Visualization of Results Received with the Discrete Element Method

Abstract

The output of discrete element simulations includes thousands of time-frames and millions of interacting particles (bodies) in each frame. A single simulation can include terabytes of results, which may lead to very large, very complex data sets. Visualizing them is coupled with difficulties caused by either the number of particles, the number of time-frames or complexities of “system variables”. In this work, an attempt has been made to present a data format and graphical template dedicated to discrete element visualization. The article presents a practical approach to the issues, that is the result of programming an open source 3D visualizer, called DEV_KM.