<div dir="ltr">Thanks for the response everyone and thanks for the detailed response Ken. It made things a bit more clearer. <div><br></div><div style>But still I dont understand that once I create a Hdf5 data, and even I create a XDMF file, how can I be sure which reader to use for the data? So every time I switch to a new data, chances are I might have to try out all the readers one by one, till one of them plots it fine?</div>
<div style>Is there something I am missing?</div><div style><br></div><div style>Thanks,</div><div style>Pradeep</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2012/12/21 Moreland, Kenneth <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:kmorel@sandia.gov" target="_blank">kmorel@sandia.gov</a>></span><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Perhaps I'll elaborate on John's response a little bit.<br>
<br>
As John alluded to, Hdf5 is not really a file format in that it does not<br>
specify any semantic meaning to the data. Hdf5 is just a storage<br>
mechanism for arrays of data. It is self describing in that it provides<br>
enough metadata to determine the basic data type, dimensions, name,<br>
attributes, and hierarchical namespace, but this is not enough for any<br>
reader to reliably build mesh structures from. For example, say there is<br>
an array stored in an Hdf5 file called "pts". Is this a list of point<br>
indices? Is this a collection of point coordinates that form a<br>
curvilinear grid? A list of point coordinates around triangles? A bag of<br>
point coordinates that will be indexed by some other array? Maybe pts<br>
doesn't mean points at all.<br>
<br>
The relevance of this discussion is that simply providing the Hdf5 is not<br>
sufficient to present data. The data has to follow some convention (or<br>
have that convention otherwise specified).<br>
<br>
But not to worry. This question of reading Hdf5 files comes up a lot on<br>
the ParaView mailing list and there exists a general solution: XDMF. XDMF<br>
is a simple XML descriptor file that you place next to your h5 file. The<br>
XDMF file describes what is called the schema for the data in the Hdf5<br>
file: That is, it defines the structure of the data.<br>
<br>
XDMF files can be created through the XDMF library or you can create the<br>
XML file to describe an existing h5 file by hand. Based on the fact that<br>
the generic NetCDF reader works (a coincidence whose technical details I<br>
won't go into), I expect the describing XDMF file to be small and easy to<br>
write. See the XDMF documentation at <a href="http://www.xdmf.org" target="_blank">www.xdmf.org</a> for more details.<br>
<br>
-Ken<br>
<div><div class="h5"><br>
<br>
<br>
On 12/20/12 2:30 AM, "Biddiscombe, John A." <<a href="mailto:biddisco@cscs.ch">biddisco@cscs.ch</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
>Hdf5 is very flexible so one reader cannot cope with all possibilities.<br>
>You need to know which hdf5 reader you need and target that format<br>
><br>
>Sent from my Phone<br>
>________________________________<br>
>From: Pradeep Jha<br>
>Sent: 20/12/2012 08:33<br>
>To: <a href="mailto:paraview@paraview.org">paraview@paraview.org</a><br>
>Subject: [Paraview] HDF5 and Paraview<br>
><br>
>Hello,<br>
><br>
>I dont understand something. In all of Paraview manuals it says that it<br>
>is compatible with HDF5 file format. I am using Paraview 3.98.<br>
>I wrote a data file using HDF for fortran and generated a file<br>
>(filename.h5). But when I am tried to open it, "*.h5" was not in the list<br>
>of supported<br>
>file formats.<br>
><br>
>Paraview gives me the message "A reader for filename.h5 could not be<br>
>found. Please choose one: <followed by a long list of readers>".<br>
>Even in that long list there are no HDF5 readers, so I just started<br>
>trying everything and finally succeeded with "NetCDF files generic and<br>
>CF conventions" (I don't even know what it is).<br>
><br>
>But it is not reassuring. I don't know if this will work for any other<br>
>data set. Am I missing something here?<br>
><br>
>Thanks<br>
>Pradeep<br>
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