Flow Illustrator Stand Alone Version (Windows Only)
 

The new Stand alone windows version of Flow Illustrator is now available.

I have been messing with it for about an hour, here's what I know so far.

It is Windows only....Please don't go making this a "Why isn't it in MAC or UNIX or whatever" Thread...Start your own! :mad: I'll flag any whining about this as abuse and ask that your post be removed.

That aside, it is very basic. You only have a Velocity and Viscosity setting to mess with. But it works well. There is no way I know of now to make a "You Tube" video out of it, there may be a way to "screen capture?" the vid and make it work, but it isn't an option now. If someone has a way to do this, by all means post it!!:thumbup:

You probably want to run a premade image that comes with Flow Illustrator first to see it work, the sports car is pretty cool.

As far as loading your own image, it looks like the smaller the image, the "faster" it goes. You put whatever .bmp or .JPG file you have into the Images folder that comes with the program, and then open it by entering as I did for my civic2004.bmp file, I did only the pink bit "Enter filename: images\civic2004.bmp".

If you do it wrong, it just shuts the program down, no biggy, just restart it. If you do it right.....Ooooo Pretty picture!!! If your image is small, the controls may be out of frame, just click on what you want to change and it will come into frame.

I point this out cause it took me a while to figure that out, and the instructions are a bit lacking.

You have to shut the program down and restart any time you want to change your image. It is very small so it only takes an instant.

I'm finding that setting Velocity at 120 and Viscosity at 45 it looks like it should on my Honda Civic bitmap image. I have a 840 x 420 sized pic and a 420 x 210 version. When the bigger one is up, it slows the program and looks sluggish compared to the small one, but both images at the 120/45 settings look the same. (Maybe 600 X 300 would be a happy compromise between syrupy and small)


If you want to talk about it, or have questions, I think this forum would be a great central clearing house for it. I'll do my best to answer questions as will, I'm sure, other savvy folks who will use this little tool.

So here is the link, and I make this disclaimer LOUD AND CLEAR:

This is a very early Beta version of the software and IT IS FREE. Someone worked their butt off to make this available, so don't go hunting down the creator and making them regret putting this out there by making a bunch of requests, or any complaints. If you don't like it, don't use it. Delete keys are on most keyboards.

So for now, here ya go.

(Message I got)

The first Windows version of the stand-alone Flow Illustrator is available for download. We hope to improve it with your help. The software is intended to be easy to use, and this is why we do not provide many explanations. Please try and report your experiences to this list.

The program is available from Blah blah blah The file will be deleted on 09/12/2011 15:19:40

It is an archive. Open it and read the manual.

Thanks to Michael who made this possible.

Best regards Sergei

December 12, 2012 Here is the new website for Flow Illustrator with the program available:

Interactive Flow Illustrator Web Page

Fun Stuff!!! :D Hope you all enjoy this!

Charlie

Woohoo ! Kudos to the people that made this possible !

I'm going to have to check this out later.

ChazInMT -

Thanks Michael, you rock!

http://blogsimages.skynet.be/images/000/420/290_m5.jpg

CarloSW2

I used it to make a few potential changes to the race car. Looks like it would help to get you on the right track.

Stefan

This is so awesome! :D I know it's not perfect, but according to it a downward sloped spoiler that extends about 1/2 of a foot past the end of my car would decrease the enormous vacuum I got going on right now immensely.

screen shots guys !!!!

Here are some screenshots ! Been having fun for the past hour or so.

http://i40.tinypic.com/do5kyd.jpg


Here is a screen shot of my Civic, no mods. I used the settings 120 and 44 because it makes the flow look how I think it should for my car. Notice the flow becomes detached at the top of my rear window, and then skips off the back of my trunk lid.

This is what I am 95% sure is what is happening, so these settings approximate what air really does. I recommend you use these settings when you want to have an idea of how your vehicle will behave as well.

My image size is 600 X 300.

