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File extensions

VisIt uses file extensions to decide which database reader plugin should be used to open a particular file format. Each database reader plugin has a set of file extensions that are used to match a filename to it. When a file's extension matches (case sensitive except on MS Windows) that of a certain plugin, VisIt attempts to load the file with that plugin. If the plugin cannot load the file then VisIt attempts to open the file with the next suitable plugin, before trying to open the file with the default database reader plugin. If your files do not have file extensions then VisIt will attempt to use the default database reader plugin. You can provide the -default_format command line option with the name of the database reader plugin to use if you want to specify which reader VisIt should use when first trying to open a file. For example, if you want to load a PDB/Flash file, which usually has no file extension, you could provide: -default_format PDB on the command line.

Database plugin

File extension(s)

Description

ANALYZE

img, hdr

Rectilinear grid of integer values containing MRI and fMRI data for human brains.

ANSYS

inp

ANSYS is a popular commercial suite of multi-physics codes. The VisIt ANSYS reader reads in the ASCII version of the ANSYS mesh input file format.

AUXFile

aux

LLNL ASCII file format containing target and beam diagnostic data for National Ignition Facility (NIF) lasers.

BOV

bov

Brick of values format where the database can be broken down into small bricks of ZLIB compressed scalar arrays.

Boxlib2D

boxlib2d, boxlib2D

Structured AMR format for 2D. Requires a .visit file to group multiple time states into a single time-varying database.

Boxlib3D

boxlib3d, boxlib3D

Structured AMR format for 3D. Requires a .visit file to group multiple time states into a single time-varying database.

CGNS

cgns

CFD General Notation System (CGNS) files contain platform-independent binary CFD (computational fluid dynamics) data for both unstructured and structured grids. Fore more information on CGNS, visit http://www.cgns.org.

CMAT

cmat

ASCII output of CMAT Fortran simulation.

Cosmos

cosmos

Astronomical simulation data saved in HDF4 format.

CosmosPP

cosmospp, cosmos++

Astronomical simulation data saved in HDF5 format.

Curve2D

curve, ultra, ult

ASCII text file containing 2 columns of X,Y pairs that comment containing the name of the variable.

Dune

Dat

ASCII file containing point meshes and variables written by Dune simulation code.

EnSight

case

Ensight Gold case files.

Enzo

boundary, hierarchy

Stanford University AMR Astrophysics simulation output saved in HDF4 format.

Exodus

ex, e, exo, ex2, exII, exii, gen, EX, E, EXO, EX2, EXII, GEN, exodus, EXODUS,nemesis, NEMESIS

Sandia National Laboratory's file format for storing simulation data.

FLASH

none

AMR data stored in HDF5 file format produced by the FLASH code from the University of Chicago. The -default_format FLASH command line options must be specified to select this database reader plugin because the plugin is not associated with any file extensions.

GDAL

adf, asc, bt, ddf, dem, ecw, gxf, jp2, map, mem, mpl, mpr, n1, nat, ntf, pix, rsw, sid, vrt, xpm

GDAL is a translator library for raster geospatial data formats common in the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) field. VisIt's GDAL reader can read the formats that GDAL itself can read including popular GIS formats such as: ArcInfo binary grid and Digital Elevation Map (DEM). For a complete list of the file formats that VisIt can access through the GDAL reader plugin, refer to http://www.gdal.org/formats_list.html.

Note that many of the formats that GDAL can read are actually image file formats. VisIt reads image file formats through its Image database reader plugin unless you tell the GDAL plugin to read image files by setting the VISIT_READ_IMAGES_WITH_GDAL environment variable.

Image

BMP, JPEG. JPG, PNG, PNM, PPM, SDT, SPR, TIF, TIFF, bmp, imgvol, jpeg, jpg, png, pnm, ppm, sdt, spr, tif, tiff

The Image database reader plugin can read in many popular image file formats, allowing you to plot images of experimental data or perform image analysis. In addition, the Image database reader plugin supports the creation of image volumes, which are comprised of a set of 2D slice images that can be reassembled into a 3D volume. An image volume file is a text file (ending in .imgvol) that contains the names of the images to be reassembled into a 3D volume.

KullLite

pdb, mkf

Input mesh files for Kull simulation program. Data files are stored in PDB format.

Lines

dat

ASCII text format containing X,Y pairs or X,Y,Z triples.

Mili

m, mili

Popular LLNL engineering format used in Dyna3D, Nike3D simulation codes. Requires use of the visit -makemili utility to create a .mili file that can be opened.

NASTRAN

nas, f06

NASTRAN is a popular commercial finite element tool. The VisIt NASTRAN reader plugin can import geometry from NASTRAN bulk data files.

NETCDF

nc, cdf, elev

NetCDF (Network Common Data Form) files are used to store scientific, array-oriented data in a machine-independent, binary format. NetCDF files often contain data from climate observations and results for climate simulations.

OVERFLOW

dat, save

Binary Fortran output files containing overlayed curvilinear meshes.

PATRAN

neu

PATRAN is a popular commercial finite element code. The VisIt PATRAN reader reads PATRAN neutral files, which are ASCII format files that contain unstructured geometry and simulation results.

PDB/Flash

pdb, r0000

The PDB database plugin is an umbrella reader for multiple styles of files written in the PDB database format.

Flash files are read by this plugin. Equation of state databases in PDB format can also be read using this plugin. Finally, the PDB plugin supports reading wavelet-compressed data files generated with Pf3D simulation code.

Pixie

h5

2D and 3D LANL simulation data saved in HDF5 format.

Plot2D

p2d

Structured data format for simulation data in Plot2D format.

Plot3D

q, x

Structured data format for simulation data in Plot3D format.

Point3D

3D

ASCI file format containing four columns of numbers: X,Y,Z point and a data value.

SAF

saf

Arbitrary simulation data stored in HDF5 file format by Sets and Fields (SAF) library.

SAMRAI

samrai

Structured AMR data stored in HDF5 file format. Requires a .visit file to group multiple time states into a single time-varying database.

SAR

SAR, sar

Specific Absorption Rate image volume files.

STL

stl

Stereolithographic file format containing triangle coordinates

Shapefile

dbf, shp

ESRI Shapefiles are commonly used in GIS applications to store vector data (boundaries, roads, building footprints, etc.).

Silo

pdb, silo

Popular LLNL file format based on PDB that supports scalar, vector fields, and materials stored on rectilinear, curvilinear, unstructured, or point meshes. Data can be split up into multiple domains.

Spheral

sv, spheral

Spheral files contain results of coupled hydrodynamical and gravitational simulations in ASCII form.

TecPlot

plt, tec, tp

ASCII file format for the popular TecPlot plotting package.

Tetrad

h5, hdf5

Tetrahedral meshes and variables stored in HDF5 file format.

TFT

dat, tft

ASCII output of TFT Fortran simulation.

TimeVaringExodus

exII

Same as Exodus

VTK

vtk

ASCII files containing data from multiple kinds of objects from Visualization Toolkit (VTK). Fore more information about VTK, visit http://www.kitware.com.

Vista

vista

Hierarchical file format based on Silo that stores data in HDF5 file format.

ViSUS

idx, vis

Research file format that allows dynamic decomposition of the file based on available processors and supports efficient reading of data (and subsets of data) from the file.

WavefrontOBJ

obj

Alias Wavefront Object file format. Contains 3D models.

Xmdv

okc

ASCII file containing columns of data.