Use of Binary File Format

Asalih3d

Hey guys!

So this is primarily a question to the developers, but if anyone has any input I would love to hear. I just wondered why .bi4 was chosen as the binary file format and not something like hdf5? Could anyone explain this to me ? Does bi4 have some advantages which hdf5 does not have?

Kind regards

Alex

https://github.com/DualSPHysics/DualSPHysics/wiki/8.-Format-Files

Asalih3d

Thanks! I see that BINX4 has some very valid strong points, but the reason we use binary is to limit storage space primarily I assume, so my question is:

1) In a normal work flow we utilize binary data to make vtk and csv files anyways, so we lose a lot of storage space in this way. Wouldn't it then be better to use HDF5, where a lot of different readers can read the compressed binaries directly, ie. no need for csv files (unless you want to use Excel)?

2) I assume the DualSPHysics team does not utilize BINX4 directly, when they want to deal with a lot of simulation data - would it make sense to construct a tool which could real BINX4 directly, instead of switching to HDF5?

3) I have some questions about your binary vtk files output, do you know who coded this part so I can direct my questions to him directly?

I hope you can clear up my confusion.

Kind regards

Alex

The release includes not only the source files of DualSPHysics v4.4 but also the source files of a code named “ToVtk”. This code is provided to show how to load and interpret particle data, how to read .bi4 files and how to create .vtk or .csv files.

Asalih3d

Thanks! I will look further into it hopefully.

Kind regards