OpenFOAM result visualization flow development in Unreal Engine
Developing a script to convert the results of calculations made with OpenFOAM into a form that can be visualized in Unreal Engine
Visualization examples in Unreal Engine (solids and streamlines)
Visualization example in Unreal Engine (isosurface)
Issues
When fluid calculations are performed using OpenFOAM, it is common to visualize the results using ParaView.
Although ParaView has sufficient functionality for visualization, it has the drawback of being inferior in terms of visuals to 3D visualization engines used in game production.
Development
To solve the above issues, we established a workflow for visualizing OpenFOAM calculation results in Unreal Engine, a leading 3D visualization engine, and implemented the necessary conversion scripts.
As a result, as shown in the image above, most of the things that can be visualized in ParaView (solids, cross-sections, isosurfaces, streamlines, etc.) can now be rendered more realistically in Unreal Engine.
Detail of technology
The conversion flow is roughly structured as follows:
As usual, the OpenFOAM results are visualized in ParaView.
By running a Python script on ParaView, you can output an x3d file.
Run a Python script in Blender to convert x3d files to fbx files.
Run the Python script on Unreal Engine to load the fbx file and visualize it.