Particle Data Management Software for 3DParticle Tracking Velocimetry and Related Applications – The Flowtracks Package

Abstract

The Particle Tracking Velocimetry (PTV) community employs several formats of particle information such as position and velocity as function of time, i.e. trajectory data, as a result of diverging needs unmet by existing formats, and a number of different, mostly home-grown, codes for handling the data. Flowtracks is a Python package that provides a single code base for accessing different formats as a database, i.e. storing data and programmatically manipulating them using format-agnostic data structures. Furthermore, it offers an HDF5-based format that is fast and extensible, obviating the need for other formats. The package may be obtained from https://github.com/OpenPTV/postptv and used as-is by many fluid-dynamics labs, or with minor extensions adhering to a common interface, by researchers from other fields, such as biology and population tracking