Why can I not view results in post processor even after successful simulation?

Often we come across the above question. Therefore, the following information on how the data is post processed on SimScale will help:

  1. Result data is stored on SimScale secure servers. This data can account for a large amount of storage and can be accessed by the user either via the online post-processor or by downloading them.

  2. Once the user switches to post processor tab and clicks on the solution fields, the local user machine sends the SimScale servers a request for a new online post-processing session.

  1. By default, result visualization data is converted to packets and sent to the client’s machine, which can then be rendered via WebGL and their respective numerical values presented to the end-user. Depending on the size of the result, this first can take some time. The current post-processing framework defaults to using the WebGL renderer. This approach offers the advantage of higher frame-rates for interaction with results during visualization and smoother shading and rendering, but comes at the price of local resources on the client-side, as well as potential longer loading times due to data transfer.

  1. At this moment, local resources of the user machine are being used, mainly graphics card, CPU and the necessary amount of RAM to display results. Depending on result size and browser being used, performance may directly be influenced by the capabilities of the user’s machine.

  1. An alternate method is currently offered, which does makes only a light use of the user’s machine resources, is to request rendering to be performed exclusively on SimScale servers. This currently comes with a penalty in the form of lower frame-rates when interacting with the result during visualization. In order to make use of this option, turn-off WebGL and select SW Rendering on the post-processor configuration panel.

  1. When Using server-side Software rendering (SW-Rendering option), Rendering is done exclusively on SimScale machines and the end-result is streamed to the client. To reiterate, this will not make use of local resources, but currently implies lower frame-rates.

Therefore at some occasions, once the result size is too big, we suggest you to use second approach to view the results.

2 Likes

Hi @mkhan. I’ve made several small simulations but can’t get to display the Solution fields in Post-Processor tab. It only keeps loading for ages and actually doesn’t display the calculated solution. Why is that? I can’t find WebGL switch in SimScale interface now. Or should I clear some cache? Thank you.

Hi @Pavol_Kianicka, It might be related to your browser version. I have opened one of your result and it works fine. I am on Chrome version 63.0.3239.132

Best,
Ahmed

Hi @ahmedhussain18, thank you for reply. I use Chrome Version 64.0.3282.167 (Official Build) (64-bit). The Solution fields stopped displaying yesterday. I made like 5 or 6 simulations, and only one of them displays its Solution fields. I switched to some new Opera and one of the not-showing solutions suddenly opened. When I made another simulation from Opera, it didn’t displayed its Solution field again.
I’ll try clearing my browsers’ cache.

It might take sometime to finish the final post processing. As you said when you tried to open it in opera at that point the final results might be available. Can you try now to open the same results in Chrome? I am pretty sure you will now be able to see them in Chrome also. If not then SimScale can have a look in to your problem.

Best,
Ahmed