The CFD General Notation System transition to HDF5

The specific purpose of the CFD General Notation System (CGNS) project is to provide a standard for recording and recovering computer data associated with the numerical solution of the equations of fluid dynamics. The intent is to facilitate the exchange of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) data between sites, between applications codes, and across computing platforms, and to stabilize the archiving of CFD data. The CGNS system consists of two parts: (1) the Standard Interface Data Structures, SIDS and (2) the ADF library. The "Standard Interface Data Structures" specification constitutes the essence of the CGNS system. While the other elements of the system deal with software implementation issues, the SIDS specification concerns itself with defining the substance of CGNS. It precisely defines the intellectual content of CFD-related data, including the organizational structure supporting such data and the conventions adopted to standardize the data exchange process. The SIDS are designed to support all types of information involved in CFD analysis. While the initial target was to establish a standard for 3D structured multi-block compressible Navier-Stokes analysis, the SIDS extensible framework now includes unstructured analysis, configurations, hybrid topology and geometry-to-mesh association. Although the SIDS specification is independent of the physical file formats, its design was targeted towards implementation using the ADF Core library. The "Advanced Data Format" (ADF) is a concept defining how the data is organized in the storage media. CGNS is currently transitioning to use HDF5 as the low level storage format. In this presentation I will give an overview of CGNS, SIDS and why the CGNS standards committee decided to switch to HDF5. Obstacles to the transition and a performance comparison will also be presented.

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Last modified: 06/02/2017