# Error reading dimension

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-reading-dimension/8292
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [October 31, 2021, 9:34am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-reading-dimension/8292 "2021-10-31T09:34:55Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![alegic](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/alegic/32/5819_2.png) [@alegic](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/alegic)
#### Post date: [October 31, 2021, 9:34am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-reading-dimension/8292/1 "2021-10-31T09:34:55Z")

</div>

Hi,  
I’m trying to load a file .vtk but paraview give me this error:

ERROR: In /builds/gitlab-kitware-sciviz-ci/build/superbuild/paraview/src/VTK/IO/Legacy/vtkRectilinearGridReader.cxx, line 103  
vtkRectilinearGridReader (0x1b4551c0): Error reading dimensions!

The file .vtk is:

 ![foto2](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/2X/3/36329097c46d0af652247abf6a5e36f46dab191f.png)

Thank  
Paul

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Kenneth\_Moreland](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/kenneth_moreland/32/15033_2.png) [@Kenneth\_Moreland](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Kenneth_Moreland)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2021, 1:57pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/error-reading-dimension/8292/2 "2021-11-01T13:57:44Z")

</div>

Even if you only have 2D data, you still need to specify the data in 3 dimensions. Add a Z dimension of size 1.

```auto
DIMENSIONS 100 50 1
X_COORDINATES 100 float
# All those coordinate you have listed
Y_COORDINATES 50 float
# All those coordinate you have listed
Z_COORDINATES 1 float
0.0

```