This page describes how to build and install ParaView. It covers building for development, on both Linux and Windows. Please Note that Linux (x86_64), Windows (x86_64) and macOS (x86_64 and arm64) version are built and tested by our continuous integration system and are considered supported environments.
Any other environnements and architecture (including Cygwin, MingGW, PowerPC) are considered non-officially supported, however, patches to fix problems with these platforms will be considered for inclusion.
ParaView depends on several open source tools and libraries such as Python, Qt, CGNS, HDF5, etc. Some of these are included in the ParaView source itself (e.g., HDF5), while others are expected to be present on the machine on which ParaView is being built (e.g., Python, Qt).
The first section is a getting started guide by OS that is very helpful if you have never built ParaView before and do not know which options you need. If you are looking for the generic help, please read the Complete Compilation Guide
This is a section intended to help those that have never built ParaView before, are not experienced with compilation in general or have no idea which option they may need when building ParaView. If you follow this guide, you will be able to compile and run a standard version of ParaView for your operating system. It will be built with the Python wrapping, MPI capabilities and multithreading capabilities.
Please run the command in a terminal to install the following dependencies depending of your linux distribution.
sudo apt-get install git cmake build-essential libgl1-mesa-dev libxt-dev libqt5x11extras5-dev libqt5help5 qttools5-dev qtxmlpatterns5-dev-tools libqt5svg5-dev python3-dev python3-numpy libopenmpi-dev libtbb-dev ninja-build qtbase5-dev qtchooser qt5-qmake qtbase5-dev-tools
sudo apt-get install git cmake build-essential libgl1-mesa-dev libxt-dev qt5-default libqt5x11extras5-dev libqt5help5 qttools5-dev qtxmlpatterns5-dev-tools libqt5svg5-dev python3-dev python3-numpy libopenmpi-dev libtbb-dev ninja-build
Download and install cmake) as the packaged version is not enough considering that CMake 3.12 or higher is needed.
sudo yum install python3-devel openmpi-devel mesa-libGL-devel libX11-devel libXt-devel qt5-qtbase-devel qt5-qtx11extras-devel qt5-qttools-devel qt5-qtxmlpatterns-devel tbb-devel ninja-build git
###### Environment
sudo pacman -S base-devel ninja openmpi tbb qt python python-numpy cmake
If you are using another distribution, please try to adapt the package list. Feel free to then provide it so we can integrate it in this guide by creating an issue.
To build ParaView development version (usually refered as "master"), please run the following commands in a terminal:
To build a specific ParaView version, eg: v5.9.1, please run the following commands in a terminal while replacing "tag" by the version you want to build
Double click on the paraview executable in the /bin directory or run in the previous terminal
These instructions have worked on a mid 2023 MacMini with an M2 chipset on macOS Ventura.
Please run the command in a terminal to install the following dependencies on your Mac via Homebrew and add the relevant environment variables for brew.
brew install open-mpi cmake mesa tbb ninja gdal qt5
##### Set build environment
To build a specific ParaView version, eg: v5.11.1, please run the following commands in a terminal
Double click on the paraview executable in the /bin directory or run in the previous terminal
Note: The following steps concerning Visual Studio 2019 can also be applied to newer versions. If so, be sure to use the respective Qt Version (e.g. for VS 2022, use msvc2022_64) and the Native Tools Command Prompt.
C++
Pythonninja.exe in C:\Windows\msmpisetup.exe and msmpisdk.msi from Microsoft MPIPATH environnement variable.C:\Qt\Qt5.15.3\5.15.3\msvc2019_64\bin to your PATH environment variable.QT_QPA_PLATFORM_PLUGIN_PATH: C:\Qt\Qt5.15.3\5.15.3\msvc2019_64\plugins\platforms.master), run the following commands:Note: If you want to build ParaView with CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug you also need to add the option -DPARAVIEW_WINDOWS_PYTHON_DEBUGGABLE=ON.
C:\pv\pvb\bin\paraview.exe executableTo obtain ParaView's sources locally, clone this repository using Git.
