Paraview can not find reader for .hdf file in Windows

Support
1

I am trying to make an Unstructured grid in the HDF file format.
I created my file using HDF5.jl.

HDF5.File: (read-write) test_file.h5
└─ :open_file_folder: VTKHDF
├─ :label: Version
├─ :1234: Connectivity
├─ :1234: NumberOfCells
├─ :1234: NumberOfConnectivityIds
├─ :1234: NumberOfPoints
├─ :1234: Offsets
├─ :1234: Points
└─ :1234: Types

I installed paraview nightly (1099) on Windows from the .msi file with MS-MPI installed on my computer.
When I try to open my file in paraview, I get the error “A reader could not be found”.

Does the VTKHDF reader not work on Windows? The release notes for 5.11 says its supported, and paraview claims that HDF5 is bundled with the paraview installation so I’m not sure what could be missing.

2

Can you try renaming your file from .h5 to .hdf?

3

I tried .h5 and .hdf, and both did not work.

4

If I manually select the filetype VTKHDF files (.hdf) when opening the file, so there is some bug with selecting the correct reader perhaps.

I still can’t get my file to work, from h5dump I get this which seems okay:

HDF5 “test_file.hdf” {
GROUP “/” {
GROUP “VTKHDF” {
ATTRIBUTE “Type” {
DATATYPE H5T_STRING {
STRSIZE 16;
STRPAD H5T_STR_NULLTERM;
CSET H5T_CSET_UTF8;
CTYPE H5T_C_S1;
}
DATASPACE SCALAR
DATA {
(0): “UnstructuredGrid”
}
}
ATTRIBUTE “Version” {
DATATYPE H5T_STD_I64LE
DATASPACE SIMPLE { ( 2 ) / ( 2 ) }
DATA {
(0): 1, 0
}
}
…
}

Does the reader not support UTF8 types?

5

I can confirm this is an issue. I made two files with identical data. One used utf-8 encoding and the other used ascii for the string attributes. Only the ascii worked. Related there seemed to be an issue with h5 variable length strings among other things.

6

FYI @jfausty

7

Lucas, HendersonSC,
Can you guys post bug reports and attach the files you had troubles with? That would help us fix those issues.

Thanks,
Dan

8

Created an issue here: https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/-/issues/22135
Not sure if it should be raised in paraview or vtk.