The kinds of results that will be displayed on screen can be grouped into five major categories:

Scalar view results: Show Minimum & Maximum, Contour Fill, Contour Text Ranges, Contour Lines, Iso Surface, Result surface, Line thickness and their configuration options.
Vector view results: Mesh deformation, Display Vectors, Stream Lines, Node trace
Line diagrams: Scalar line diagram and vector diagrams.
Graph lines: XY plots, polar plots.
Animation: Animation of the current results visualizations.

The View Results menu and window are used to manage the visualization of the different type of results.

Menu: View results
The View Results menu lets you select any type of result:

Contour fill
Contour lines
Contour ranges
Show min/max
Display vectors
Iso surfaces
Stream lines
Node trace
Graphs
Result surface
Deformation
Line diagram
Line thickness
Integrate
Distribution...
Volume render

Smoothed sub-menu with gaussian results:
Results can be located on the nodes of the mesh, nodal results, or on the integration points defined on the elements, known as gauss points, gaussian results.
For instance, selecting a contour fill visualization of a nodal result will draw a continuous color map over the mesh geometry. But for results located at the gauss points, there is no guarantee that the values are continuous between elements; in fact they are usually discontinuous. So, visualizing a Contour fill of a gaussian result will display a discontinuous color map over the mesh:

Contour fill of a nodal result

Contour fill of a gaussian result

Most of the above results visualization can be performed over nodal and gaussian results. Currently the exceptions are: Contour text ranges, Stream lines, node trace, graphs, and deformations.
GiD also smooth the gaussian results to provide a continuous color map:

Contour fill of a gaussian result

Contour fill of the same gaussian result but globally smoothed

How the global smoothing is done can be adjusted with Options --> Contour --> Smoothing type:

Minimum value: The minimum value between two adjacent elements is the result that is used.
Maximum value: The maximum value between two adjacent elements is the result that is used.
Mean value: A mean value of the points between two adjacent elements is the result that is used.

If there are gaussian results present in the simulation files, and if these gaussian results can be smoothed, then in the results visualizations menus, besides the results list a new entry will appear with the label Smoothed, and a sub-menu will pop-up with the gaussian results which can be globally smoothed:
Added sub-menu to perform a result's visualization with gaussian results globally smoothed

Following results visualizations can be performed on smoothed gaussian results:
Contour Fill, Contour lines, Iso surfaces, Graphs, Result surfaces and Line thickness

Menu: Window->View results
The View Results window manages the visualization of the following type of results:

Contour fill
Smooth contour fill ( of gaussian results globally smoothed), same as the menu Contour fill --> Smoothed
Contour ranges (if Result Range Tables are present)
Contour lines
Smooth contour lines ( of gaussian results globally smoothed), same as the menu Contour lines --> Smoothed
Display vectors
Show min/max
Result surface
Smooth result surface ( of gaussian results globally smoothed), same as the menu Result surface --> Smoothed
Line thickness
Smooth line thickness ( of gaussian results globally smoothed), same as the menu Line thickness --> Smoothed
Scalar and Vector line diagram (if Linear elements are present)

View Results window

As the results are grouped into steps and analyses, GiD must know which analysis and step is currently selected for displaying results. The Analysis menu of the View Results window is used to select the current analysis and step to be used for the rest of the results options. If some of the results view requires another analysis or step, you will be asked for it.

Note: If you no longer wish to view results, you can select No Result in this window or in the View results menu.

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