You'll notice as well that I have the body of the car at its apprx height off the ground with no wheels. This simulates in 2D, so keeping the wheels on will only lets you see how the air would flow under your car if it had 5 foot wide tires like a steam roller. You really want to depict the centerline of your car, so that's why I have the little axle bumps there.

The interaction of the air going under the car with the air going over the top is important. As well, the air going over the top behaves very differently depending on where it is in relationship to the ground. The solid black line across the bottom is my ground plane which I added on there to act as the "street". Not sure if the program recognizes the bottom of the screen as a "ground" so that's why I do it.

I also put the car forward in the frame to see what the air is doing in the wake, I really don't care about the front. This is what I think you should try and replicate if you want a reasonably meaningful look at how your project will affect airflow.

Here is a stock 4dr Echo with the same "treatment" and settings.

http://i39.tinypic.com/1zzn9za.jpg

Oh man oh man I'm so psyched about this!

Do you think one could accurately model plan view flow as well? I don't see why not, and it could help illustrate the need for wheel covers and skirts.

Ok so that took literally about 3 seconds to download. Awesome.

I made a GIF from screencaps. This is my best effort at the current state of the Anal Probe. Not bad if I do say so.

Funny thing though. My tuft tests suggested attached flow on the rear window. I'm going to have to play with this a bit more to make it more accurate.

http://i40.tinypic.com/690zvd.gif

Super excited to play with this more when I have some time.

Edit: I think perhaps the default 100/250 settings could be accurate because that shows the kind of flow I'd expect to see based on tuft testing results.

Edit 2: I love this damn program so much. Awesome.
Edit edit: replaced with 120/45
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7154/6...1d89794d_b.jpg

And I might add it is important to put the ground plane in there. I did it both ways and if it's not there the airflow from the bottom is all messed up.

Also from what I can gather the program does not like spaces in the file names.

Questions I have is :

What viscosity number does the air resembles?

What Inmoci..ty equal what speed mph?

Stefan

Don't be fooled into thinking that the air around your car is going to be going a certain way at a certain speed. From 10mph - 300 mph, it will look essentially the same. It is a common misconception that speed changes the pattern of how the air flows, but it doesn't.

It seems the Viscosity and Incomingvelocity both change the Re number being used in this simulator, so viscosity and velocity both are changing the "air".

It is only my studied opinion of this that makes me say 120/45 looks best to me. I have thought about this a lot, it is a very educated guess based on having played with the old program for at least 100 simulations using several templates.

I can tell you that using 250/100 looks to me like a vehicle going through 20 weight oil at 90 mph, or a one the size of a blimp going through air at 20mph. you wouldn't get 90% of the air from the top hitting the tailgate like that. You would want to tune it so you get the bottom 20% of the flow hitting the top of the gate, and no closer than the 18" to it.

I'll work up some "Good/Bad" examples later today and post them.

One thing I'm not happy with, it seems no matter what the setting, it does not yield a wake behind the vehicle which matches real world. The wake area creeated is too low to the ground and too dense. So all this could be a discussion in futility in that this is NOT a wind tunnel simulator, it is really just a toy to make images of flow around stuff.

Did I mention that you need to have a decent amount of space above the model too?? I think your probe is too close to the top and it is creating a venturi type effect.

Ok, good to know. I'll mess around with it later. And will add more height to the Probe. Otherwise, yeah, it's crashing a lot. Don't know if that's just my computer or if it's the program...

*edit* I got it.

Glad to see that this works on my MacBook Pro using the Windows partition !

A thousand thanks guys !

Holy moly ! Quite turbulent at the back then.. Thanks. :thumbup:

interesting
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...n_inc/mods.jpg

The only problem I have is that with the viscosity at 45 I get alot of air separation off the rear spoiler and the top of the car. That I don't think it happens in the real life.

