Well-suited and adaptive post-processing for the visualization of hp simulation results

Abstract

While high order methods became very popular as they allow to perform very accurate solutions with low computational time and memory cost, there is a lack of tools to visualize and post-treat the solutions given by these methods. Originally, visualization softwares were developed to post-process results from methods such that finite differences or usual finite elements and therefore process linear primitives. In this paper, we present a methodology to visualize results of high order methods. Our approach is based on the construction of an optimized affine approximation of the high order solution which can therefore be handled by any visualization software. A representation mesh is constructed and the process is guided by an a posteriori estimate which control the error between the numerical solution and its representation pointwise. This point by point control is crucial as under their picture form, data correspond to values mapped on elements where anyone can pick up a pointwise information. A strategy is established to ensure that discontinuities are well represented. These discontinuities come either from the physical problem (material change) or the numerical method (Discontinuous Galerkin method) and are pictured accurately. Several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the potential of the method.