ParaView

ParaView is an open-source, multi-platform application designed to visualize data sets of varying sizes from small to very large. The goals of the ParaView project include developing an open-source, multi-platform visualization application that supports distributed computational models to process large data sets. It has an open, flexible, and intuitive user interface. Furthermore, ParaView is built on an extensible architecture based on open standards. ParaView runs on distributed and shared memory parallel as well as single processor systems and has been succesfully tested on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, IBM Blue Gene, Cray XT3 and various Unix workstations and clusters. Under the hood, ParaView uses the Visualization Toolkit as the data processing and rendering engine and has a user interface written using the Qt cross-platform application framework.

The goal of this Wiki is to provide up-to-date documentation maintained by the developer and user communities. As such, we welcome volunteers that would like to contribute. If you are interested in contributing, please contact us on the ParaView mailing list http://public.kitware.com/mailman/listinfo/paraview.

For new users, download and install the ParaView binaries for your local computer, and then read The ParaView Tutorial. Additional tutorials are located under #Books and Tutorials below.

You can find more information about ParaView on the ParaView web site: http://paraview.org. For more help, including a list of all sources and filters, check out http://paraview.org/paraview/help/help.html and http://paraview.org/paraview/help/documentation.html.

ParaView In Use

• ParaView In Action

Some examples of how ParaView is used

• ParaView Screenshots

Screenshots generated by ParaView

• HPC Installations

Links to documentation of ParaView installations on various HPC sites

Documentation

License ParaView License ParaView Third-Party Licenses Compile/Install Download ParaView Instructions for downloading source as well as pre-compiled binaries for common platforms. ParaView Release Notes Collection of release notes for official ParaView releases. Git Instructions Git is the revision control system that ParaView uses. If you would like to have the bleeding edge version of ParaView, or you would like to contribute code, this link describes the method you must use to get the code. ParaView Nightly Binaries Downloading nightly binaries for development versions of ParaView. Building and Installation instructions Compiling and installing ParaView from source. ParaView And Mesa 3D Building ParaView with Mesa 3D. ParaView Binaries Build Information Information about the official ParaView builds and versions of various dependencies used. Server Setup ParaView Server Setup Configuring your cluster to act as a ParaView server. ParaView Server Startup Using GUI Using the ParaView client to start the servers. Server Configuration Customizing server startup and connection processes using XML-based configuration scripts. Distributing Server Configuration Files*new in 3.14 Strategies for distributing server configuration xmls. Port forwarding To run ParaView on clusters with head nodes - compute nodes Configuring Server Environment Using *.pvx XML Files Configure your cluster environment such as DISPLAY, or Cave settings using *.pvx xml files. Cluster Configuration to run ParaView A guide for configuring a cluster to run ParaView Importing Data Generating data How to write out data in a format that Paraview understands Data formats More information on data formats ParaView supports and how to load them. Writing ParaView Readers How to write a VTK reader that will read your data directly into ParaView. ParaView Readers and Parallel Data Distribution How data is loaded in parallel for various readers. Finding Data Find Data using Queries * new in 3.8 Selecting and focusing on subset of a dataset using queries. Data Selection Selecting and focusing on subset of a dataset. Analyzing Data Parameter Study (Comparative Visualization) * improved in 3.8 Creating visualizations to compare effects for change in parameter(s). Statistical analysis Computing statistics and using them to assess datasets. Animation Animating legacy VTK file series Animating file series. Unattended saving of animation Saving animations on the server without client connection. Animation View Using Animation View to setup animations. Animating the Camera Creating animations involving camera movements. Plugins Extending ParaView Using Plugins Using and writing new plugins to extend ParaView's functionality. Extending ParaView at Compile Time Including extensions into ParaView at compile time. Plugin Wizard A simple wizard application developed by MIRARCO that provides boilerplate code for some of the most common plugin types. User Created Plugins Please post plugins that you have created that may be useful for other users. Writing Custom Applications * new in 3.8 Writing custom applications based on ParaView. Plugin Deployment with Development Installs Building plugins for deployment with Released ParaView binaries.		