# support of .mesh & .ovm formats
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/support-of-mesh-ovm-formats/17637
**Category:** Feature Requests
**Created:** [June 27, 2026, 5:27pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/support-of-mesh-ovm-formats/17637 "2026-06-27T17:27:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@otaolafr](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/otaolafr)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2026, 5:27pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/support-of-mesh-ovm-formats/17637/1 "2026-06-27T17:27:35Z")
Hello,
I would like to ask the possibility of adding the [.mesh](https://github.com/BrunoLevy/geogram/wiki/Mesh) and [.ovm](https://github.com/OpenVolumeMesh/OpenVolumeMesh) formats to the readable/writable formats of paraview. the .mesh format is from geogram software and .ovm for openFlipper, two meshing processing formats.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2026, 8:45am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/support-of-mesh-ovm-formats/17637/2 "2026-06-29T08:45:49Z")
Both .mesh and .ovm formats do not seem to be specified in the links you shared. Is there proper spec ? I dont think we want to add a geogram or OVM dependencies (but we could if needed)
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### Author:  [@otaolafr](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/otaolafr)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2026, 9:02am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/support-of-mesh-ovm-formats/17637/3 "2026-06-29T09:02:58Z")
In regards to OVM, i found also this information (it is almost vtk 4.2 legacy with some slight differences): [OpenVolumeMesh: File Format](https://www.graphics.rwth-aachen.de/media/openvolumemesh_static/Documentation/OpenVolumeMesh-Doc-Latest/file_format.html)
there is also a fork of meshio that had support for it: [WIP OpenVolumeMesh read/write support · mheistermann/meshio@a9219d0 · GitHub](https://github.com/mheistermann/meshio/commit/a9219d00894ffbd2c7f3c04ea1cad1bae65439b0)
for .mesh just this [Documentation de Medit](https://www.ljll.fr/frey/logiciels/Docmedit.dir/) but I contacted the developer of geogram, to see if he has any more complete documentation EDIT: he pointed me to this document: [libMeshb/Documentation/libMeshb7.pdf at master · LoicMarechal/libMeshb · GitHub](https://github.com/LoicMarechal/libMeshb/blob/master/Documentation/libMeshb7.pdf) . It is worth noticing that .mesh is redable by gmsh.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2026, 11:49am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/support-of-mesh-ovm-formats/17637/4 "2026-06-29T11:49:54Z")
> In regards to OVM, i found also this information (it is almost vtk 4.2 legacy with some slight differences): OpenVolumeMesh: File Format
Indeed, should be simple enough
> pointed me to this document: libMeshb/Documentation/libMeshb7.pdf at master · LoicMarechal/libMeshb · GitHub . It is worth noticing that .mesh is redable by gmsh.
Ha nice, using gmsh is more reasonnable as we alread have it as a dependency
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### Author:  [@CsatiZoltan](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/CsatiZoltan)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2026, 8:41am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/support-of-mesh-ovm-formats/17637/5 "2026-06-30T08:41:32Z")
Gmsh can indeed open the GAMMA Mesh Format (libMeshb), but it is quite slow for large meshes.
As for dependencies, libMeshb is a C99 library with no additional dependencies. It has a CMake build system, so I could easily integrate it into my ParaView custom application. It is MIT licensed.
I am working on a ParaView reader that uses the libMeshb API to read a .mesh (ASCII) or a .meshb (the binary version) and create a `vtkUnstructuredGrid` object without making copies (just passing pointers).
Let me know if you are interested.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [July 6, 2026, 4:06pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/support-of-mesh-ovm-formats/17637/6 "2026-07-06T16:06:42Z")
That would probably be a welcome addition to ParaView, yes.