[Paraview] Why Are PVD Files Limited to VTK/XML?

[Kent Eschenberg]

Most of the work of reading a PVD file is done in vtkXMLCollectionReader.cxx. 
It has a list of string pairs, "ReaderList", that in 3.2.1 includes 14 readers.

One of these is selected using the input file's extension then an instance of 
the reader is created with vtkInstantiator::CreateInstance. I think any reader 
could be instantiated this way.

It seems therefore that the PVD reader could be extended to most readers. 
Currently all readers are a subclass of vtkXMLReader but that doesn't seem to 
be necessary (though convenient).

Better yet, the code from "Open Data" could be applied to each file mentioned 
in the PVD file so that all readers and their "CanReadFile" methods are used. 
Seems elegant and useful.

Opinions?
Kent
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center