# Issues on disabling map scalars

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/issues-on-disabling-map-scalars/17053
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Tags:** vtk, python
**Created:** [August 8, 2025, 12:56am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/issues-on-disabling-map-scalars/17053 "2025-08-08T00:56:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 3

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### Author: ![Tao\_Tian](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/tao_tian/32/16821_2.png) [@Tao\_Tian](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Tao_Tian)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2025, 2:23am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/issues-on-disabling-map-scalars/17053/3 "2025-08-11T02:23:36Z")

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Thank you for your response!

While I did successfully disable map scalars by opening the advanced settings, there was an error shown in “Output Messages” tab saying “the data must have either 2 or 4 components”.

 ![mmexport1754877476526](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/3X/6/3/63ea8bbd8255be8cfc7f04e1d4afb4bb1570ddfe.png)

So I checked further about map scalars, and I found this section on paraview tutorial

> [@Looking for example RGB(A) volume data](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/looking-for-example-rgb-a-volume-data/12951/6):
>
> Just disable “Map Scalars” ?
> 
> [5. Displaying data — ParaView Documentation 6.0.0 documentation](https://docs.paraview.org/en/latest/UsersGuide/displayingData.html#fig-understandingmapscalars)

The tutorial said data array can be deemed as color if it is an unsigned char with 3 components.

 ![Screenshot_2025-08-11-10-10-25-911_com.quark.browser](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/3X/7/1/7114f310d49ea18670f89c25721744c34b02ee19.jpeg)

However my data, while satisfying this condition, still triggers an error. My data is an unsigned char containing 3 components ranging from 0 to 255.

 ![mmexport1754878710636](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/3X/5/7/5702de846c193fbfa71b8bbed95de2af16c80232.png)

Does this means to disable map scaler needs an RGBA format image, that is, should a column of data containing the opacity of each pixel be added? Or is there other ways to navigate through this problem?

Thank you again for your patient response!

Best regards,

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