First, decide what type of elements you are interested in selecting, that is cells or points and from what data source. This can be done using the following combo boxes. Note that as you change these, any previous selections/queries will be cleared.
Figure 6.14 Find Data options
Next, you must define the query string. The syntax for specifying the query string is similar to the expressions used in the Python Calculator. In fact, ParaView indeed uses Python and numpy under the covers to parse the queries.
In addition, based on the data type and the nature of the current session, there may be additional rows that allow users to qualify the selection using optional parameters such as process number (when running in parallel), or block number (for composite datasets).
Once you have defined your query, hit Run Query button to execute the query. If any elements get selected, then they will be shown in the spreadsheet in this dialog. Also, if any of the views are showing in the dataset that is selected, then they will be highlighted the selected elements as well, just like regular view-based selection.
id == 100
contains(id, [100,101, 102])
or
in1d(id, [100,101, 102])
Temp > 200
or
Temp == 200
or
contains(Temp, [200,300,400])
or
(Temp > 300) & (Temp < 400) # don't forget the parenthesis
or
(Temp > 300) | (mag(V) > 0)
volume(cell) > 0
or
volume(cell) == max(volume(cell))
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For the element type chosen, every element array becomes available as a field with same name as the array. Thus, if you are selecting points and the dataset has point arrays named "Temp" and "pressure", then you can construct queries using these arrays.
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Special fields id (corresponding to element id), cell (corresponding to the cell), dataset (corresponding to the dataset) are available and can be used to compute quantities to construct queries e.g. to compare volume of cells, use volume(cell).
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Queries can be combined using operators '&' and '|'.
The combobox allow the user to create queries in a more intuitive but in a more limited way. Although, this could be useful specially when you want to learn how to write more complex query. To do so, you will need to execute your selection by using a field directly from the combobox instead of the "Query" key word. Any selection execution will internally generate a Query string which can be seen by switching back to the "Query" combobox value. Such query can then be used as part of a more complex one if needed.