[MBDyn-users] Interface for accessing raw MBDyn-bulk-data

[patrick.rix at online.de]

Hello MBDyn-Users !

With Pierangelo's permission I would like to use the MBDyn user-mailing-list as a platform to spread a GOOD NEWS for all MBDyn-newbies :

An I N T E R F A C E for A C C E S S I N G raw M B D y n - B U L K - D A T A is now available under

<www.sourceforge.net> in project 'MBDyn_bulk_utils'

It's fee open source (GPL) and here is how you can find+get it:
Use the search-function in the upper right on the <www.sourceforge.net> main page and look for 'mbdyn_bulk_utils' .

The MBDyn_bulk_utils-package provides a minimalistic(!) console interface consisting of a few bash shell scripts offering conversion & visualization functionality. The scripts make use of the 'AWK'-tool for the conversion and of 'GNUplot' for the visualization and should run on Linux and Windows/Cygwin.
Note: The project is still in beta stage and was intended just to offer some solution (compared to the alternative to have none) - so don't have too high expectations concerning speed and handling.
Curious ? then have a look at it ! - and if you are a bash-script-wizard then please share your wisdom and tell me how to improve it.

If you decide to test the package I would be interested in your feedback.
You can send a mail to patrick.rix at online.de

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I would like to use the opportunity to gather some general feedback on the subject

"Developement of an interface for MBDyn-bulk-data" .

Due to the fact that MBDyn outputs its results in raw ASCII bulk format scattered over several files it lacks a comfortable interface providing an output format suitable for direct post-processing steps.
Especially the 'multi-line'-format whichs wraps the data of one time step entity-wise over several lines is very uncomfortable. Another hindrance is that the time track related to the time series of the various entities of the model (the *.frc, *.mov, *.jnt, etc. files) resides in a seperate file (the *.out file). Finally descriptive information about the physical meaning (force, moment, angle ?) and unit of the time series are missing.

So each new MBDyn-user (like me) suffers from creating its own solution for somehow accesssing the result time series - surely the experienced of you have already conquered this stage. Now, what I would like to know is

What solution did you figure out ? What tools do you use ?
Do you feel comfortable with your solution or do you feel the need to have something better ?
Which requirements are important for you ?

Any information on that will be appreciated.

With Kind Regards, Patrick Rix.