ParaView supports all of the common generators supported by CMake. The Ninja, Makefiles, and Visual Studio generators are the most well-tested however.
ParaView only requires a few packages to build with its basic capabilities. However, specific features may require additional packages to be provided to ParaView's build configuration.
Required:
Optional dependencies:
CMake is a tool that makes cross-platform building simple. On several systems it will probably be already installed or available through system package management utilities. If it is not, there are precompiled binaries available on CMake's download page.
ParaView uses Qt to provide its graphical user interface. Precompiled binaries are available on Qt's website.
Note that on Windows, the compiler used for building ParaView must match the compiler version used to build Qt.
The Linux packages for Qt 5.9 use a version of protobuf that may conflict with that used by ParaView. If, when running ParaView, error messages about a mismatch in protobuf versions appears, moving the libqgtk3.so plugin out of the plugins/platformthemes directory has been sufficient in the past.
.avi) movie librariesWhen the ability to write .avi files is desired, and writing these files is not supported by the OS, ParaView can use the ffmpeg library. This is generally true for Linux. Source code for ffmpeg can be obtained from its website.
To run ParaView in parallel, an MPI implementation is required. If an MPI implementation that exploits special interconnect hardware is provided on your system, we suggest using it for optimal performance. Otherwise, on Linux/Mac, we suggest either OpenMPI or MPICH. On Windows, Microsoft MPI is required.
In order to use Python scripting, Python is required (version 3.3 or later). Python is also required in order to build ParaViewWeb support.
Off-screen Mesa can be used as a software-renderer for running ParaView on a server without hardware OpenGL acceleration. This is usually available in system packages on Linux. For example, the libosmesa6-dev package on Debian and Ubuntu. However, for older machines, building a newer version of Mesa is likely necessary for bug fixes and support for features needed by ParaView. Its source and build instructions can be found on its website.
sudo apt install the following packages:build-essentialcmakemesa-common-devmesa-utilsfreeglut3-devninja-buildninja is a speedy replacement for make, highly recommended.Note: If you are using an Ubuntu-provided compiler, there is a known issue with the optional Python linking. This case is hard to auto-detect, so if undefined symbol errors related to Python symbols arise, setting vtk_undefined_symbols_allowed=OFF may resolve the errors. If it does not, please file a new issue.
PATH.In order to build, CMake requires two steps, configure and build. ParaView itself does not support what are known as in-source builds, so the first step is to create a build directory.
!!! note On Windows, there have historically been issues if the path to the build directory is too long. These issues should have been addressed in more recent versions of ParaView's build system, but they may appear again. If you see errors related to header files not being found at paths on your file system that do exist, please report them to the issue tracker.
CMake's GUI has input entries for the build directory and the generator already. Note that on Windows, the GUI must be launched from a "Native Tools Command Prompt" available with Visual Studio in the start menu.
ParaView has a number of settings available for its build. These are categorized as build options, capability options, feature options and miscellaneous options.
