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, check out http://paraview.org/New/help.html.

ParaView In Use

• ParaView In Action

Some examples of how ParaView is used

• ParaView Screenshots

Screenshots generated by ParaView

Documentation

Compile/Install Download ParaView Instructions for downloading source as well as pre-compiled binaries for common platforms. Building and Installation instructions Compiling and installing ParaView from source. 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. 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. Generating Data Generating data How to write out data in a format that Paraview understands Python Scripting Python Scripting * updated to 3.6 Scripting ParaView using python Python Programmable Filter Generating/Processing data using python. Python GUI Tools * new in 3.6 Using the python shell interface in paraview Python recipes for ParaView SNL ParaView 3 Python Tutorials Beginning and advanced tutorial sets, each presented as 2 hour classes by Sandia National Laboratories 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 * new in 3.6 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. Writing Custom Applications * new in 3.8 Writing custom applications based on ParaView.		Other Features Color Palettes * new in 3.6 Creating visualizations for Print and Screen. Manually Creating a Colormap Specify a colormap and save it as an xml file for later use. Camera and Property Linking Synchronizing filters, clip planes, camera etc. Restarted Simulation Readers Loading restarted data for different file formats. Custom Filters Packaging pipelines into a single composite. Data Selection Selecting and focusing on subset of a dataset. Exporting Scenes Exporting scenes as VRML, X3D etc. Backwards compatibility in state files Backwards compatibility for ParaView state files (*.pvsm). ParaView Settings Files The locations where ParaView saves settings. Statistical analysis * coming in 3.6.2 Computing statistics and using them to assess datasets. Image Compressor Configuration How to configure ParaView's image compressor for use during remote rendering. Books and Tutorials The ParaView Guide The official ParaView guide available from Kitware. The ParaView Tutorial An introductory and comprehensive tutorial. IEEE Vis09 Revise Workshop IEEE Vis09 ParaView Tutorial Slides for the advanced topics tutorial by Sandia, Kitware, and LANL. IEEE Cluster 2009 ParaView Tutorial Slides on topics for installing and using ParaView on visualization clusters. SNL ParaView 3 Tutorials Beginning and advanced tutorial sets, each presented as 2 hour classes by Sandia National Laboratories IEEE Vis08 ParaView Tutorial Slides for the advanced topics tutorial by Sandia, Kitware, and CSCS. HPCMP DAAC - Information & Tutorials on ParaView . This Wiki is full of useful information and tutorials about ParaView. Related Publications ParaView related books, articles and papers 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. ParaView based Applications StreamingParaView Documentation about the StreamingParaView application. 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. Book Errata 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!

Complete list/description of paraview filters

If you're looking through the list of filters in paraview, you may want to know what they all do! Here is a complete list.

Short HowTos

These howtos are instructions for some common operations.

Description/Explanation of Sources

The sources are detailed online [1], but here is a little extra explanation.

User created plugins

Please post plugins that you have created that may be useful for other users!

General

• Add Vertices - If a dataset contains points (geometry) but no vertices (topology), Paraview will not display anything. Use this filter to add vertices to your dataset.
  • Inputs: 1 polydata
  • Outputs: 1 polydata

Registration

• Iterative Closest Point Transform Filter - Register one point set to another point set using the Iterative Closest Point (ICP) algorithm.
  • Inputs: 2 polydata (Source and Target - the source will attempt to be moved to the target)
  • Outputs: 1 polydata - the transformed source dataset
• Landmark Transform Filter - Select three or more corresponding points from two data sets and align the two data sets using a Landmark Transform.
  • Inputs: 1 polydata, 2 datasets - 1) SourceLandmarks (vtkDataSet) - A set of points extracted from the source dataset 2) TargetLandmarks (vtkDataSet) - A set of points from the target dataset corresponding (and ordered the same as) the points in the source dataset 3) SourceDataset (vtkPolyData) - The source dataset which will be transformed
  • Outputs: 1 polydata - the transformed source dataset
• Superquadric Tensor Glyph Filter - The filter generates a superquadric glyph at every point in the input data set. The glyphs are oriented and scaled according to eigenvalues and eigenvectors of tensors of the input data set, interpreting the entries of the 3x3 matrix as principal axes of the superquadric and their norm as the length of these axes. Set both roundness values to 0.0 to get rectangular glyphs, set them to 1.0 to get ellipsoidal glyphs, set theta roundness to 1.0 and phi roundness to 0.0 to get cylindrical glyphs. Other values lead to superquadric glyphs which are in general favorable as they can be distinguished easily for all view angles. The Superquadric Tensor Glyph filter operates on any type of data set. Its output is polygonal.

Instructions

To use these plugins, you must have compiled Paraview from source

• Unzip the plugin
• Create a bin directory in the directory in which you have unzipped the plugin:

<source lang="bash"> mkdir bin </source>

• From the bin directory, run cmake to create the make files:

<source lang="bash"> cmake ../ </source>

• Compile the plugin:

<source lang="bash"> make </source>

• Load the plugin in Paraview: 1) Tools -> Manage Plugins/Extensions 2) On the right pane, click Load New. 3) Browse to the bin directory you were just working in and load libYOURPLUGIN.so
• You can now use the plugin by selecting an object in the Pipeline Browser and then selecting the plugin you have just added from the Filters menu.

Wiki Sandbox

Paraview Ranking test

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

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