Note that there is blanking, that is, blocked

out data points are not plotted. The grid data is written out to a file called casename.xyz using:

WRITE(IUNIT) IBAR+1,JBAR+1,KBAR+1

WRITE(IUNIT) (((X(I),I=0,IBAR),J=0,JBAR),K=0,KBAR),

. (((Y(J),I=0,IBAR),J=0,JBAR),K=0,KBAR),

. (((Z(K),I=0,IBAR),J=0,JBAR),K=0,KBAR),

. (((IBLK(I,J,K),I=0,IBAR),J=0,JBAR),K=0,KBAR)

where IBAR+1, JBAR+1, KBAR+1 are the number of grid cells along the I, J, K coordinate directions,

X, Y and Z are the physical coordinates of the cell corners, and IBLK is an indicator of whether or not the cell

is blocked. If the point (X,Y,Z) is completely embedded within a solid region, then IBLK is 0. Otherwise,

IBLK is 1. The flow variables are written to a file using:

WRITE(IUNIT) IBAR+1,JBAR+1,KBAR+1

WRITE(IUNIT) ZERO,ZERO,ZERO,ZERO

WRITE(IUNIT) ((((QQ(I,J,K,N),I=0,IBAR),J=0,JBAR),K=0,KBAR),N=1,5)

The five channels N=1,5 are by default the temperature (C), the u, v and w components of the velocity (m/s),

and the heat release rate per unit volume (kW/m3).

E Sample FDS Input Files

E.1 Plume Case

&HEAD CHID=’plume’,TITLE=’Single Fire Plume’ /

&GRID IBAR=32,JBAR=32,KBAR=72 /

&PDIM XBAR=1.5,YBAR=1.5,ZBAR=3.5 /

&TRNX IDERIV=0,CC=0.75,PC=0.75 /

&TRNX IDERIV=1,CC=0.75,PC=0.5 /

&TRNY IDERIV=0,CC=0.75,PC=0.75 /

&TRNY IDERIV=1,CC=0.75,PC=0.5 /

&TIME DT=0.05,TWFIN=20. /

&SURF ID=’burner’,HRRPUA=600.,TBO=0.20 /

&OBST XB=0.65,0.85,0.65,0.85,0.00,0.15 /

&VENT XB=0.65,0.85,0.65,0.85,0.15,0.15,SURF_ID=’burner’ /

&VENT CB=’XBAR’ ,SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&VENT CB=’XBAR0’,SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&VENT CB=’YBAR’ ,SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&VENT CB=’YBAR0’,SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&VENT CB=’ZBAR’ ,SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&PART QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,NPSAM=5 /

&ISOF QUANTITY=’MIXTURE_FRACTION’,VALUE(1)=0.03,VALUE(2)=0.001 /

&PL3D DTSAM=5. /

42
&SLCF PBY=0.75,QUANTITY=’DENSITY’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBY=0.75,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBZ=0.75,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBZ=1.50,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBZ=2.50,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBZ=3.00,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

E.2 Townhouse Case

&HEAD CHID=’thouse’,TITLE=’Town House Kitchen Fire’ /

&GRID IBAR=48,JBAR=64,KBAR=36 /

&PDIM XBAR=6.4,YBAR=8.0,ZBAR=4.8 /

&TIME TWFIN=180.0 /

&MISC TMPA=20.,SURF_DEFAULT=’GYPSUM BOARD’,NFRAMES=720 /

&SURF ID=’GYPSUM BOARD’

HRRPUA=100.

RAMP_Q=’GB’

KS=0.48

ALPHA=4.1E-7

DELTA=0.013

TMPIGN=400. /

&RAMP ID=’GB’,T= 0.0,F=0.0 /

&RAMP ID=’GB’,T= 1.0,F=0.5 /

&RAMP ID=’GB’,T= 2.0,F=1.0 /

&RAMP ID=’GB’,T=10.0,F=1.0 /

&RAMP ID=’GB’,T=20.0,F=0.0 /

&RAMP ID=’GB’,T=30.0,F=0.0 /

&SURF ID=’THINPINE’

HRRPUA=200.