Options that impact the build begin with the prefix PARAVIEW_BUILD_. Common variables to modify include:
PARAVIEW_BUILD_SHARED_LIBS (default ON): If set, shared libraries will be built. This is usually what is wanted.Less common, but variables which may be of interest to some:
PARAVIEW_BUILD_EDITION (default CANONICAL): Choose which features to enable in this build. This is useful to generate ParaView builds with limited features. More on this later.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_EXAMPLES (default OFF): If set, ParaView's example code will be added as tests to the ParaView test suite. These tests may be built and run using the paraview-examples target.PARAVIEW_BUILD_DEVELOPER_DOCUMENTATION (default OFF): If set, the HTML documentation for ParaView's C++, Python, and proxies will be generated.PARAVIEW_PLUGIN_DISABLE_XML_DOCUMENTATION (default OFF): Whether plugin XML documentation is forcefully disabled.PARAVIEW_BUILD_TESTING (default OFF): Whether to build tests or not. Valid values are OFF (no testing), DEFAULT (enable tests which have all test dependencies satisfied), WANT (enable test dependencies as possible; see vtk/vtk#17509), and ON (enable all tests; may error out if features otherwise disabled are required by test code).PARAVIEW_BUILD_VTK_TESTING (default OFF): Whether to build tests for the VTK codebase built by ParaView. Valid values are same as PARAVIEW_BUILD_TESTING.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_CATALYST (default OFF): Whether to build the ParaView implementation of Catalyst.More advanced build options are:
PARAVIEW_BUILD_ALL_MODULES (default OFF): If set, ParaView will enable all modules not disabled by other features.PARAVIEW_BUILD_LEGACY_REMOVE (default OFF): Remove legacy / deprecated code.PARAVIEW_BUILD_LEGACY_SILENT (default OFF): Silence all legacy / deprecated code messages.PARAVIEW_BUILD_WITH_EXTERNAL (default OFF): When set to ON, the build will try to use external copies of all included third party libraries unless explicitly overridden.PARAVIEW_BUILD_WITH_KITS (default OFF; requires PARAVIEW_BUILD_SHARED_LIBS): Compile ParaView into a smaller set of libraries. Can be useful on platforms where ParaView takes a long time to launch due to expensive disk access.PARAVIEW_BUILD_ID (default ""): A build ID for the ParaView build. It can be any arbitrary value which can be used to indicate the provenance of ParaView.PARAVIEW_GENERATE_SPDX (default OFF): When compiling ParaView, generate a SPDX file for each of ParaView modules containing license and copyright information.These settings control capabitities of the build. These begin with the prefix PARAVIEW_USE_. The common variables to modify include:
PARAVIEW_USE_QT (default ON): Builds the paraview GUI application.PARAVIEW_USE_MPI (default OFF): Whether MPI support will be available or not.PARAVIEW_USE_PYTHON (default OFF): Whether Python support will be available or not.Less common, but potentially useful variables are:
PARAVIEW_USE_VTKM (default ON): Whether VTK-m based filters are enabled.PARAVIEW_USE_FORTRAN (default ON if Fortran compiler found): Enable Fortran support for Catalyst libraries.PARAVIEW_USE_CUDA (default OFF): Enable CUDA support in ParaView.PARAVIEW_USE_HIP (default OFF, requires CMake >= 3.21 and NOT PARAVIEW_USE_CUDA): Enable HIP support in ParaView.PARAVIEW_LOGGING_TIME_PRECISION (default 3): Change the precision of times output. Possible values are 3 for ms, 6 for us, 9 for ns.PARAVIEW_USE_SERIALIZATION (default OFF): Whether VTK serialization is enabled.These settings control optional features. These begin with the prefix PARAVIEW_ENABLE_. The common variables to modify include:
PARAVIEW_ENABLE_RAYTRACING (default OFF): Enable ray-tracing support with OSPray and/or OptiX. Requires appropriate external libraries.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_WEB (default OFF; requires PARAVIEW_USE_PYTHON): Whether ParaViewWeb support will be available or not.These settings are used for translating purpose:
PARAVIEW_BUILD_TRANSLATIONS (default OFF): Enable translation files update and generation.PARAVIEW_TRANSLATIONS_DIRECTORY (default ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/Translations): Path where the translation files will be generated on build.More advanced / less common options include:
PARAVIEW_ENABLE_VISITBRIDGE (default OFF): Enable support for VisIt readers.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_NVPIPE (default OFF): Use nvpipe image compression that uses the GPU when communicating. Requires CUDA and an NVIDIA GPU.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_GDAL (default OFF): Enable support for reading GDAL files.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_LAS (default OFF): Enable support for reading LAS files.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_OPENTURNS (default OFF): Enable support for reading OpenTURNS files.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_PDAL (default OFF): Enable support for reading PDAL files.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_MOTIONFX (default OFF): Enable support for reading MotionFX files.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_MOMENTINVARIANTS (default OFF): Enable MomentInvariants filters.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_LOOKINGGLASS (default OFF): Enable support for LookingGlass displays.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_XDMF2 (default OFF): Enable support for reading Xdmf2 files.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_XDMF3 (default OFF): Enable support for reading Xdmf3 files.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_FFMPEG (default OFF; not available on Windows): Enable FFmpeg support.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_COSMOTOOLS (default OFF; requires PARAVIEW_USE_MPI and not available on Windows): Enable support for CosmoTools which includes GenericIO readers and writers as well as some point cloud algorithms.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_CGNS_READER (default ON for CANONICAL builds, OFF for non-CANONICAL builds): Enable support for reading CGNS files. When building ParaView for e.g. CATALYST, this option allows building support for reading CGNS files. It will also build CGNSReader dependencies: HDF5 and CGNS.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_CGNS_WRITER (default ON for CANONICAL builds, OFF for non-CANONICAL builds): Enable support for writing CGNS files. When building ParaView for e.g. CATALYST, this option allows building support for writing CGNS files. It will also build CGNSReader dependencies: HDF5 and CGNS. If PARAVIEW_ENABLE_MPI is ON, the parallel CGNS writer will also be built.PARAVIEW_ENABLE_OCCT (default OFF): Enable support for reading OpenCascade file formats such as STEP and IGES.ParaView includes several optional plugins that can be enabled and disabled using the following options:
PARAVIEW_PLUGINS_DEFAULT (default ON): Pass this flag to the command line using -DPARAVIEW_PLUGINS_DEFAULT=OFF before the first cmake run to disable all plugins by default. Note this has no impact after the first cmake configure and hence must be passed on the command line itself.PARAVIEW_PLUGIN_ENABLE_<name> (default varies): Whether to enable a plugin or not.PARAVIEW_PLUGIN_AUTOLOAD_<name> (default OFF): Whether to autoload a plugin at startup or not. Note that this affects all clients linking to ParaView's plugin target.ParaView uses VTK's module system to control its build. This infrastructure provides a number of variables to control modules which are not otherwise controlled by the other options provided.
VTK_MODULE_USE_EXTERNAL_<name> (default depends on PARAVIEW_BUILD_WITH_EXTERNAL): Use an external source for the named third-party module rather than the copy contained within the ParaView source tree.VTK_MODULE_ENABLE_<name> (default DEFAULT): Change the build settings for the named module. Valid values are those for the module system's build settings (see below).VTK_GROUP_ENABLE_<name> (default DEFAULT): Change the default build settings for modules belonging to the named group. Valid values are those for the module system's build settings (see below).For variables that use the module system's build settings, the valid values are as follows:
YES: Require the module to be built.WANT: Build the module if possible.DEFAULT: Use the settings by the module's groups and PARAVIEW_BUILD_ALL_MODULES.DONT_WANT: Don't build the module unless required as a dependency.NO: Do not build the module.If any YES module requires a NO module, an error is raised.
More advanced options:
PARAVIEW_INITIALIZE_MPI_ON_CLIENT (default ON; requires PARAVIEW_USE_MPI): Initialize MPI on client processes by default.PARAVIEW_USE_QTHELP (default ON; requires PARAVIEW_USE_QT): Use Qt's help infrastructure for runtime documentation.PARAVIEW_VERSIONED_INSTALL (default ON): Whether to add version numbers to ParaView's include and plugin directories in the install tree.PARAVIEW_CUSTOM_LIBRARY_SUFFIX (default depends on PARAVIEW_VERSIONED_INSTALL): The custom suffix for libraries built by ParaView. Defaults to either an empty string or pvX.Y where X and Y are ParaView's major and minor version components, respectively.PARAVIEW_INSTALL_DEVELOPMENT_FILES (default ON): If set, ParaView will install its headers, CMake API, etc. into its install tree for use.PARAVIEW_RELOCATABLE_INSTALL (default ON): If set, the install tree will be relocatable to another path or machine. External dependencies needed by ParaView which are in