Convert to VTK

Export OPM Flow grid and property data to VTK for three-dimensional inspection in ParaView.

Requirements

OPM Flow is required to generate the grid used by the VTK export. If the flow executable is not available on PATH, select it with plopm -fp.

Export selected variables

Export temperature, FIP regions, total CO2 mass, and liquid-phase CO2 mass fraction for restart steps 0 and 5:

plopm -i SPE11B -v temp,fipnum,co2m,xco2l -vf Float32,UInt16,Float64,Float16 -r 0,5 -m vtk

Grid and temperature after 25 years of CO2 injection, viewed in ParaView.

Select VTK data types

Use plopm -vf to assign a VTK data type to each variable. The data types correspond to the variables in the order supplied through plopm -v:

temp   -> Float32
fipnum -> UInt16
co2m   -> Float64
xco2l  -> Float16

The selected types balance precision and file size:

Float32

Stores temperature with single-precision floating-point values.

UInt16

Stores the discrete fipnum region identifiers as unsigned integers.

Float64

Preserves higher precision for total CO2 mass.

Float16

Reduces storage for the bounded liquid-phase CO2 mass fraction.

Use a wider type when the expected value range or required numerical precision cannot be represented safely by a smaller type.

Select restart steps

The command uses plopm -r to export the initial state and restart step 5. plopm writes the selected variables for each requested step so the results can be inspected or animated in ParaView.

Customize variable names

Use plopm -vn to assign custom names in the VTK output:

plopm -i SPE11B -v temp,fipnum,co2m,xco2l -vn temperature,fip_region,total_co2_mass,liquid_co2_fraction -vf Float32,UInt16,Float64,Float16 -r 0,5 -m vtk

The number of names supplied through plopm -vn must match the number of variables selected with plopm -v.

Use a custom Flow executable

If Flow is installed outside PATH, provide its executable explicitly:

plopm -i SPE11B -v temp,fipnum,co2m,xco2l -vf Float32,UInt16,Float64,Float16 -r 0,5 -m vtk -fp /path/to/flow

See OPM Flow for OPM Flow installation guidance and VTK output for the complete VTK option reference.

Reproduce this example

Run the complete workflow from the repository root:

. ./tests/scripts/docs_convert_to_vtk.sh

View script

View raw script

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