KS=0.14

ALPHA=8.3E-8

DELTA=0.008

TMPIGN=390. /

&SURF ID=’BURNER’,HRRPUA=1000. /

&VENT XB=0.0,0.6,1.0,2.00,0.9,0.9,SURF_ID=’BURNER’ /

&VENT XB=3.4,4.2,0.0,0.00,3.2,3.4,SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&VENT XB=1.2,2.0,0.0,0.00,3.2,3.4,SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&VENT XB=3.0,3.8,8.0,8.00,3.2,3.4,SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&VENT XB=1.2,2.0,8.0,8.00,3.2,3.4,SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&VENT XB=4.0,4.8,8.0,8.00,0.0,0.2,SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&VENT XB=4.0,4.8,8.0,8.00,0.2,2.2,T_OPEN=60.,SURF_ID=’OPEN’ /

&OBST XB=0.00,1.08,0.00,0.23,1.50,2.4, SURF_ID=’THINPINE’/

&OBST XB=0.00,0.23,0.25,2.75,1.50,2.4, SURF_ID=’THINPINE’/

&OBST XB=0.00,3.63,2.75,3.75,0.00,2.4/

43
&OBST XB=2.533330, 2.933330, 0.000000, 1.500000, 1.466670, 2.400000, SURF_ID=’THINPINE’/

&OBST XB=2.40,3.10,0.00,1.75,0.00,0.9, SURF_ID=’THINPINE’/

&OBST XB=0.00,2.40,0.00,0.75,0.00,0.9, SURF_ID=’THINPINE’/

&OBST XB=0.00,0.60,0.75,2.75,0.00,0.9, SURF_ID=’THINPINE’/

&OBST XB=3.466670, 4.933330, 3.500000, 3.750000, 2.000000, 2.400000/

&OBST XB=4.933330, 5.200000, 3.500000, 5.500000, 0.000000, 2.400000/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,6.50,6.75,0.00,0.20/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,6.25,6.50,0.00,0.40/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,6.00,6.25,0.00,0.60/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,5.75,6.00,0.00,0.80/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,5.50,5.75,0.00,1.00/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,5.25,5.50,0.00,1.20/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,5.00,5.25,0.00,1.40/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,4.75,5.00,0.00,1.60/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,4.50,4.75,0.00,1.80/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,4.25,4.50,0.00,2.00/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,4.00,4.25,0.00,2.20/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,3.50,4.00,0.00,2.50/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,2.25,3.50,2.40,4.8/

&OBST XB=4.933330, 5.200000, 4.250000, 8.000000, 2.400000, 4.800000/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,6.25,8.00,2.40,4.8/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,6.00,6.25,2.60,4.8/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,5.75,6.00,2.80,4.8/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,5.50,5.75,3.00,4.8/

&OBST XB=5.2,6.4,5.25,5.50,3.20,4.8/

&OBST XB=0.000000, 5.200000, 0.000000, 8.000000, 2.400000, 2.666670/

&OBST XB=2.533330, 2.800000, 0.000000, 2.500000, 2.666670, 4.800000/

&OBST XB=0.000000, 4.000000, 3.500000, 4.500000, 2.666670, 4.800000/

&OBST XB=2.800000, 3.866670, 2.250000, 2.500000, 2.666670, 4.800000/

&OBST XB=5.200000, 6.400000, 0.000000, 2.250000, 2.400000, 2.666670/

&OBST XB=4.000000, 4.933330, 4.250000, 4.500000, 4.400000, 4.800000/

&OBST XB=3.866670, 4.000000, 2.250000, 3.500000, 4.400000, 4.800000/

&OBST XB=4.00,5.20,2.25,2.50,4.40,4.8/

&ISOF QUANTITY=’MIXTURE_FRACTION’,VALUE(1)=0.03,VALUE(2)=0.001 /

&PART QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,NPSAM=5 /

&PL3D DTSAM=30. /

&BNDF QUANTITY=’WALL_TEMPERATURE’ /

&SLCF PBY=1.5,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBZ=2.2,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBZ=4.6,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBX=4.4,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

&SLCF PBX=5.8,QUANTITY=’TEMPERATURE’,VECTOR=.TRUE. /

44
F Frequently Asked Questions

This appendix contains a list of frequently asked questions concerning Smokeview. An updated list may be

found at http://fire.nist.gov/smokeview .

