Problem: I have multiple frames on the paper and I don’t want frame borders in my export. So I’ve turned off the option Show border in the dialog Frame>Edit Active Frame. At the same time I’d like to see an outline for all invisible frame borders to get a better idea how these frames are positioned and overlap on the page in the 360 EX session. This outline should not […]
Problem: I have changed the position of the light source interactively using the mouse. There’s no UI option to reset the light source to its original position. How can I do this? Solution: Use a macro command to reset the light source position: #!MC 1410 $!GLOBALTHREED LIGHTSOURCE { XYZDIRECTION { X = -0.2 Y = -0.2 Z = 0.959 } }
Problem: I want to change the default colors of the palette. Solution: Call a macro at Tecplot’s startup to overwrite the default colors in the palette. To do so: Edit the tecplot.cfg file in Tecplot’s installation directory and include a set of $!BASICCOLOR macro commands to change the palette. In the palette, each color placeholder is referd to as CUSTOM#, where # is the placeholder number in the palette. […]
Question: When I use FFMPEG1 to convert a bunch of pngs to a GIF, it produces an ugly GIF (see the example script below and Figure 1). How do you use FFMPEG to convert a series of .png images to a high quality GIF in Windows? Example script (creates an ugly GIF): ffmpeg.exe -r 20 -i HighQual_%6d.png -s:v 2152×1914 -f GIF ffmpeg_HighQual.gif Solution: Both FFmpeg and ImageMagick convert2 can create […]
Question: How do I calculate the volume of a completely enclosed iso-surface? Solution: The volume of an iso-surface (no holes in it) may be calculated using 360’s data calculation, alteration and integration features by following these steps: A) First, create a zone from your iso-surface: Display the iso-surface of choice by going to the side panel and clicking the Iso-Surfaces Details… button. Activate only one iso-surface group and ensure that […]
Problem: Installing a maintenance release of 360 on Windows which replaces an existing 360 installation does not update 360 to the newer maintenance release version, even though the installer says the installation is successful. Solution: Close all running instances of Tecplot 360. A maintenance release overwrites the existing 360 installation. If 360 is running the operating system will prevent the executable from being upgraded. Confirm that all running instances of […]
Problem: The min-max values shown in the Data Set Information dialog do not show values across all time. Solution: If you have transient data, the min-max for a variable is only for the “active zones” which unfortunately means only the current time step because the other time steps are not currently active. To see the min-max for the entire data set, run the PlotMinMaxContourOverTime.mcr macro from the Tecplot handyscripts GitHub […]
Problem: In PyTecplot, why is the length of my array of cell-centered data of an IJK ordered zone (Imax)*(Jmax)*(Kmax-1) instead of (Imax-1)*(Jmax-1)*(Kmax-1)? For example, from a zone with 5x4x3 nodal values, I expect my cell-centered variable array to have a length of 4x3x2 = 24; however, the cell-centered variable array has a length of 40, (5x4x2 = 40). In other words: zone.num_elements == 24 len(zone.values(“CellCentered”)) == 40 Shouldn’t these be […]
Question: How does one replace the geometries (shapes, polylines, etc.) already present in a layout when a new data file is loaded into the layout file? Explanation of the Question: I created a layout file from a dataset that contains geometries, such as a relative wind velocity vector or aircraft body axes relative to wind axes. I want to create a template from this layout, but the geometries are now […]
Question: The symmetry of nodal Grid K Unit Normal values differ from the comparable cell-centered values (see Figure 1). How are nodal Grid K Unit Normal values calculated?1 Explaining the Question: In Figure 1, at nodes 1, 6, 11, 16, and 21 the X Grid K Unit Normal vectors are equal. However, on the data row below it (nodes 2, 7, 12, 17, and 22), the components of the X […]
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