# Exodus import, toggle by element type

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/exodus-import-toggle-by-element-type/14138
**Category:** Feature Requests
**Tags:** exodus
**Created:** [March 12, 2024, 3:53pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/exodus-import-toggle-by-element-type/14138 "2024-03-12T15:53:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 5

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### Author: ![Andy\_Bauer](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/andy_bauer/32/5442_2.png) [@Andy\_Bauer](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Andy_Bauer)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2024, 5:05pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/exodus-import-toggle-by-element-type/14138/5 "2024-03-13T17:05:09Z")

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The `Extract Cells By Type` filter may be more convenient since loading a plugin isn’t needed for that. It will do dataset modification though. So a completely new grid object will be created, which could be bad for large datasets if you want either no or all cells of a block and the cells aren’t homogeneous. The `Extract Cells By Type` does check for homogeneous cells though and if the cells are all of the same type the filter generates a shallow copy for output from the input, which makes the filter efficient for your use case.

After getting some more information in [boolean input for Python Plugin - #2 by theodorebaltis](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/boolean-input-for-python-plugin/14146/2) I figured out how to properly set boolean filter inputs so I updated my plugin –  
[processMultiBlocks2.py](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/short-url/gXXq7KYOry3Vn0HEVCrH133vxxq.py) (8.4 KB)

The `Extract Cells By Type` is probably a better solution since it is doesn’t need to be loaded as a plugin, efficient and maintains the block hierarchy. At least I learned how to implement a ParaView Python plugin though so it was a worthwhile exercise for me 🙂

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