/ABF

Engine Keyword Describes the output of .abf files. (.abf [binary] files are optimized for fast plotting of very large data sets and is intended for creating 2D and 3D plots using HyperGraph and HyperGraph 3D).

Format

/ABF

$Δ T_{a b f}$ $Δ T_{w_a b v}$

Definition

Field	Contents	SI Unit Example
$Δ T_{a b f}$	Time frequency to write data on plot file .abf file.
$Δ T_{w_a b v}$	Time frequency to write .abf file. = 0 An .abf file will be written only at the end of the calculation.

Comments

A Runname_run#.tmp buffering file containing the Time History information is written with frequency $Δ T_{a b f}$ and translated to an .abf file with the $Δ T_{w_a b v}$ frequency.
The reading of an .abf files output by Radioss is only available with HyperGraph 11.0 SA-101 or higher.
Translation of the .tmp file to the .abf file executes an external program abf_converter_platform which is provided with the Altair HyperWorks installation at the same location as the Radioss executables.
It is recommended to not set the update of .abf files to a high frequency, in case of parallel computation, because it could reduce Radioss performance.
In case of a not NORMAL TERMINATION, the .abf file may be incomplete.
It is possible to translate a .tmp file output by Radioss to an .abf file at any time during the Engine execution or in case of a not NORMAL TERMINATION, use the abf_converter_platform program, as:
abf_converter_platform -exe Runname_run#.tmp
Example:
```
[user@machine]$ abf_converter_linux64 -exe test.tmp
.tmp TO ABF CONVERTOR
FILE = test.tmp
OUTPUT FILE = test.tmp.abf
** CONVERSION COMPLETED
```
Platform may be linux32, linux64, linuxia64, macosx64, solarisx64, win32, or win64, depending on the machine architecture.