Source file movie.F90

• Subroutines moviexy, moviexz, movieyz:

These subroutines write an xy, xz, or yz plane, respectively, to disc. The procedure call call moviexy(f,z0,unit1,unit2) writes the xy plane with z=z0 (0 <= z0 < nz*pez) to unit1 in byte or integer scale form and stores the minimum and maximum value in unit2. Saving of the minimum and maximum values allows for later reconstruction of the physical values. Normally one byte per grid point is produced with values ranging from 0 to 255. In case the switch double_byte is used for each grid point a two byte signed integer value is extracted which ranges  between from -32768 to 32767. It is assumed that the files denoted by unit1, and unit2 are already open.
• Subroutine volume:

Like the subroutines movie... the subroutine volume writes byte or integer scaled data to a file. However instead of treating a selected plane it stores the entire 3-D volume.

• To obtain maximum flexibility the calls to the movie routines are not coded directly into the main time loops in p3d.F90, p3d-hybrid.F90, and p3d-twofluid.F90 but encapsulated in header files as movie2d.h. These header files consist of four sections which are inserted by the preprocessor cpp at the appropriate locations in the main programs. In the first section movie_variables variables needed for the movie generation are defined, this part is included in the definition of variables in the main program. The section movie_open is included before the main time loop starts, the movie files should be opened in this section. The section movie_write controls the output of the movie data and is included into the main time loop. The final section movie_close is used at termination of the code to close the movie files.
• In case the switch double_byte is active an integer number is created for each grid point which consists of two bytes. Unfortunately there exists no standard which one of the two bytes is stored first in the file. Depending on the type of workstation used for viewing the data the bytes need to be swaped. Note, that for this purpose a standard IDL routine called "byteorder" is available.

• movie_header: The switch movie_header determines which movie header file is used. If no movie output is to be produced use #define movie_header "movieempty.h". For 2-D particle simulations #define movie_header "movie2db.h" , #define movie_header "movie2d.h"  or #define movie_header "movie2dnoions.h" would be good choices. For 3-D particle simulations movie3d.h could be used. Since the movie output contains a substantial amount of serial work, movie production is not recommended in very large runs (thus use movieempty.h). In this case the complete data files should be post-processed. For 2-D hybrid simulations the header file movie2dhybrid.h  is available and for 2-D two-fluid runs use movie2dtwofluid.h.
• movieout: In most movie header files the variable movieout determines the time interval after which a new set of movie frames is produced. For simulations in which phenomena on an ion cyclotron time scale are studied #define movieout 0.5 would be a reasonable choice.
• double_byte: As default one byte per grid point is produced (byte scaled data). With the switch #define double_byte active two bytes per grid point (integer scaled data) are stored.