Importing tecplot (plt) files with time stamp in Paraview.

ParaView Support
1

We would like to import a sequence of snapshots to generate an animation in Paraview. The trouble is that the files were originally generated in Tecplot (extension plt). The sequence is correctly imported in Paraview, but the software does not recognize the time stamp of the snapshots. The result is that the snapshots are plotted all together. Is there a way that Paraview can be made to recognize the time stamps?

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What version of ParaView are you using? The Tecplot reader had some improvements in v5.6 though I’m not sure any of it was related to dealing with time information. The source code for reading in Tecplot files is the vtkTecplotReader if you want to try modifying it yourself. Other than that your best bet is to get a support contract from Kitware to have them make the changes. Information for that is at https://www.kitware.com/what-we-offer/#support.

3

Thank you Andy, I am using 5.6.0.
Paraview recognizes the blocks as distinct in ‘Data Hierarchy’, is there a way to map each block to a time? In other words, I am ok with stepping through a made-up time sequence, I just don’t want the blocks to be plotted all together. Worst-case scenario, how do I tell Paraview to blank all the blocks except one at a time?

4

You may be able to trick it with a Programmable Filter. The basics for using a Programmable Filter are here but that doesn’t cover anything time related. I’m not sure where to point you for how to add time information to a Programmable Filter as it’s a non-trivial thing to do, if it’s doable at all in the way you’d like it to work. It certainly won’t be a general solution but may work for you under very limited use cases.

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Thank you Andy. One last question then: besides native Paraview files, what other file format (ensight, exodus, etc…) could be used such that time stamps are automatically recognized?

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ExodusII is very well supported by ParaView. EnSight is supported as well but I’m not sure how well since I don’t have that much experience with that format. It’s a popular format though so I would think that EnSight would work well in ParaView as well. If you problems with that format feel free to ask questions.

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Hi Marco,

I have the same issue. Could you find any way to read the time from .plt files exported by Tecplot?

Best,