Abaqus? is one of the most popular commercial finite element analysis(FEA) software

but the visualization function of post-processing module—Abaqus/CAE is relatively weak. Especially

it handles mass data with difficulties

such as the extremely slow refreshing

limited functionalities and unexpected crash of software. Therefore

this paper proposes a solution: develop a Python script—ODB2VTK+ to convert Abaqus output (ODB file) into VTK file format

then visualize the output by menas of ParaView. ODB2VTK+ provides space-based partition algorithm which can achieve good partition and minimizes data redundancy to reorganize the mass data into small pieces suitable for parallel visualization. The parallel programming on it achieves higher efficiency

and the configuration file is provided to facilitate parameter setting. Testing ODB2VTK+ on the mechanical FEA output of 3D rock models from microtomography which have complex pore structure with fine grids shows the conversion is completely correct. Then it is visualized perfectly with ParaView’s capability of parallel visualization and its functionalities of volume rendering

tensor glyph

etc. The immersive virtual reality(VR) with HMD is applied

it encompasses the user with computer generated 3D environment that allow user to walk through the internal pore structure for observing and analyzing directly the result of FEA. The proposed solution overcomes the limit of Abaqus/CAE in post-processing and shows that VR will be a popular tool in FEA post-processing. In addition

due to its good readability and extensibility

ODB2VTK+ can be easily modified to process more different problems in Abaqus. ODB2VTK+ is shared on GitHub (https://github.com/ Liu-Qingbin/ODB2VTKplus) for the convenience of Abaqus users.