Accessing the Database

The database can be accessed using any of the tools listed at the web site

http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/software.html

(yes, including MBDyn itself...)

Octave

The octcdf package, available from

http://ocgmod1.marine.usf.edu/,

provides a clean interface to using NetCDF databases from within the popular math environment Octave. Results from MBDyn can be easily handled once the data structure is known.

To access the database, a handler needs to be obtained by calling

    octave:1> nc = netcdf('mbdyn_output.nc', 'r');

Variable descriptions are accessed as

    octave:2> nc{'node.struct.1000.X'}

Their values are accessed as

    octave:3> nc{'node.struct.1000.X'}(10, 3)

So, for example, the z position of node 1000 can be plot with

    octave:4> plot(nc{'run.time'}(:), nc{'node.struct.1000.X'}(:,3))