Python Scripting Environment Setup Environment variables to set when using a Python shell besides pvpython/pvbatch. Python Scripting * updated to 3.6 Scripting ParaView using python Python Programmable Filter Generating/Processing data using python. Python GUI Tools * updated for 3.10 Using the python shell interface in paraview including generating python trace. Python recipes for ParaView Collection of python scripts for some common tasks. SNL ParaView 3 Python Tutorials Beginning and advanced tutorial sets, each presented as 2 hour classes by Sandia National Laboratories GUI Features Camera and Property Linking Synchronizing filters, clip planes, camera etc. Color Palettes Creating visualizations for Print and Screen. Colormaps Details of ParaView's xml colormap file format and collections of colormaps for use with ParaView. Copy/Paste Friendly * new feature for 3.14 Using ParaView Copy/Paste inside information tab and spreadsheet view Custom Filters Packaging pipelines into a single composite. Image Compressor Configuration How to configure ParaView's image compressor for use during remote rendering. Memory Inspector Panel * updated in 3.98.0 Using ParaView's Memory Inspector Panel and its debugging features. ParaView Settings Files The locations where ParaView saves settings files (also known as config or configuration files). Properties Panel * updated for 4.0 Using and customizing the Properties Panel. Space Navigator * new feature for 3.10 Using ParaView with Space Navigator Sortable spreadsheet view * new feature for 3.10 What can be done with the spreadsheet column sorting and how it works Text Finder * new feature for 3.14 Searching in long lists and tables in the ParaView GUI. Output Messages Window Design document Other Features Restarted Simulation Readers Loading restarted data for different file formats. Exporting Scenes Exporting scenes as VRML, X3D etc. Backwards compatibility in state files Backwards compatibility for ParaView state files (*.pvsm). Collaboration * new in 3.14 Information of the changes that have been done undercover to support and improve collaboration. Vector Graphics Export * new in 3.98 Export publication quality 3D scenes and charts. Equation Rendering * new in 3.98.1 Annotating scenes with mathematical equations. Surface LIC * updated in 4.1 Documentation describing how to configure and use the surface LIC plugin. Spatio-Temporal Parallelism * available in the ParaView Git repository Books and Tutorials The ParaView Guide The official ParaView guide available from Kitware. Book Errata ParaView Users' Guide The newly revised official ParaView guide. ParaView API Documentation API documentation auto-generated from the source files. The ParaView Tutorial An introductory and comprehensive tutorial. ParaView Catalyst User's Guide The offical ParaView Catalyst User's Guide corresponding to ParaView 4.0.1. SNL ParaView 4 Tutorials Beginning and advanced tutorial sets, each presented as 3 hour classes by Sandia National Laboratories Howtos These howtos are instructions for some common operations. Related Publications ParaView related books, articles and papers ParaView 3 Tutorials ParaView 2 Tutorials		Design & Implementation Testing design ParaView GUI Testing framework. Block Hierarchy Meta Data Providing details about blocks, hierarchies, assemblies etc. to the client. Multiple views Details on handling multiple views in client-server framework. Composite Datasets Dealing with composite datasets in VTK. Representations and Views Understanding ParaView's views and representations. Time in ParaView Understanding Time implementation. Cross-compiling ParaView Compiling ParaView and VTK on BlueGene and Cray Xt3/Catamount. Selection Implementation in VTK and ParaView III Suggested online help documentation changes Suggestions for online help documentation changes. ServerManager XML Hints A place to document ServerManager configuration XML hints. ParaView based Applications StreamingParaView Documentation about the StreamingParaView application. VeloView An application for visualizing and processing Velodyne LiDAR data Web Visualization with ParaView ParaView Web Visualization Framework Documentation for the ParaView Web Visualization Framework In situ Analysis with ParaView ParaView Catalyst Documentation for using ParaView for co-processing Plugins Distributed with ParaView Included Plugins Community Contributed Plugins Guidelines for Contributing Plugins Miscellaneous Terminology Disambiguation The Kitware Source Quarterly newsletter for developers designed to deliver detailed technical articles related to Kitware's open source products including ParaView. More information about ParaView Real world concept -> Paraview terminology map Often new users may say "Surely Paraview can do X... but I can't find it!". This terminology map should help! Developers Corner Mailing List The developers mailing list is here: http://public.kitware.com/mailman/subscribe/paraview-developers This should be used for questions about modifying the Paraview code, not using Paraview. Plugin Development Make building Paraview plugin optional Handy Developer Info Developer Information Release Testing Release Testing ParaView: [Welcome | Site Map]