Stream Lines is a type of presentation transforming the cells with vectors having most similar direction into lines . A streamline can be thought of as the path that a massless particle takes in a vector field. Streamlines are used to convey the structure of a vector field. Usually streamlines are created to explore the most interesting features in the field.
Creating streamlines requires specifying multiple parameters including starting points of streamlines, direction and other parameters to control the propagation of the streamlines.
In Post-Pro there is an option allowing to specify one particular area of the field on which the Stream Lines presentation will be created. This option has been created for optimization purposes: sometimes generation of a Stream Lines presentation based on all points of a very complicated field is very time-consuming and requires a lot of hardware resources.
To bound the area on which the Stream Lines presentation will be created. you can use another field presentation. The points of the field located on this source presentation will serve as starting points for generated streamlines.
- Right-click on one of the time stamps of the field in the Object browser and from the pop-up menu choose Stream Lines, or
- Click on one of the time stamps of the field in the Object browser and select from the main menu Visualization > Stream Lines, or click icon in the Visualization Toolbar.
Stream Lines tab allows you to set additional parameters of your Stream Lines presentation:
Source: This set of fields allows to define a source presentation on the basis of which your Stream Lines presentation will be generated. If in the Source type choose box you have chosen None, your Stream Lines presentation will be generated on all points of the field. You can also choose Entity, Family, Group or Presentation. You can also specify the source presentation (from the list of already created field presentations). The points of the field located on this source presentation will serve as starting points for generated streamlines.
In the Used points field you can set the number of these starting points (from 0 to 100%).
- Step Length field: this parameter defines the size of the output line segments that make up the streamline (which is represented as a polyline).
- Integration Step field: parameter of smoothness of the stream lines. This parameter defines the accuracy of construction of the streamlines. A smaller value of this parameter allows to construct smoother streamlines (at the cost of more computation time).
- Propagation Time field: this parameter controls the maximum length of the stream line (measured in units of time)
- Direction choose box: this option allows to select direction of the stream lines.(Forward, Backward or Both)
- Magnitude coloring check box: this option allows to color your presentation according the vector values applied to the cells of the mesh or to display it using only one color (this color can be selected if you click Use Color button).
Scalar Bar tab allows to define the parameters of the scalar bar displayed along with this presentation (see also).
After you have finished with setting these parameters, click OK. Your presentation with scalar bar will be immediately displayed in the viewer: