howtos/output.md

+# Output
+
+This page contains some information about the Output SHEMAT-Suite can
+produce. The kinds of output files produced depend on the settings in
+the [Input File](tutorial/input_file#output-file-formats).
+
+Apart from file output, SHEMAT-Suite offers [Command-Line
+Output](tutorial/command_line_output).
+
+## Table of Contents ##
+
+[[_TOC_]]
+
+# Output types
+
+## vtk-output
+
+vtk-output can be read by `Paraview`. You can get Paraview on your
+local Windows Desktop via the Software Center (` Kitware Paraview`) or
+you can get it via the module system on the RWTH-Cluster using the
+following three commands:
+
+```
+module load GRAPHICS
+module load paraview
+paraview
+```
+
+You can find a
+[Paraview-Tutorial](http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/The_ParaView_Tutorial)
+along with further information on Paraview on the [Paraview
+Wiki](http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView).
+
+## Velocity in vtk-output
+
+The velocity `v` that is part of the vtk-output is not directly equal to
+one of the Darcy velocities (volume flow through cell surface per time),
+but rather it is an averaged velocity belonging to the cell center.
+
+Example: For the velocity in x-direction `vx`, the output variable
+(called `vxc`) is calculated (for cells inside the domain) as
+`0.5*(vx(i+1,j,k) + vx(i,j,k))`. Thus: averaged between the two cell
+surfaces perpendicular to the x-axis.
+
+## plt-output
+
+plt-output can be read by `Tecplot`
+
+## txt-output
+
+txt-output can be read by any common Text editor. To import monitor data
+to Matlab one can for example use [MonitorDatatoMatlab.m](uploads/e6fc1c36b3442f25a2cd154b02391a55/MonitorDatatoMatlab.m).
+
+## hdf5-output
+
+[hdf5](rwth_cluster/hdf5)-output can be read by hdf5 software. It
+requires less memory than e.g. VTK-Output. For example, `Matlab` can
+read hdf5 files. For `Python`, there exist the very handy module
+`h5py` with useful functions like `h5py.File('name of file')` to load
+data file, `list(data.keys())` (for data stored as 'data') to list
+available variables and many more.
+
+# Monitoring output
+
+For the [Ensemble Kalman Filter](simul/ensemble_kalman_filter),
+monitoring output is used to generate a [Observation
+File](simul/observation_file).