# No SDF file format?
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [November 22, 2022, 10:54pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839 "2022-11-22T22:54:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@DanRR](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/DanRR)
#### Post date: [November 22, 2022, 10:54pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839/1 "2022-11-22T22:54:44Z")
I see probably a 100 of supported formats but no SDF one. Any reason for that? Dead format? MATLAB, Python, IDL support it…
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2022, 2:18am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839/2 "2022-11-23T02:18:19Z")
My wild guess (and it is only a guess) is that either no one has written a reader yet, or the file format is not available or there are legal restrictions on the file format. As always with an open source project, feel free to create a reader and contribute to the community.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2022, 7:26am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839/3 "2022-11-23T07:26:14Z")
For anyone curious about the format, here are some links:
> **[SDFormat Home](http://sdformat.org/)**
>
> Simulation Description Format
> **[GitHub - gazebosim/sdformat: Simulation Description Format (SDFormat) parser...](https://github.com/gazebosim/sdformat)**
>
> Simulation Description Format (SDFormat) parser and description files. - GitHub - gazebosim/sdformat: Simulation Description Format (SDFormat) parser and description files.
Interesting robotics-related open format.
So the “no one has written a reader yet” seems to be the right assumption here 🙂
We welcome it gladly @DanRR .
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### Author:  [@DanRR](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/DanRR)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2022, 1:49pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839/4 "2022-11-23T13:49:29Z")
> [@mwestphal](#):
>
> [GitHub - gazebosim/sdformat: Simulation Description Format (SDFormat) parser and description files.](https://github.com/gazebosim/sdformat)
Adding to confusion why it is not supported, here could be two not the same SDF formats. One called SDFormat and another Self Describing File. This is what i find was written in the PIC code EPOCH description (one of the well known codes in the field) which uses SDF file format
" Output in EPOCH is handled using the custom designed SDF file format (_Self Describing Format_ ). A detailed specification of this format is available elsewhere, although this is only of interest to developers wishing to write new libraries. EPOCH comes with readers for ITT IDL, LLNL VisIt, Mathworks MatLab and Python. The IDL reader is also compatible with the open source GDL tool."
Problem here is that often (or better say almost always) libraries written by EPOCH team are not easy to make compatible with versions of graphics visualizers. For example there is no version of readers for Visit for Windows or no Visit for latest Linux Ubuntu 22 which people mostly use because Visit just can not make one for last several years (compilation of Visit for example may typically take ridiculous time almost one day and then fails 🙂 )
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2022, 1:58pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839/5 "2022-11-23T13:58:35Z")
> [@DanRR](#):
>
> A detailed specification of this format is available elsewhere, although this is only of interest to developers wishing to write new libraries.
So this is another format ? Do you have a link to a spec somewhere ?
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### Author:  [@DanRR](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/DanRR)
#### Post date: [November 23, 2022, 5:56pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839/6 "2022-11-23T17:56:01Z")
> [@DanRR](#):
>
> A detailed specification of this format is available elsewhere, although this is only of interest to developers wishing to write new libraries.
Yes, i just got the answer from EPOCH. In TEX form it is here
>
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2022, 7:23am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839/7 "2022-11-24T07:23:59Z")
Thats a latex file, do they have a compiled .pdf somewhere ?
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### Author:  [@DanRR](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/DanRR)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2022, 1:37am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839/8 "2022-11-25T01:37:15Z")
That was the response from the code developers, but not exactly those who were working to implement this format there. Afraid, getting more info may take some time.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [November 25, 2022, 7:33am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839/9 "2022-11-25T07:33:56Z")
No worries I was just curious.
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### Author:  [@DanRR](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/DanRR)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2022, 2:33am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839/10 "2022-11-27T02:33:27Z")
Here is the link on EPOCH Developers manual, where starting from Page 93 one can find more info about SDF:
[https://github.com/Warwick-Plasma/EPOCH\_manuals/releases/download/v4.17.0/epoch\_dev.pdf](https://github.com/Warwick-Plasma/EPOCH_manuals/releases/download/v4.17.0/epoch_dev.pdf)
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### Author:  [@robertsawko](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/robertsawko)
#### Post date: [July 4, 2023, 9:39am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/no-sdf-file-format/10839/11 "2023-07-04T09:39:23Z")
@DanRR it looks like Epoch developers went with VisIt. It is also not supported out of the box so you need to compile a plugin that is bundled with the source. They describe it [here](https://epochpic.github.io/documentation/visualising_output/visualising_sdf_files_with_llnl_visit).
I am on a project currently, which is considering doing Epoch1D in situ for large ensembles, so I am looking into a viability of writing a reader or a direct Catalyst adapter.