For rather long time I've used to work in Goldensoftware Surfer/Voxler. In this programs it's very easy to visualise table data. The scheme looks like this: data input (on this step I can specify x, y, z and a component - some physical field data)->gridding->contour/volume visualisation. But I can't find any clue how load data from table and then grid it in some way and then make a contour/volume render in Paraview.
For example, I have a table:
X Y Z Rho
-135.25 185.25 282.84 2284.442
-135.25 114.75 282.84 954.951
-100 100 282.84 6825.375
-64.75 114.75 282.84 3640.483
-50 150 282.84 3745.877
...
14.75 35.25 400.00 2822.855
14.75 -35.25 400.00 6876.960
50 -50 400.00 1375.617
How can I make a regular 3D grid (for sake of definiteness by kriging method) of this data? And how can I then make a contour/volume render?
The first step is reading your data into ParaView. ParaView can read in delimited text files as tables, which is essentially what you have. Assuming your data is in a .txt file, you can directly open the data. By default, the reader assumes that you have a comma delimiter (i.e. a csv file), but you can change it. In the properties panel after you have opened the file, change the Field Delimiter Characters from a comma to a space. Also, check the box next to Merge Consecutive Delimiters.
The data are loaded in a table structure, and ParaView will initially show it in a spreadsheet view. You can convert it to a 3D grid with one of a pair of filters. The first filter is Table To Points. You just select the x, y, and z columns and it will generate a set of discrete points in space. The second filter is Table To Structured Grid. In this filter you specify both the x, y, and z columns as well as the extent of a grid. It will then build a curvilinear grid of points based on the rows of data in the table.