Stefan

Can someone explain to me how I would get a picture of my car into the program? I'm really hoping that I don't have to draw it using the canvas feature because there is no way I'd be able to get it accurate. I tried posting the file extension for picture of my car into the program, but I have had no luck getting it to work. I imagine it has to be a special file type or something

EDIT: looked it up on the flow illustrator website. looks like it has to be a bitmap. If you have any other tips, let me know anyway

Be sure to include the entire destination name.

Example --> " images/zonda.jpg "

Be sure to save the images to the same "images" folder that the program uses and it should see it.

The higher the dpi, the more accurate that the simulation will be due to bitmapping on the image at low resolutions. It will run very slow though.

I'm having no problem loading JPEG images as large as 300 dpi and 10 " wide

I'm having luck with a setting of 250 and 500.

At lower settings, the air just hits the windshield like a ramp and continues upward without curving with the roofline. This is what I'm seeing with the Probe image.

Ok, I tried it as a bitmap and still need help. When I enter the program, I hit 0 as my option. then I type in

D:\My Documents\My Pictures\flowillustrator\zx3stock2.bmp

as my filename. Then I hit enter and the program exits and I'm not sure why.

How big is your file in pixels? Is the background (everything but the car) completely white?

BTW, Business Cat is not aerodynamic.
http://i41.tinypic.com/2wqvk0j.jpg

Take a look at this image, from my EM album, of tufts on the back of my Civic:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-ca...sting-tail.jpg

I think it roughly confirms your claims here. Notice the air seems to recirculate near the bottom of the window, seems detached, and then seems re-attached at the end of the trunk lid. I am sooo psyched about this program for my car and my students in January. Your timing is awesome.

the file is 512x256 and I made the picture black and white in paint just to confirm that everything that was white was white. the picture has 2 colors now and it doesnt seem to work. Maybe I'll try downloading the program again and reextracting the zip file

Hydro Jim, transfer/copy the .bmp picture into the "Images" file that comes with the FI program, then type images\zx3stock2.bmp (That is a "\" NOT a "/" as Cd has it) You should get the illustrator running almost immediately. If it quits, then it just means it couldn't find it.

Does this flow (.gif) look plausible ? I reduced the image size to get a more fluid animation.

http://i.picasion.com/pic47/1f9d1855...5aef3dba4f.gif

I finally got it working. Thanks for the help guys. I don't think i extracted the zip file the first time so I think that was the problem.

Using this is going to be lots of fun!

After messing with the race car aero I decided to look at the truck and trailer. Here are a few flow illustrations.


F150 with enclosed trailer. I towed that this year from Seattle WA, to Sacramento Ca and I got 7mpg. LOL

http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-on...50-trailer.jpg


F350 crew cab, my current truck with canopy
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-on...py-trailer.jpg

F350 with wing on canopy and trailer rear cap and lower front bumper
http://ecomodder.com/forum/member-on...ailer-cone.jpg

Great piece of software... Thanks all for this. Michael and Sergei guys you're great!

ChazInMT thanks for sharing!

Prosze bardzo, Glad I could bring this to light.

Just one question- I don't think it's been covered. What do the red and green mean? Are they high and low pressure?

Neat!

Any suggestions for under-hood approximating?

I have also been wondering about that.

Probably not worth it unless you plan on replicating all the radiator ribs, spark plug wires, tubes, linkages, etc etc. It's just a mess.

I'm not so much interested in the actual under-hood flow, but rather the effect (if any) on the flow around the vehicle. The difference indicated seems minor between an open and blocked grille.

Chevy C/K? I think it would make more of a difference in 3D where the effect of the firewall and axles, etc. is multiplied.

I did a Suburban. It worked at 1300x800px on a 4 year old machine running 4GB RAM.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7143/6...44b32fb4_z.jpg

Also Volt.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7035/6...0d9a8271_z.jpg

Also

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7009/6...91b08b5c_z.jpg

Yea, good eye despite the low resolution. I'll try at a higher resolution and see how it performs. My initial testing was done at the 600x300 recommended in this thread.