ParaView

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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/New/help.html and http://paraview.org/OnlineHelpCurrent.

ParaView In Use

Some examples of how ParaView is used
Screenshots generated by ParaView

Documentation

Compile/Install


Instructions for downloading source as well as pre-compiled binaries for common platforms.
Compiling and installing ParaView from source.

Server Setup


Configuring your cluster to act as a ParaView server.
Using the ParaView client to start the servers.
Customizing server startup and connection processes using XML-based configuration scripts.
To run ParaView on clusters with head nodes - compute nodes
Configure your cluster environment such as DISPLAY, or Cave settings using *.pvx xml files.
A guide for configuring a cluster to run ParaView

Importing Data


How to write out data in a format that Paraview understands
More information on data formats ParaView supports and how to load them.
How to write a VTK reader that will read your data directly into ParaView.

Finding Data


Selecting and focusing on subset of a dataset using queries.
Selecting and focusing on subset of a dataset.

Analyzing Data


Creating visualizations to compare effects for change in parameter(s).
Computing statistics and using them to assess datasets.

Animation


Animating file series.
Saving animations on the server without client connection.
Using Animation View to setup animations.
Creating animations involving camera movements.

Plugins


Using and writing new plugins to extend ParaView's functionality.
Including extensions into ParaView at compile time.
A simple wizard application developed by MIRARCO that provides boilerplate code for some of the most common plugin types.
Please post plugins that you have created that may be useful for other users.
Writing custom applications based on ParaView.
Building plugins for deployment with Released ParaView binaries.

Python Scripting


Scripting ParaView using python
Generating/Processing data using python.
Using the python shell interface in paraview including generating python trace.
Collection of python scripts for some common tasks.
Beginning and advanced tutorial sets, each presented as 2 hour classes by Sandia National Laboratories

GUI Features


Creating visualizations for Print and Screen.
Specify a colormap and save it as an xml file for later use.
Synchronizing filters, clip planes, camera etc.
The locations where ParaView saves settings.
Packaging pipelines into a single composite.
How to configure ParaView's image compressor for use during remote rendering.

Other Features


Loading restarted data for different file formats.
Exporting scenes as VRML, X3D etc.
Backwards compatibility for ParaView state files (*.pvsm).
Information on using ParaView for in situ visualization/coprocessing (still in beta).

Books and Tutorials


The official ParaView guide available from Kitware.
An introductory and comprehensive tutorial.
Description of ParaView's reconfigurable client application infrastructure - aka 'branding'
Slides for the advanced topics tutorial by Sandia, Kitware, and LANL.
Slides on topics for installing and using ParaView on visualization clusters.
Beginning and advanced tutorial sets, each presented as 2 hour classes by Sandia National Laboratories
Slides for the advanced topics tutorial by Sandia, Kitware, and CSCS.
This Wiki is full of useful information and tutorials about ParaView.
These howtos are instructions for some common operations.
ParaView related books, articles and papers


Design & Implementation


ParaView GUI Testing framework.
Providing details about blocks, hierarchies, assemblies etc. to the client.
Details on handling multiple views in client-server framework.
Dealing with composite datasets in VTK.
Understanding ParaView's views and representations.
Understanding Time implementation.
Compiling ParaView and VTK on BlueGene and Cray Xt3/Catamount.
Suggestions for online help documentation changes.

ParaView based Applications


Documentation about the StreamingParaView application.

Plugins Distributed with ParaView


Adds extensions to enable exporting state files that can be used by ParaView CoProcessing library.
  • H5PartReader
  • SurfaceLIC
Adds support for Line Integral Convolution over arbitrary surfaces.
  • SLACTools
  • SierraPlotTools
  • pvblot
  • CSCS_PointSprite_Plugin
Adds support for rendering glyphs using point-sprites which makes it possible to achieve better frame rates when rendering a large number of glyphs.
  • PrismClientPlugin / PrismServerPlugin
  • Moments

Miscellaneous


Collection of release notes for official ParaView releases.
Quarterly newsletter for developers designed to deliver detailed technical articles related to Kitware's open source products including ParaView.
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




ParaView: [Welcome | Site Map]