cffview

CFF is an abbreviation for Ansys Common Fluids Format.

A command-line tool for viewing Ansys Fluent .cas.h5 / .msh.h5 / .dat.h5 files without opening Fluent.

Read solver settings, materials, boundary conditions, discretisation schemes, and more directly from the HDF5 file.
Visualise mesh or data with PyVista.

Installation

PyPI

pip install cffview

From source

git clone https://github.com/preamer/cffview.git
cd cffview
pip install .

Usage

[!IMPORTANT] Only tested with Ansys Fluent 25R2!

cffview <file> [options]

Options

Option	Description
`--version`	Print the Fluent version of file
`--extract`	Dump raw Scheme settings to `general.scm` and `boundary.scm`
`--mesh`, `--showmesh`	Visualise the mesh interactively with PyVista
`--data`, `--plotdata`	Plot the data interactively with PyVista (may not work, depending on `vtkFLUENTCFFReader`)
`--solver`	Solver type, time, dimension, precision, turbulence model, energy, radiation, gravity
`--mat`, `--materials`	Material properties
`--bd`, `--boundary`	Boundary condition settings
`--interfaces`	Mesh interfaces settings
`--ne`, `--named-expressions`	Named expressions
`--cff`, `--custom-field-functions`	Custom field functions
`--units [KEYWORD ...]`	Unit table (filtered by one or more keywords; empty means default SI units)
`--disc`	Discretisation schemes and relaxation factors
`--rd`, `--report-definitions`	Report definitions
`--plotsets`	Plot sets
`--monitorsets`	Monitor sets
`--residuals`	Residual settings
`--iter`	Iteration / time-step settings
`--surfaces`	Surfaces settings
`--contours`	Graphics contours settings
`--vectors`	Graphics vectors settings
`--xy-plot`	Graphics xy-plot settings
`--save`	Save the output to `file_name.json` (if `file_name` not specified, it is the same as input file)
`--plot [out\|xy\|dat]`	Plot a data file; without `TYPE`, infer from the file extension

Multiple flags can be combined freely. Case settings flags (--solver, --mat, etc.) apply to .cas.h5 files only.

[!TIP] Long options can be abbreviated to any unambiguous prefix. For example, --inter works for --interfaces and --so for --solver. An ambiguous prefix (e.g. --i, which could match --interfaces or --iter) is rejected with an error.

Examples

# Show all settings and save to JSON
cffview case.cas.h5 --save

# Show solver configuration and boundary conditions
cffview case.cas.h5 --solver --bd

# Visualise the mesh
cffview case.cas.h5 --mesh
cffview mesh.msh.h5

# Visualise the data
cffview case.cas.h5 --data

# Check the Fluent version of file
cffview case.cas.h5 --version

# Extract raw Scheme strings for manual inspection
cffview case.cas.h5 --extract

Demo

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7f97b559-87fa-4822-be9f-4e82b8c5cab6

License

BSD-3-Clause

Release files for cffview 0.4.2

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Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for cffview 0.4.2
File	Size	Uploaded
cffview-0.4.2.tar.gz	24.0 kB	Aug 22, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for cffview 0.4.2
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
cffview-0.4.2-py3-none-any.whl 23.7 kB Aug 22, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 47.8 kB

Release files / cffview-0.4.2.tar.gz

Download URL	cffview-0.4.2.tar.gz
Size	24.0 kB
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SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`d8af92fb001edb9e96ffa3b695b1b0e7a16a51c39b76e69dc8af7db98ef60aaf`
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Publishing repository: github.com/preamer/cffview
Publishing commit: github.com/preamer/cffview/tree/dbc1e29253ebeeac9be8b90b83b94ee3bb8c444c

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Publishing configuration: github.com/preamer/cffview/blob/dbc1e29253ebeeac9be8b90b83b94ee3bb8c444c/.github/workflows/build_wheels.yml
Publishing logs: github.com/preamer/cffview/actions/runs/32578313388/attempts/1

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Release files / cffview-0.4.2-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	cffview-0.4.2-py3-none-any.whl
Size	23.7 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`3f09e8f2da66bc54a1df99d648e42dba5d37794ea373333fda6b1257f264bdeb`
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Upload date	Aug 22, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	Yes
Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14`

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Identity

Publishing platform: GitHub Actions
Publishing repository: github.com/preamer/cffview
Publishing commit: github.com/preamer/cffview/tree/dbc1e29253ebeeac9be8b90b83b94ee3bb8c444c

Workflow

Publishing configuration: github.com/preamer/cffview/blob/dbc1e29253ebeeac9be8b90b83b94ee3bb8c444c/.github/workflows/build_wheels.yml
Publishing logs: github.com/preamer/cffview/actions/runs/32578313388/attempts/1

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