# Error on reading a VTK file with multiple scalars

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-on-reading-a-vtk-file-with-multiple-scalars/5224
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [August 31, 2020, 7:07am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-on-reading-a-vtk-file-with-multiple-scalars/5224 "2020-08-31T07:07:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![MartinLicht](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@MartinLicht](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/MartinLicht)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2020, 7:07am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-on-reading-a-vtk-file-with-multiple-scalars/5224/1 "2020-08-31T07:07:45Z")

</div>

I have got a simple file that associates two sets of values `data1` and `data2` to the vertices of an unstructured mesh, which I want to display in Paraview.

If I leave out the second set of data, then everything works fine, but with two fields of scalar data, there is an error message.

```auto
# vtk DataFile Version 3.0
vtktest
ASCII
DATASET UNSTRUCTURED_GRID
POINTS 4 double
-1 -1 0
-1 1 0
1 -1 0
1 1 0

CELLS 2 8
3 0 1 3
3 0 2 3

CELL_TYPES 2
5
5

POINT_DATA 4
SCALARS data1 double 1
LOOKUP_TABLE default
0.15
0.15
0.45
0.45

POINT_DATA 4
SCALARS data2 double 1
LOOKUP_TABLE default
0.25
0.25
0.75
0.75

```

Upon calling paraview from the console with that file, the following error message is displayed:

```auto
ERROR: In /build/paraview-vlxewD/paraview-5.7.0/VTK/IO/Legacy/vtkDataReader.cxx, line 1007
vtkUnstructuredGridReader (0x55ab1e6bc360): Unsupported point attribute type: point_data for file: /home/username/vtktest.vtk

```

My ParaView version is (indeed) 5.7 on Ubuntu 20.04.

Do I misunderstand the vtk format, do I need to configure paraview, or this is a bug?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Kenichiro-Yoshimi](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/ecc23a/32.png) [@Kenichiro-Yoshimi](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Kenichiro-Yoshimi)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2020, 12:25am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-on-reading-a-vtk-file-with-multiple-scalars/5224/2 "2020-09-01T00:25:23Z")

</div>

Hi,

I don’t know much about the vtk legacy format, but the following is correct.

```auto
# vtk DataFile Version 3.0
vtktest
ASCII
DATASET UNSTRUCTURED_GRID
POINTS 4 double
-1 -1 0
-1 1 0
1 -1 0
1 1 0

CELLS 2 8
3 0 1 3
3 0 2 3

CELL_TYPES 2
5
5

POINT_DATA 4
FIELD FieldData 2
data1 1 4 double
0.15
0.15
0.45
0.45

data2 1 4 double
0.25
0.25
0.75
0.75

```

You can easily know the format by saving a similar data as a Legacy VTK file in ASCII mode from ParaView.