User Defined File Formats

This section is intended for experienced programmers. In order to allow the reading of a different file format the functions in /vis5d-5.2/src/user_data.c must be changed. There are two functions in user_data.c which need to be changed, user_data_get_header and user_data_get_grid. There is currently sample code in both of these functions to use as a template to create a new data file format. The sample code reads the sample user data in /vis5d-5.2/user_data.

A user can also define new topography and map file formats. In order to read a new topography file format the function user_data_get_topo must be changed, and for a new map file format the function user_data_get_map must be changed. Both of these functions are also found in /vis5d-5.2/src/user_data.c and they both have sample code.

In order to invoke the reading of new file format for data, topography or map files the command line option -userdata followed by a 'G' (for grid data), 'M' (for map data) and/or 'T' (for topography data). For example to use the sample code in user_data.c to read grid data and topography data, the following line would be used:

vis5d user_data/ETA.dat -user_data GT -topo user_data/ETA_TOPO.dat