Standard database of CGNS files

[tomrobin-teschner]

Proposal

Create a standard set of CGNS files that a mesh generators needs to produce. For each (major) version of the CGNS library, create a database where each mesh generator produces these files and make them available online for testing.

Rationale

I personally like to use Pointwise to generate my CGNS files, yet when I started (version 3.1.4), I noticed differences between CGNS files created in Pointwise and ICEM-CFD (e.g. writing boundaries either as family or boundary nodes, I am now aware of the difference and can handle that in my code, but I wasn't then and it was causing some frustration). This is (somewhat) fixed now.

Instead of creating my own toy examples, it would be really useful to have a database of examples where the CGNS steering committee writes out specifications of the file (e.g. single-block, unstructured, with a certain cell type and boundary conditions) and then each mesh generator can produce these files. Developers like myself can then download these files to make sure that their mesh reading works across different mesh generators (like most, I don't have every possible mesh generator available for testing but would like to make sure I can cover as many as possible).

It would be very helpful to have a database of these CGNS files, presumably for every major version of the library. I am thinking along the line of what the C++ steering committee does, i.e. they just write the specifications and others are implementing these into their compiler. Here, the CGNS steering committee would simply write out the specifications and mesh generators would have to generate these files and make them available.