ParaView/Plugin HowTo

Overview

Plugins can be used to extend ParaView in several ways

• Add new VTK objects (readers, writers, filters, etc...)
• Add custom Qt widgets
• Add custom toolbars
• Add custom views in addition to the existing render view, line chart and bar chart.

Types of plugins

• Server plugins - extend the paraview server
• Client plugins - extend the paraview client
• A plugin may contain both client and server extensions and work if the appropriate client side libraries are on the server.

Building Plugins

To create a plugin, one must have their own build of ParaView3. Binary downloads do not include header files or import libraries (on applicable platforms).

The beginning of a CMakeLists.txt file contains

FIND_PACKAGE(ParaView REQUIRED)
INCLUDE(${PARAVIEW_USE_FILE})

Where CMake will ask for the ParaView_DIR which you point to your ParaView build. The PARAVIEW_USE_FILE includes build parameters and macros for building plugins.