Scientific Visualization 101: VisIt vs. ParaView ~ Choosing the Right Tool for Your Data

Overview

Visualization experts James Kress and Thomas Theussl will lead this comparative introduction to the two most popular open-source scientific visualization applications: VisIt and ParaView.

Many beginners struggle to decide which tool to invest their time in. This workshop solves that dilemma by putting both applications side-by-side. We will use the exact same datasets to demonstrate how each tool approaches data loading, pipeline building, filtering, and rendering, giving you a clear picture of their respective strengths.

The workshop is designed as a hands-on primer. You will learn the shared fundamentals of scientific visualization before breaking out into guided, deep-dive walkthroughs of both ParaView and VisIt. By the end of the session, you will have a practical cheat-sheet on which tool excels at which tasks for your specific research needs.

Key Learning Objectives:

• SciVis Foundations: Understand core data formats, representations, and visualization techniques.
• ParaView Deep Dive: Master the ParaView pipeline browser, properties, and essential filters.
• VisIt Deep Dive: Navigate VisIt's plots, operators, expressions, and subset controls.
• Tool Selection: Confidently choose the right visualization application based on your dataset and end goals.

Who Should Attend?

KAUST researchers, engineers, and students who are new to scientific visualization and want to learn how to visualize their data without the trial-and-error of guessing which software to use.

Agenda