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Replace legacy VTK output with XML VTU/PVD across dfnWorks

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#146 0 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@hymanjd is already working on this.

Since Jun 18, 2026.

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Description

Summary

dfnWorks currently writes legacy ASCII .vtk files for flow and transport visualization output. These should be replaced with XML .vtu (VTK Unstructured Grid) files and .pvd (ParaView Data Collection) time series files.

Motivation

Legacy VTK is a deprecated format. XML VTU/PVD offers several concrete advantages:

  • Time series support — .pvd files encode actual simulation times, so ParaView's time slider maps to physical time rather than sequential file indices
  • Modern format — .vtu is the current VTK standard and is better supported by ParaView, VisIt, and downstream Python tooling (pyvista, vtk)
  • Extensibility — XML VTU supports binary and compressed data arrays, which will matter as mesh sizes grow
  • Consistency — the new TOUGH output parser (parse_tough_output) already writes VTU/PVD; the PFLOTRAN parser should match

Scope

  • parse_pflotran_h5 — currently writes legacy .vtk; switch to .vtu + .pvd
  • parse_pflotran_vtk_python — same
  • Any other dfnWorks routines that write .vtk output
  • Update output directory names from pflotran_vtk_outputs → pflotran_vtu_outputs for consistency
  • Update documentation and example notebooks
Dominant language
Python
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97
Forks
55
Avg merge
1m
Merged PRs (30d)
2

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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
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