# How to open a group of obj files?
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [December 21, 2021, 1:17pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672 "2021-12-21T13:17:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sharaborin](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/sharaborin)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2021, 1:17pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672/1 "2021-12-21T13:17:00Z")
Hello!
I have a bunch of files like this:
scene\_110\_0.obj
scene\_110\_1.obj
scene\_110\_2.obj
scene\_110\_3.obj
how to open them a group of files? Right now the paraview opens only the first file: scene\_110\_0.obj.
Similar naming works with pvtu files, but why does not work with obj files?
Best regards,
Evgenii
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### Author:  [@danlipsa](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/danlipsa)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2021, 6:34pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672/2 "2021-12-21T18:34:11Z")
ParaView thinks this is a time series, so it opens the first time step and then it will let you step through the series.
To open them as a list of files, expand the series, select all the files and then open them.
Dan
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### Author:  [@sharaborin](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/sharaborin)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2021, 9:21pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672/3 "2021-12-21T21:21:19Z")
Dan,
it does not work. Paraview opens selected files as a separate files
Evgenii
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### Author:  [@danlipsa](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/danlipsa)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2021, 9:33pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672/4 "2021-12-21T21:33:03Z")
You can group them afterwards using Group Datasets
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### Author:  [@sharaborin](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/sharaborin)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2021, 6:35am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672/5 "2021-12-22T06:35:31Z")
Dan,
Paraview ‘Group Dataset’ combines/merges all my dataset into one dataset in one timestep (as different partitions). However, I need separate file representation for different timesteps.
Evgenii
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### Author:  [@danlipsa](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/danlipsa)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2021, 3:31pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672/6 "2021-12-22T15:31:39Z")
Sorry, I don’t really understand what you need.
You can also try Append Datasets which does merging instead of grouping in a multiblock dataset (partitioneddatasetcollection).
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### Author:  [@sharaborin](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/sharaborin)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2021, 4:17pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672/7 "2021-12-22T16:17:56Z")
I am sorry, it seems that I explain very poorly.
I have a bunch of object files: example\_1.obj, example\_2.obj, example\_3.obj etc. which corresponds to different times (let’s say t=1, 2, 3, correspondingly), then I want to create an animation using these files.
However, I faced with the problem: Paraview can’t interpret 1, 2, 3 in filenames example\_ **1**.obj, example\_ **2**.obj, example\_ **3**.obj as a timestep and Paraview opens only
- first obj file OR
- when I select a list of files and open them. Then all files are open immediately, not sequentially (at time 1: example\_1.obj, at time 2: example\_2.obj and so on)
It works perfectly for vtk and csv but not for obj file.
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### Author:  [@danlipsa](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/danlipsa)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2021, 6:18pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672/8 "2021-12-22T18:18:40Z")
Oh, I see.
You are right, support is not there for reading a time series of OBJs. It should not be hard to add, unless there is a specific reason why it wasn’t added already.
I would file a bug report about that, as the UI suggests it was open as a file series.
To get around this, I would convert your files to vtp using a VTK or ParaView script.
Dan
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### Author:  [@sharaborin](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/sharaborin)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2021, 9:41am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672/9 "2021-12-23T09:41:25Z")
Dan,
Thank you very much! The idea to convert to vtk is a good idea)
Best regards,
Evgenii
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2024, 8:44am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-open-a-group-of-obj-files/8672/10 "2024-01-03T08:44:54Z")
[https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/issues/22434](https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/issues/22434)