As currently as ParaView 5.12.0 the XDMF2 reader (.xmf2 extension) produces a vtkMultiBlockDataset. Is it planned to change the reader at some point to produce a vtkPartitionedDatasetCollection? Or will a different reader be needed? AFAIK there’s nothing about the XDMF format that explicitly requests or requires producing a MBDS
Yes, the XDMF reader and all readers that produce MBDS should change to PDC at some point. We don’t have a roadmap for when these changes will be made, but we will start planning that sometime in the near future.