# Elmerpost Help

## A Short Intro to Elmerpost

Elmerpost is a program for displaying results from FEM analyses, primarily from Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). The program has been (or rather is being) developed at CSC - IT Center for Science Ltd. (CSC) as a part of the Elmer project, which itself is a part of the Finnish national CFD Technology Programme by the Technology Development Centre of Finland (TEKES).

Elmerpost is mostly coded in C-language using primarily two tool packages outside of it's own code: OpenGL graphics library which can be replaced by the freely distributable library called Mesa , and the TCL/TK package for user interface tools. The Elmerpost code and the tools used make this package usable in virtually any UNIX/X-environment. The tested environments are: Linux, SGI IRIX, HPUX and DEC Unix. Windows NT/Windows95 - version has also been tested and is working.

##### Elmerpost data display styles include:

- Color coded mesh display
- Isocountour line display
- Isosurface display
- Vector display
- Sphere display
- Particle advection and streamline display

##### There are also several additional features:

- A matrix language MATC, which can be used to manipulate data with
  - Basic matrix and vector operations
  - Dynamically sizeable variables
  - A programming language with functions, flow control, loops, I/O, etc.
  - Derivative operators for the finite element model: gradient, divergence, and curl
- Both a graphical and command line user interface
- The TCL/TK environment can be used to full extent, providing a programmable user interface tool to extend the program to specific needs
- Arbitrary cuts may be extracted from a 3D model
- Colormap editor, surface material editor, background color editor
- Unlimited number of user controllable views of the model
- A versatile clipping ability
- Some basic element grouping ability (at the moment not very effective use is made of this ability)
- Online help in HTML format (a simple basic HTML browser is also included)

Here are some example pictures made with Elmerpost: Picture Gallery . To get more information and obtain the sofware contact Juha Ruokolainen at CSC.

## Using Elmerpost

Below are specific instructions for using Elmerpost. This is not complete as yet, please be patient with me.

## Topics

- File Menu
  - File Format
- Edit Menu
  - Colormap Editor
  - Grouping
  - Material Editor
  - Background Color Editor
  - Time Step Control
  - Math Module Window
  - Stop Processing
  - Camera Settings
  - Object Clip Planes
- Display Menu
  - Mesh Lines
  - Color Mesh
  - Countour Lines
  - Contour Surfaces and Model Cuts
  - Vector Display
  - Particle Dispaly
  - Shepre Display
  - Color Scale Display
- MATC Matrix Language
- Controlling transformations