[CentralOH] Post-processing of output files/creating animation

[Armen Ezekielian]

I have a C program  which outputs a six-column by N-row
data file for each time step of a simulation. The six columns
contain floats representing the coordinates and velocity
components for N particles. N is generally on the order of a
few hundred and there are at least 1000 of these files.

                                     x     y     z     v_x     v_y     v_z
N of these lines -->        1.0  1.3  1.1    2.6     1.9     3.8

And as I said there is one of these files for each time step.

I was hoping to use python to process these data files and
create a visualization using the visual.sphere() function
in VPython. I want to render a sphere at every x, y, z
point and color the spheres according to a colormap
based on the magnitude of the velocity (red = fast,
blue = slow). This would be done for each time step file
and then loop through them to create an animation.

Unfortunately I have limited python experience and little
time to accomplish this. If anyone has any tips/suggestions
on how to do the file I/O I would be extremely grateful. I am
researching the problem myself but the majority of my time is
being spent helping the students debug/run their C programs
which produce the output files above. Thank you!!!

--Armen