non-standard locations may need manual settings in ParaView-using projects (those which share an install prefix with ParaView should be OK though). If unset, the install tree will include hints for the location of its dependencies which may include build-machine-specific paths in the install tree.PARAVIEW_SERIAL_TESTS_USE_MPIEXEC (default OFF): Used on HPC to run serial tests on compute nodes. If set, it prefixes serial tests with "${MPIEXEC_EXECUTABLE}" "${MPIEXEC_NUMPROC_FLAG}" "1" ${MPI_PREFLAGS}PARAVIEW_SKIP_CLANG_TIDY_FOR_VTK (defaults ON; requires CMAKE_<LANG>_CLANG_TIDY): If set, any clang-tidy settings will be cleared for the internal VTK build.PARAVIEW_TEST_DIR: Used on HPC to set the test directory (default is "${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR}/Testing/Temporary") to a location that is writable from the compute nodes. Typically the user home directory is not.PARAVIEW_LINKER_FATAL_WARNINGS: Specify if linker warnings must be considered as errorsPARAVIEW_EXTRA_COMPILER_WARNINGS: Add compiler flags to do stricter checking when building debugA typical ParaView build includes several modules and dependencies. While these are necessary for a fully functional application, there are cases (e.g. in situ use-cases) where a build with limited set of features is adequate. ParaView build supports this using the PARAVIEW_BUILD_EDITION setting. Supported values for this setting are:
CORE: Build modules necessary for core ParaView functionality. This does not include rendering.RENDERING: Build modules necessary for supporting rendering including views and representations. This includes everything in CORE.CATALYST: Build all modules necessary for in situ use cases without rendering and optional components like NetCDF- and HDF5-based readers and writers.CATALYST_RENDERING: Same as CATALYST but with rendering supported added.CANONICAL (default): Build modules necessary for standard ParaView build.ParaView's build is fairly complicated, so a few debugging facilities are provided.
CMake provides the --trace-expand flag which causes CMake to log all commands that it executes with variables expanded. This can help to trace logic and data through the configure step.
Debugging Find modules can be done using the --debug-find flag (introduced in CMake 3.17) to determine what CMake's find_ commands are doing.
VTK's module system debugging facilities may be controlled by using the following flags:
ParaView_DEBUG_MODULE (default OFF): If enabled, debugging is enabled. Specific portions of the module system may be debugged using the other flags.ParaView_DEBUG_MODULE_ALL (default OFF): Enable all debugging messages.ParaView_DEBUG_MODULE_building (default OFF): Log when modules are being built.ParaView_DEBUG_MODULE_enable (default OFF): Log why modules are enabled.ParaView_DEBUG_MODULE_kit (default OFF): Log information about discovered kits.ParaView_DEBUG_MODULE_module (default OFF): Log information about discovered modules.ParaView_DEBUG_MODULE_provide (default OFF): Log why a module is being built or not.ParaView_DEBUG_MODULE_testing (default OFF): Log testing for VTK modules.ParaView's plugin system has a similar setup:
ParaView_DEBUG_PLUGINS (default OFF): If enabled, debugging is enabled. Specific portions of the plugin system may be debugged using the other flags.ParaView_DEBUG_PLUGINS_ALL (default OFF): Enable all debugging messages.ParaView_DEBUG_PLUGINS_building (default OFF): Log when plugins are being built.ParaView_DEBUG_PLUGINS_plugin (default OFF): Log information about discovered plugins.The following targets are used to build documentation for ParaView:
ParaViewDoxygenDoc - build the doxygen documentation from ParaView's C++ source files.ParaViewPythonDoc - build the documentation from ParaView's Python source files.ParaViewDoc-TGZ - build a gzipped tarball of ParaView documentation.Spack is a package manager for supercomputers, Linux and macOS. ParaView is one of the packages available in Spack. To install ParaView from spack, you can use:
Please refer to Spack documentation for ways of customizing the install, including choosing the version and/or variant to build. Based on the version chosen, spack will download appropriate ParaView source and build it.
To make it easier to build ParaView using spack from an existing source checkout, we have included relevant spack package.yaml files within the ParaView codebase itself. This also makes it easier to keep the spack package up-to-date with any changes to the ParaView buildsystem. With every release (and as frequently as required), we will push the changes to the ParaView paraview.yaml file upstream to the official spack repository.
To build your existing source checkout of ParaView using Spack, here are the steps:
1.8.13 on Wed Apr 23 2025