ParaView

By: Elaine Jiang

Installation

Total time: 15 min

1. Download binaries or source code archives for your machine here following these instructions. 

2. If you downloaded a binary (recommended if you just want to use the GUI),  open the dmg and follow installation instructions. Then, you're all set!

3. Otherwise, create a directory (e.g. "projects") and download the source code in that directory. you will first need to install CMake. An installer for CMake is available from http://www.cmake.org/download/. If you already have CMake, you can skip this step. Once you have installed CMake, run the following command in your terminal in order to run CMake:

$ sudo "/Applications/CMake.app/Contents/bin/cmake-gui" --install

You will also need Qt, a cross-platform application framework used for developing software that can be run on various platforms with little change in the codebase while still maintaining native capabilities and speed. 

To install on a Mac or Linux:

1. Configure ParaView with CMake.

   • Make a separate build directory:

     • $ mkdir projects/paraview-build

     • $ cd projects/paraview-build

   • Run ccmake

     • $ ccmake ../paraview

2. ccmake has a simple terminal based interface to help us customize the ParaView build with the desired options. Once you run CMake using ccmake, you will be presented with a list of options that can be modified to customize the ParaView build. CMake will be able to set most of these options to reasonable default values. 

   • Hit the 'c' key to configure. (Note: If you are initially seeing a blank interface, hit the 'c' key.)

   • Keep hitting the 'c' key until the generate option is available (g key), and then hit the 'g' key. 

3. Once ParaView has been successfully configured, the interface should quit itself. The last step is to build ParaView:

   • $ cd /path/to/ParaView-build

   • $ make

To install on Windows:

Prerequisite: make sure you have Visual Studio installed. 

1. Type cmake-gui in your terminal to open up Cmake.

2. Select the appropriate source and build directory (e.g. ParaView and ParaView-build, respectively), and select the default generator.

3. (Same as Step 2 for mac and linux machines) 

4. ccmake has a simple terminal based interface to help us customize the ParaView build with the desired options. Once you run CMake using ccmake, you will be presented with a list of options that can be modified to customize the ParaView build. CMake will be able to set most of these options to reasonable default values. 

   • Click the Configure button. (Note: If you are initially seeing a blank interface, click Configure.)

   • Keep clicking Configure until the Generate button becomes available, and then click Generate. 

5. Click Open Project. This will open the (large) ParaView directory in Visual Studio.

6. In Visual Studio, go to Project, then Build All.

Data Visualization - Tutorial

Total time (as beginner): 10 min

This tutorial will demonstrate how to visualize sample density (.vtk file here). 

1. Open the ParaView interface.

2. Open the file in ParaView.

3. Under the Pipeline Browser, make sure the eye icon is clicked. Then, the data should appear in the Render View box. 

4. We want to view the data as a volume. In one of the drop down menus in the top section of the interface, change "Outline" to "Volume."

5. We can also change the color scheme and each color's range in the data. To do this, click the Edit button under Coloring.

6. Under the Information tab, we can get learn more about the data, including the size of the dataset, the data ranges, and data type. 

7. (Optional step! Take a screenshot before completing this step): In the third row of the top section, there are various cube icons that help us alter and further analyze a volume, including contour (surface rendering), slicing (cutting a plane from the data set), and clipping (cutting a section of the dataset). Feel free to experiment with these functions!