# VDB files
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [September 26, 2018, 7:11pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640 "2018-09-26T19:11:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2018, 7:11pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/1 "2018-09-26T19:11:24Z")
How hard would it be to add a VDB writer? This could be used with Houdini.
Here is the e-mail request from my user:
VDB is an export standard which Houdini can read in.
[http://www.openvdb.org/](http://www.openvdb.org/)
Export of .geo format data only works for polygons. What we want to do is export volumetric data in VDB format so that we can perform volumetric post-processing in Houdini.
There is a package called Redshift which allows you to perform volumetric rendering of VDB data in Houdini using the GPU. Render times per frame have been shown to go down from 1 hour to 2 minutes.
From my perspective, this is a pretty big WOW.
So, my questions:
- Does it make sense to add this writer into ParaView?
- How hard would it be?
- Can we get it in for the 5.7 release?
Thanks Team!
Alan
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### Author:  [@utkarsh.ayachit](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/utkarsh.ayachit)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2018, 1:24pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/2 "2018-09-28T13:24:25Z")
It’s doable for sure. We’d need a bit more exhaustive investigation to see how complicated it could be, but shouldn’t be too hard esp. if we can start with a small set of use-cases to support in the first pass.
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2018, 5:56pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/3 "2018-09-28T17:56:32Z")
Sounds good. I will write it up.
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### Author:  [@prwurech](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/prwurech)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2018, 1:37am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/4 "2018-11-15T01:37:05Z")
VDB is now also implemented in cinema 4D. It would be amazing to have this voxel format in paraview!
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### Author:  [@bcarvey](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/bcarvey)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2019, 11:00am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/5 "2019-01-24T11:00:52Z")
OpebVDB is open source, C++. Every 3d package that I can think of supports it. Maya, blender, modo, lightwave, 3d studio max, cinema 4d, Houdini… Also render engines like renderman, Arnold, vray and others support it.
I assume that with all of that support, it is not too difficult to create a writer.
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2019, 2:53am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/6 "2019-01-31T02:53:06Z")
The writeup is here: [https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/issues/18501](https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/issues/18501). I am changing priority for the 5.8 relase (i.e., Fall) to required.
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### Author:  [@gheith](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/gheith)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2019, 11:43am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/7 "2019-04-05T11:43:47Z")
Greetings,
I see that the VDB Writer is already in the works here. That said, is there a VDB Reader for ParaView that is available somewhere? Or, would it be part of the Writer addition?
Thank you.
Regards.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2019, 12:00pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/8 "2019-04-05T12:00:01Z")
Afaik, these is no .vdb reader in ParaView
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### Author:  [@alessandro-zomparell](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/alessandro-zomparell)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2019, 12:46pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/9 "2019-05-25T12:46:05Z")
Yes, please, make both writer and reader. It would be great combining it with Blender! 🙂
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### Author:  [@Andy\_Bauer](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Andy_Bauer)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 8:37pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/10 "2021-04-01T20:37:06Z")
Very preliminary work is at [https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/merge\_requests/4855](https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/merge_requests/4855) for those that want to check out an OpenVDB writer in PV. Outputting from vtkImageData has made the most progress so far.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2021, 9:17am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/11 "2021-04-06T09:17:01Z")
Is a reader planned as well ?
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### Author:  [@Andy\_Bauer](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Andy_Bauer)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2021, 12:19pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/12 "2021-04-06T12:19:39Z")
I’m not going to develop a reader. Since VDB is designed to be a sparse storage format with multiple “grids” it’s not clear to me what type of dataset to read in as. The best I can think of right now would be a composite dataset of point clouds. We don’t have a strong use case for reading in VDB files into VTK or ParaView so we can’t justify spending the resources to develop a reader.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2021, 12:34pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vdb-files/640/13 "2021-04-06T12:34:38Z")
Ok, I think that will be the first writer without a corresponding reader.