Getting Started with the OmnibusCloud Plugin for ParaView

The OmnibusCloud plugin adds two things to ParaView.

One is a reader for CalculiX results. A .frd file opens from File › Open like any format ParaView knows, with every result step on ParaView's timeline. The reader needs no account and no network.

The other is Render on OmnibusCloud. You build a scene in ParaView the usual way, and the plugin renders it on the machines of your group or project: a still image, a set of animation frames or a video, with an optional camera move around the model. The result comes back to your machine and loads straight into the session.

The plugin is free and runs inside the official ParaView releases from Kitware on Windows, Linux and macOS.

This guide covers installing the plugin, opening a CalculiX result, signing in, and rendering a still, an animation and an OpenFOAM case.

Before you start

  • ParaView 6.2, the official release from Kitware →, on Windows 10 or 11 (x64), Linux (x64) or macOS on Apple Silicon. The plugin loads into ParaView 6.2.x only, and the installers refuse another version.
  • For rendering, an OmnibusCloud account, the same one used on the portal, in the client and in the solver. If you don't have one, you'll create it during sign-in. Opening .frd files needs no account.
  • For rendering, machines to render on. The plugin sends work only to a group or a project your account belongs to: a private group → pooling your team's workstations, or a project → others have joined with their machines.

You don't need the OmnibusCloud client to use the plugin. The client is what lends a machine to the network, so if you install the client → next to ParaView, your workstation helps render your group's jobs too. The render machines don't need ParaView installed. OmnibusCloud brings the ParaView runtime with the job.

1. Install the plugin

Open the downloads page → and pick the package for your system. Close ParaView first: it rewrites its plugin list when it quits.

Windows. Run OmnibusCloud-ParaView-Plugin-<version>-pv6.2-win-x64.msi. The installer needs no administrator rights: it installs for you alone, into %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\OmnibusCloud\ParaView, and registers the plugin with every ParaView 6.2 it finds, under C:\Program Files and wherever you have run one from.

macOS. Open the .pkg and follow the installer's steps. It registers the plugin with ParaView for you. The package is signed and notarized, so neither the installer nor ParaView asks about an unidentified developer.

Linux. Unpack the archive and run the install script with the path to ParaView:

bash
./install-plugin.sh /opt/ParaView-6.2.0

Every installer leaves the ParaView installation itself untouched. The plugin lives in a folder of its own and is registered in your ParaView settings, so reinstalling ParaView keeps it. It loads every time ParaView starts, and Tools › Manage Plugins lists it as auto-loaded.

Start ParaView. The OmnibusCloud panel docks on the right. If you close it, the Render on OmnibusCloud button on the toolbar or View › OmnibusCloud brings it back. The panel's first line names the plugin and SDK versions and links to Settings (section 10) and About (section 8).

2. Open a CalculiX result

Choose File › Open, pick a .frd file and press Apply. ParaView opens it with the OmnibusCloud Frd Reader.

  • Nodal results become point arrays named as CalculiX writes them: NDTEMP, DISP, STRESS and the rest.
  • The mesh bookkeeping comes along as cell arrays: ElementNumber, ElementType, ElementGroup and Material.
  • Every result step becomes a timestep. A transient result steps through time with ParaView's time controls. Static steps and repeated frequencies are numbered in order, and the step's own value is kept in the StepValue field.

The reader works offline, signed in or not. Any result CalculiX writes opens this way: from PrePoMax, from your own ccx runs, or from the OmnibusCloud Solver →. If a file is truncated or damaged, the reader refuses it and says where the problem is.

3. Sign in and choose where it renders

Until you sign in, the panel shows a Sign in button. Click it and complete the sign-in in your browser. Back in ParaView, the panel reads connected. The sign-in is remembered for 14 days, and Settings › Stay signed in changes that. Sign out, beside the version line, removes the saved sign-in from this computer.

Run on lists the groups and projects your account may use. Pick the one whose machines should render your jobs.

4. Render a still

Build the scene in ParaView as you always do. Any scene will do. This guide carries on with the CalculiX result from section 2.

Refresh data plan. The panel captures the session and lists what a render would upload: the files your scene reads and a saved state of the session. Nothing else leaves your folders.

Data plan: 2 files, 373.8 KB (0 B already in the cloud)

Choose the output. Set Output to Still image. Size offers 720p, 1080p, 1440p, 4K, Match the view and Custom. Image format is PNG or JPEG, and PNG can render the background as transparent. If the layout has several render views, View picks one. The active view is the default.

Read the pre-flight line. It states what the job will return and updates with every change:

This job renders 1 image · 1280×720 PNG

A request above the server's limits is refused here, before anything is uploaded (see section 9).

Render on OmnibusCloud. The panel goes through uploading, submitting the job, rendering on the fleet and downloading the result, and ends with render complete.

The result appears under the panel's buttons: its file name and size, Copy path, and a thumbnail. Open image shows it in your system's viewer, Load into ParaView brings it into the session as an image, and Open result folder shows the file on disk. The image uses your scene's camera and colors at the size you chose. To get the viewport's own proportions, pick Match the view.

5. Render an animation or a video

A scene with timesteps renders as a sequence: a .pvd collection or a numbered file series, a transient CalculiX result, the time directories of an OpenFOAM case.

Output has two sequence modes:

  • Animation frames, one image per timestep, in the image format you chose.
  • Video, encoded from those frames: MP4 (H.264 or H.265), WebM (VP9), or MOV with ProRes 422 HQ or ProRes 4444. ProRes 4444 keeps a transparent background, for overlays in an editor. Frame rate and Quality (CRF) apply to the video.

