# What's the best alternative for VizSchema?

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/whats-the-best-alternative-for-vizschema/16887
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [July 2, 2025, 4:05pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/whats-the-best-alternative-for-vizschema/16887 "2025-07-02T16:05:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![apadana](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/apadana/32/5819_2.png) [@apadana](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/apadana)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2025, 4:05pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/whats-the-best-alternative-for-vizschema/16887/1 "2025-07-02T16:05:48Z")

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I’ve developed some code which creates HDF5 files with VizSchema metadata. Unlike VisIt, the support of VizSchema in ParaView is not complete and optimal. For example, each mesh can have an optional attribute named “vsAxisLabels”, which can be used to change the default axis labels. But ParaView completely neglects it. Another example is that though my file contains a uniform rectilinear mesh, ParaView imports it as a more complicated type of mesh.

I hope that there are other similar HDF5-based schemes which ParaView fully supports. I have some quite modest expectations from such an scheme:

- Each file has one single mesh, a uniform rectilinear one
- Two data arrays are defined on the mesh (nodal values)
- The data arrays have row-major order (like in C)
- The axis labels can be included in the file

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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: [July 3, 2025, 7:50am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/whats-the-best-alternative-for-vizschema/16887/2 "2025-07-03T07:50:40Z")

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ParaView rely on the VisitReader to read the .vsh5 format, so I would expect results to be similar.

> I hope that there are other similar HDF5-based schemes which ParaView fully supports.

VTK now has a native h5 based format called VTKHDF. [VTK File Formats - VTK documentation](https://docs.vtk.org/en/latest/design_documents/VTKFileFormats.html#vtkhdf-file-format)

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### Author: ![apadana](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/apadana/32/5819_2.png) [@apadana](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/apadana)
#### Post date: [July 3, 2025, 8:39am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/whats-the-best-alternative-for-vizschema/16887/3 "2025-07-03T08:39:56Z")

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Thanks for the reply. I prefer the GUI of ParaView, but .vsh5 files can be visualized more rapidly with VisIt.

Whenever I open a .vsh5 file in ParaView, I first have to apply a resample to image filter before It can do volume rendering. This issue is discussed here:

> [@Why do ParaView and VisIt treat this data file somewhat differently?](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/why-do-paraview-and-visit-treat-this-data-file-somewhat-differently/11581):
>
> Hi. First of all, I’d like to thank all people behind ParaView. I have two questions about visualizing the 55x55x55 array stored in the HDF5 file attached (00080.vsh5): It can’t be volume-rendered in ParaView (version 5.11) directly. I mean I just see a blank screen. I have to first apply a threshold filter removing all values below, say, 1E-10. Then it can be volume-rendered. Why? I don’t face this problem with VisIt. Volume-rendering in VisIt can be done with a method named “Ray casting:…

Moreover, ParaView neglects axis labels that are optionally embedded in .vsh5 files. VisIt automatically applies them.

Obviously, these issues are not serious. But my goal is that the end user of my code be able to visualize simulation results as fast as possible, without any unnecessary steps.