[Paraview] Paraview file format documentations

[Berk Geveci]

I second Ken's statement. Exodus is probably one of the best supported
formats in ParaView (thanks to Sandia).

-berk


On 2/28/08, Moreland, Kenneth <kmorel at sandia.gov> wrote:
> > I am rather new to paraview (just worked through the tutorial from
>  > http://paraview.org/Wiki/SC07_ParaView_Tutorial - cool!) and I am
>  > planning to use paraview as visualization tool for my own solver.
>
>
> Glad it was helpful.
>
>
>  > I find it hard to figure out which file format to use, so I am looking
>  > for some advice.
>  >
>  > Q: My solver generates 2D unstructered mesh data together with
>  > field data (stress, strain, pressure, velocity, etc.) over this grid.
>  > Which file format is most appropriate to use for this?
>  > Any library you would recommend?
>
>
> The Exodus format would probably be a pretty good fit for that.  I'm not saying that Exodus is the absolute best format ever, but I certainly prefer it over the VTK formats for unstructured grids.  Also the Exodus reader in ParaView is pretty good; we've spent a lot of time on that.
>
>
>  >
>  > Q: Is http://www.vtk.org/pdf/file-formats.pdf the only information
>  > publicly available about vtk file formats or is there other information
>  > available?
>
>
> The VTK User's Guide has some information.  For the legacy formats, it's the same, but it also has information about the XML formats.
>
>
>  >
>  > Q: I guesss the ex2 - file format used in the above-mentioned tutorial
>  > the same which is described in
>  > http://endo.sandia.gov/SEACAS/Documentation/exodusII.pdf.
>  > Am I right?
>
>
> Yup.
>
>
>  >
>  > Q: Searching the source code with the command
>  > find . -type f -exec grep -l vtkExodusIIWriter {} \;
>  > yields
>  > ./Servers/ServerManager/Resources/writers.xml
>  > ./VTK/Parallel/vtkExodusIIWriter.h
>  > ./VTK/Parallel/CMakeLists.txt
>  > ./VTK/Parallel/vtkExodusIIWriter.cxx
>  > ./VTK/Hybrid/vtkExodusModel.h
>  > ./VTK/Hybrid/vtkExodusReader.h
>  > ./VTK/Hybrid/vtkExodusIIReader.h
>  > ./VTK/Hybrid/vtkExodusReader.cxx
>  >
>  > At first glance I did not find code which _uses_ class vtkExodusIIWriter.
>  > Can you provide a usage example for writing a small
>  > unstructured 2D grid  with simulation data using vtk classes.
>
>
> ParaView uses the Exodus writer, but that does not really help you for example code.  Nominally, you just need to set its input, give it a filename, and call the Write method.
>
>  If you are not using VTK to create the data in the first place, it may make sense to use the Exodus library directly to write your data to a file.
>
>  -Ken
>
>
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