Timesteps chooses which steps render:

  • All timesteps or the Current timestep.
  • A Range from First to Last, with Every Nth for a quick draft before the full run.
  • Timestep indices, an explicit list such as 0, 5, 10-20, -1. Negative numbers count from the end.

When only part of the timeline renders, only the files those timesteps need are uploaded, and the pre-flight line says so:

This job renders 40 frames → MP4 (H.264) at 24 fps · 1920×1080 PNG · uploads 41 of 161 files (81.1 MB)

The frames render in parallel across the machines of your group or project, and the panel counts them as they finish: n of 160 frames. A frame set comes back as a folder, and Load frames as series brings it into ParaView as an image series you can scrub with the time controls. A video opens with Play video.

The plugin remembers which files are already in the cloud. Rendering the same scene again, with another output or another range, uploads only what changed, and the data plan shows how much is already there: (325.0 MB already in the cloud).

6. Move the camera

Camera move flies the camera around your scene while it renders. It applies to Animation frames and Video. For a still image the rows stay hidden.

Move What the camera does
Orbit revolves around the model, and a full 360° loops
Rise climbs toward a top view and ends there
Spiral revolves while climbing
Approach moves in on the model, to the End distance you set
Rock sways to either side of your framing and back, so the video loops

Move frames sets the length of the move, Sweep the angle, and Orbit axis turns around the camera's own up direction (Camera view-up) or a world axis. Frame 0 of every move is the view you framed in ParaView.

On a scene without time, the whole video is the move. With All timesteps, the move spreads over the timeline, and the camera circles the model while the simulation plays.

A camera move changes only how the result is rendered. The scene's files stay as they are, so trying another move uploads nothing.

7. Render an OpenFOAM case

Open the case through ParaView's own OpenFOAM reader: an empty .foam file at the case root, or system/controlDict. Build the scene and render it like any other.

The plugin uploads only the files the reader reads, at their places in the case tree: system/, the dictionaries in constant/, the mesh, and the time directories that render. What the reader never opens stays on your machine, and the data plan names it: postProcessing/, logs, VTK/ exports, 0.orig/, constant/triSurface/ and the other mesher inputs, backups. On the motorBike tutorial that is 45 files out of the whole solved case:

Data plan: 45 files, 78.1 MB (0 B already in the cloud)
'interior': using reconstructed data as the session does; processor0/, processor1/,
  processor2/, processor3/, processor4/, processor5/ are not uploaded
'interior': skipped 0.orig/, constant/extendedFeatureEdgeMesh/, constant/triSurface/,
  postProcessing/, Allclean, Allrun, log.blockMesh, log.checkMesh and 10 more
  (not read by the renderer)

The upload follows the reader's Case Type. Reconstructed Case, the default, uploads the time directories at the case root and leaves the processor* folders home. Decomposed Case uploads every processor folder. If one is missing, the plugin names it, refuses the case and suggests running reconstructPar.

8. Check, cancel and find past jobs

Check on the server runs the server's own validation over the scene and your output settings without rendering a frame. The answer names the view, the number of outputs and timesteps, and the ParaView version on the render machines, or the errors a render would have hit. A check leaves no entry in the job history.

Cancel stops the work at whatever phase it has reached. A submitted job is cancelled on the server and stays in the history marked Cancelled. If you cancel a download, the finished job stays in the history and you can download it later.

Recent jobs lists your renders, including those from earlier sessions. Double-click a finished render to show its result again. Clear history empties the list. The jobs stay in your account, and the confirmation offers to delete the downloaded results too.

When you need support, About › Copy diagnostics puts the plugin, ParaView and system versions, the last job and the last error on the clipboard as plain text. About also opens from Help › OmnibusCloud....

9. When the plugin refuses a scene

The plugin checks a scene before anything leaves your machine. When something would fail on the server, the findings list under the panel says what and where, with the first blocker in bold. Copy details copies the whole list.

  • Programmable components such as the Programmable Filter are never sent. The render machines do not run user code from a scene.
  • Readers and filters the render machines don't carry are named by the server. Check on the server finds them without spending a render. The full list of what they run is the controller's allowlist →.
  • A file the scene reads that is gone from disk is named with its path.
  • Timestep selections that fall outside the timeline or list the same step twice are refused with the timeline they were checked against.
  • Limits: 16,384 pixels per side and 128 megapixels per frame, 10,000 outputs per job, 10,000 files or 64 GB per upload, and two hours per task.

10. Settings

Settings is on the panel's first line.

  • Stay signed in: For 14 days (the default), For 30 days, Until I sign out, or Ask every time, which keeps no saved sign-in at all.
  • Download folder: where finished renders land. Each job gets a folder of its own.
  • Upload cache: how many files the plugin knows the cloud already has. Clear forgets them, and the next render uploads everything again.
  • Log detail: Normal, or Verbose while you chase a problem. Verbose switches back to Normal after 24 hours. Open folder shows the log files, which are kept for 14 days.
  • Server URL and Identity URL point at OmnibusCloud. You only change them if your organization runs its own OmnibusCloud server and gives you the addresses. They are locked while you are signed in, so sign out first.

Uninstall

On Windows, remove OmnibusCloud Plugin for ParaView 6.2 under Settings › Apps. That also takes it out of ParaView's plugin list. On macOS, run sudo "/Library/Application Support/OmnibusCloud/ParaViewPlugin/pv6.2/uninstall.sh". On Linux, run the copy of the script the installer left beside the plugin with --uninstall.

Questions and feedback: r/OmnibusCloud →.

Let's build the ultracomputer together!