# general framework to compare different .vtk files (just visualizing)

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/general-framework-to-compare-different-vtk-files-just-visualizing/7640
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [July 19, 2021, 11:33am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/general-framework-to-compare-different-vtk-files-just-visualizing/7640 "2021-07-19T11:33:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 6

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### 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: [July 19, 2021, 3:32pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/general-framework-to-compare-different-vtk-files-just-visualizing/7640/6 "2021-07-19T15:32:45Z")

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Don’t do that. I don’t want to dive into technical details of when ParaView does and doesn’t refresh data from files, but suffice it to say that ParaView sometimes pulls new data from files, and there are use cases where [refreshing data is desired](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/update-automatic-data-input/3222).

Run your simulation to create solution files in two different places or copy the first solution files before opening them in ParaView.

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