F.1 How can I keep up with new releases and other information about FDS and

Smokeview?

An e-mail list has been set up to alert users to changes, upgrades, etc. To subscribe to the list, send an email

to listproc@nist.gov and put the line

subscribe fdsusers Jane Doe

in the text where Jane Doe is your name. Subject line is unimportant. To get off the list, send an email to

the same address and write

unsubscribe fdsusers

Also, you can check the web page http://fire.nist.gov/download to see the date of the most recent update.

F.2 Smokeview doesn’t look right on my computer. What’s wrong?

Some video cards use too few bits to represent the “depth buffer”. The depth buffer is used to determine when

objects are hidden and therefore should not be drawn. A problem then can occur when the video card reduces

the number of depth buffer bits from 32 to 16 in order to speed up its performance (less data to transport).

This results in straight lines or polygonal edges appearing to be scalloped. Often reducing the acceleration

setting for the video card can eliminate this problem. To do this:

• click your mouse on the desktop to bring up the "Display Properties" dialog box.

• click on the "Advanced..." button

• Find the dialog panel that lets you select the "Hardware acceleration". Reduce the acceleration (rebooting if necessary) until the scalloping disappears.

If you have upgraded your PC recently, make sure you have loaded the latest drivers for your video card.

F.3 How do I make a movie of a Smokeview animation?

You make a movie of a Smokeview animation by converting the visualized scene into a series PNG or JPEG

files, one file for each time. More specifically:

• Set up Smokeview orienting the scene and loading the desired data files.

• Select the Options/Render menu and pick the desired frame rate. The more frames you include in the

animation, the smoother it will look. Of course more frames results in larger file sizes.

• Use a program such as the Antechinus Media Editor or Platypus Animator available at http://www.cpoint.com

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References

[1] G. P. Forney and K. McGrattan. User’s Guide for Smokeview Version 1.0: A Tool for Visualizing Fire

Dynamics Simulation Data. NISTIR 6513, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 1999.

[2] K.B. McGrattan and G.P. Forney. Fire Dynamics Simulator Version 2.0- User’s Guide. Technical Report

NISTIR xxxx, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, March 2001.

[3] K.B. McGrattan, H.R. Baum, R.G. Rehm, A. Hamins, and G.P. Forney. Fire Dynamics Simulator

- Technical Reference Manual. Technical Report NISTIR 6467, National Institute of Standards and

Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, January 2000.

[4] K.B. McGrattan and G.P. Forney. Fire Dynamics Simulator - User’s Guide. Technical Report NISTIR

6469, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland, January 2000.

[5] K.B. McGrattan, H.R. Baum, and R.G. Rehm. Large Eddy Simulations of Smoke Movement. Fire Safety

Journal, 30:161–178, 1998.

[6] D. Madrzykowski and R.L. Vettori. Simulation of the Dynmaics of the Fire at 3146 Cherry Road NE,

Washington, DC May 30, 1999. Technical Report NISTIR 6510, Gaithersburg, Maryland, April 2000.

[7] Mason Woo, Jackie Neider, Tom Davis, and Dave Shreiner. OpenGL Programming Guide. AddisonWesley, Reading, Massachussets, 3 edition, 1999.

[8] Richard S. Wright Jr. and Michael Sweet. OpenGL Super Bible. Waite Group Press, Indianapolis,

Indianna, 2 edition, 2000.

[9] Mark J. Kilgard. OpenGL Programming for the X Window System. Addison-Wesley Developers Press,

Reading, Massachussets, 1996.

[10] Thomas Boutell. CGI Programming in C & Perl. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Reading, Massachussets, 1996.

[11] Pamela P. Walatka and Pieter G. Buning. PLOT3D User’s Manual, version 3.5. NASA Technical

Memorandum 101067, 1989.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the many people who have contributed to this work providing comments and

suggesting improvements, many of which have been incorporated into version 2.0 of Smokeview. Further

suggestions or comments are encouraged and may be sent to glenn.forney@nist.gov or to the web

site with URL: http://fire.nist.gov/smokeview .

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