Introduction to ParaView

ParaView is a free scientific visualization application that is easily used on desktop PCs as well as parallel supercomputers. This tutorial is designed for those who have never before used ParaView. Experienced users may also find these topics useful as a quick reference.

The topics are organized into 3 sessions with an exercise after each. The novice user is urged to complete the exercises before continuing to the next session.

The size of the slides may be changed when viewing them by selecting from the size menu on the left hand side of the window.

Data for the exercises can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.psc.edu/pub/outgoing/eschenbe/ParaView/ParaViewTutorialData.tar.gz.

PSC users with questions about the tutorial or ParaView may contact PSC User Services.



Session 1Session 2Session 3
1.0 Introduction

  1.1 Example
  1.2 Scientific Data
  1.3 Input File Formats
  1.4 Visual Methods
  1.5 Processing Modes
  1.6 Platforms
  1.7 History
  1.8 Should I Use ParaView?

2.0 Visualizing Scalars

  2.1 Reading Data
  2.2 Clip and Cut Filters
  2.3 Contour Filter
  2.4 Glyph Filter
  2.5 Annotation
Final Display

3.0 Moving Around

  3.1 Cameras and Objects
  3.2 Saving Camera Locations
  3.3 Saving Lookmarks

4.0 Menu Madness

  4.1 Controlling the Parts
  4.2 Changing the Size
  4.3 Property Sheets
  4.4 Animation Controls
  4.5 Tool Bar

First Exercise

5.0 Pipeline Operations

  5.1 Module Output
  5.2 Rendering
  5.3 Lighting
  5.4 Editing

6.0 Visualizing Vectors

  6.1 Calculator
  6.2 Threshold
  6.3 Glyphs & Masking
  6.4 Glyphs on Surfaces
  6.5 Streamlines

7.0 Visualizing Cell Data

  7.1 Standard Methods
  7.2 Cell Centers

8.0 XY Plots

Second Exercise

9.0 Animation

  9.1 Animatable Properties
  9.2 Keyframes
  9.3 Editing Keyframes
  9.4 Playing & Recording
  9.5 Transient Data

10.0 Saving your Work

11.0 Additional Modes

  11.1 Internal Design
  11.2 Client-Server
  11.3 Parallel
  11.4 Batch
  11.5 Web

12.0 Resources

  12.1 Main Web Site
  12.2 Documentation
  12.3 User Groups
  12.4 Other Sites

Third Exercise