[Paraview] Applying 3D data to an STL object surface

[Kotya Karapetyan]

Dear all,

I am very new to ParaView so please excuse me for asking possibly stupid things.

I would like to use ParaView to display the 3D distribution of some
value (optical radiation load) on the surface of a 3D object. So get
something similar to this:
http://www2.argenco.ulg.ac.be/logiciels/SAFIR/images/appex2-4.jpg

I am thinking of something like the following.

The 3D object is described by an STL file. The load data is saved in a
CSV file as x, y, z, power.
This data should be somehow applied to the object surface. For example
by assigning it to the nearest facet of the STL mesh.

Does is sound reasonable, is ParaView the right tool to use at all,
and if yes, how can I achieve what I want? The load data (the CSV
file) is created with Matlab, after performing ray-tracing with Zemax,
so I am very flexible in any data processing to make it well-shaped
for ParaView.

Thanks a lot in advance!

Best regards,
Kotya