Searching for overall description of Paraview internals

ParaView Support
1

I have been reading lots of Paraview docs but one I am desperately missing is few pages description what are the blocks Paraview is built from and what is their function in the figure, like
-Data is saved into structures created by module XXX. See folder AAA.
-Data is converted to useful form by module YYY and saved to its own structures. Folder BBB.
-That data is fed to visualization module ZZZ. Folder CCC.
-Etc.
So, an overall figure what I am dealing with and in which closet certain things reside. There are agonizing many docs going to marvelous details but for a new beginner its very hard to get going with those. One needs to know how to open a door and where the pedals and steering wheel are, before studying racing rules.

2

Are you looking for a developer oriented doc ? Or a GUI user oriented doc ?

3

Developer oriented one please.

4

There is no such documentation sadly, but to be honest it would only bu useful to ParaView developers themselves. Are you looking to contribute to ParaView ?

5

Yes, if the routines I have to write show up to be useful for others also. But first I have to get to the level I understand how the bits and pieces are connected together and which routine is responsible for which task. In basic level one can assume that GUI is based on QT and viewing on VTK but the most important part, how data is stored and how it flows in the pipeline is not explained in the docs I managed to find. Is that sort of inherited secret which is revealed in a ceremony when one is accepted to the contributors :wink: … maybe I didn’t just notice to look for the correct docs?

6

To be honest, it is more that nobody took the time to write such doc.
There is a ParaView advanced course in march in France that will cover that, and then some.
https://discourse.paraview.org/t/paraview-and-vtk-training-course-in-lyon-france-in-march-2020/3497/2

Other than that, here is the quick take :

  • VTK : A specific hash from vtk git repository
  • VTKExtensions : VTK class that are not part of VTK for now
  • Qt : All Qt dependent code is here
  • Remoting : All Client/server related code is here
  • Clients : Code specific to the client, eg ParaView, Catalyst …
  • CMake/Documentation/Example/Plugins : self-explanatory