# vtm file format

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vtm-file-format/14923
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [June 25, 2024, 10:25pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vtm-file-format/14923 "2024-06-25T22:25:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/8e8cbc/32.png) [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2024, 10:25pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vtm-file-format/14923/1 "2024-06-25T22:25:38Z")

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I have a user using vtm file formats. He is creating a .pvd file, pointing to vtm files, pointing to vtr files. So, my questions:

- Where is documentation on vtm files? Google fails here…
- Are there examples of vtm files?
- Do vtm files spread the called vtr files among different servers when run on a parallel cluster?
- Is there a way to have ParaView write .vtm files?  
Thanks,  
Alan

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### Author: ![wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/8e8cbc/32.png) [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [June 25, 2024, 11:26pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vtm-file-format/14923/2 "2024-06-25T23:26:17Z")

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After using this post: [https://public.kitware.com/pipermail/vtkusers/2018-January/100605.html](https://public.kitware.com/pipermail/vtkusers/2018-January/100605.html) and vtk parts from the Examples directory, I believe that vtm files DO spread across pvservers. This really isn’t sufficient documentation, however.

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### Author: ![mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/mwestphal/32/17_2.png) [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2024, 9:47am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/vtm-file-format/14923/3 "2024-06-26T09:47:31Z")

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> [@wascott](#):
>
> Where is documentation on vtm files?

It should be documented here: [VTK File Formats - VTK documentation](https://docs.vtk.org/en/latest/design_documents/VTKFileFormats.html#xml-file-formats)

But it is missing.

> Are there examples of vtm files?

They are a few in the testing data, but you can actually generate some very easily, by just saving a composite data from ParaView

> Do vtm files spread the called vtr files among different servers when run on a parallel cluster?

Yes

> Is there a way to have ParaView write .vtm files?

File → SaveData on any composite data will do the trick