Core Features of ParaView

Displaying Data

You can create different views to visualize data simultaneously and easily identify corresponding data elements. These views can also be customized (e.g. creating C++ plugins to add new types of views).

Filtering Data

Transform your data to generate visualizations that are easier to understand using ParaView filters. While an extensive list of filters is already provided, you can add custom filtering operations through Python scripting via a plugin or with a Programmable Filter.

Querying Data

Besides selecting data in various views interactively, ParaView provides a way to inspect the data by querying for elements that satisfy certain criteria using the “Find Data” dialog. The UI makes it easy to build simple queries to find matching elements. Complex queries are also possible using a Python-based syntax.

Animations

When you open a file with multiple timesteps, ParaView automatically sets up an animation. You can use the “Animation View” to set up complex animations involving changes to parameters of filters or sources, and you can move the camera to orbit around the dataset, along an arbitrary path, or follow data as it moves over time. Generated animations can be exported in common video formats (e.g. AVI, OGG, etc.) or as a series of PNG or JPEG image files.

Exporting Scenes

You can export rendered scenes from ParaView in formats used by 3D rendering tools (e.g. VRML, X3D, and GEO). They can then be imported into other rendering tools or saved as a self-contained HTML page that uses WebGL to do the rendering in a Web browser.