Calculating Mass-Weighted Average

How do I calculate the mass-weighted average of a scalar through a surface? Mass weighted average can be obtained from the combined use of the function editor and two separate integrations. The mass weighted average is usually defined as: Thus, it can be computed by dividing the summation of the value of the selected variable multiplied by the absolute value of the dot product of the facet area and momentum […]

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Tecplot on Apple Silicon

Are Tecplot products supported on Apple Silicon (aka M1, M2, and M3 chips)?  Yes. Tecplot 360, FieldView, Tecplot Focus, and PyTecplot all run on Apple Silicon based machines. That said, you’ll need Rosetta 2 to run them. If Rosetta 2 isn’t already installed on your mac, see this article for installation instructions.    But PyTecplot in batch mode doesn’t work on my Apple Silicon machine!  In order to use PyTecplot […]

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Converting Variables Between Cell Centered and Nodal

Question: How do I convert a cell centered variable to be nodal, or vice versa? Solution: This can be done by creating a new variable in the Specify Equations dialog (Data>Alter>Specify Equations). By using the new var location field, a new variable equal to an existing variable can be created with values stored in either location. For example, say a dataset has a cell centered variable named Velocity: To convert […]

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Automatic Connection to a License Server When Starting Tecplot 360

Problem: I want Tecplot 360 to automatically connect to a license server upon startup in the GUI or in batch mode.   Solution: Tecplot 360 offers two methods to automatically connect to a license server: creating an environment variable or updating a license file. Automatically connecting to a license server is especially important with headless machines. See more details on these two methods in the sections below.   Method 1 […]

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How to use RLM Failover Keys

To install RLM Failover keys on Tecplot or FieldView products, follow the steps below. The names of the license files differ between the products but the steps are the same. Setting up RLM Primary/Failover Servers Place the following file in the primary server’s RLM installation directory: tecplotlm.lic OR fieldview.lic Place the following files in the failover server’s RLM installation directory: tecplotlm.lic and tecplotlm_failover.lic OR fieldview.lic and fieldview_failover.lic Restart each RLM. […]

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Tecplot 360 hangs during movie creation when running tec360 in the background

Problem: Tecplot 360 appears to hang at the end of movie generation running ‘tec360 &’ (running 360 in the background). This is a known issue with the FFmpeg executable, which Tecplot 360 uses to create movie files. Solution: Include ‘-nostdin’ to the AVI, WMV, or MP4 Format Options in your tecplot.cfg file to avoid a FFmpeg hang if you’re running tec360 on Linux in the background. For example: $!ExportSetup MPEGFormatOptions […]

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How to run PyTecplot with Anaconda

Problem: I’m running into errors when I try to run PyTecplot scripts with Anaconda. Solution: PyTecplot scripts can be run with Anaconda installed after creating a new, streamlined, conda environment which does not include Qt dependencies. PyTecplot is dependent on an external package, Qt version 5.15.2 (as of 360 2021 R2) which conflicts with the version of Qt (5.9.x as of November 2021) included in the base conda environment. The […]

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Creating Geometric Regions

A quick reference guide on how to create different geometric regions can be found at the bottom of this article. In Tecplot 360, users may need to create a geometric region to perform operations such as extracting or blanking data. For example, an internal combustion engineer may want to quantify the temperature within a certain radius of a spark plug. By generating a sphere region around the spark plug and […]

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Troubleshooting Linux Crashes

Problem: I get a crash running Tecplot 360 on my Linux operating system. Solution: Note: The 2020 R1 release of Tecplot 360 introduced a change in the way Tecplot is rendered in mesa. See the Troubleshooting chapter of the User’s Manual for more information (also at the bottom of this article). We’ve written up some instructions for responding to Linux crashes. Please check these questions: 1)  Double-check that your graphics […]

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