ParaView

Open source parallel visualization and analysis

External Links:
ParaView image gallery
ParaView Tutorial

Running ParaView

Do not use ParaView on a login node. ParaView must be run on an HPC-VCL node.

There are two ways to connect to an HPC-VCL node and launch the ParaView GUI:

Option 1: SSH with X11 Forwarding

Windows users can use MobaXterm, which has a built-in X server. When SSHing to HPC-VCL, use ssh -X to enable X11 forwarding:

ssh -X <username>@<hpc-vcl-hostname>

Then open a terminal and type:

module load paraview
LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 paraview

Option 2: RDP (Remote Desktop)

Once your HPC-VCL reservation is ready at https://vcl.ncsu.edu, click "Connect!", then click "Get RDP file", and open the .rdp file to connect to the remote desktop. Once connected, open a terminal and type:

module load paraview
paraview --mesa

Here is a video tutorial on using ParaView. The slides from the video and a list of the commands used are available here.

Last modified: September 01 2026 21:22:40.