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`
`--plotmesh`	Visualise the mesh interactively with PyVista
`--plotdata`	Visualise 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 ...]`	Show changed units (filtered by one or more keywords; empty means default SI units)
`--solution`	Solution methods and controls
`--rd`, `--report-definitions`	Report definitions
`--plotsets`	Plot sets
`--monitorsets`	Monitor sets
`--residuals`	Residual settings
`--iter`	Iteration / time-step settings
`--surfaces`	Surfaces settings
`--mesh`	Graphics mesh settings
`--contours`	Graphics contours settings
`--vectors`	Graphics vectors settings
`--pathlines`	Graphics pathlines settings
`--xy-plot`	Graphics xy-plot settings
`--scene`	Graphics scene 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 --vec for --vectors. An ambiguous prefix (e.g. --so, which could match --solver or --solution) 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 --plotmesh
cffview mesh.msh.h5

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

# 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 0.5.1

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Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for cffview 0.5.1
File	Size	Uploaded
cffview-0.5.1.tar.gz	29.0 kB	Sep 1, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for cffview 0.5.1
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
cffview-0.5.1-py3-none-any.whl 29.1 kB Sep 1, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 58.0 kB

Release files / cffview-0.5.1.tar.gz

Download URL	cffview-0.5.1.tar.gz
Size	29.0 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`ac4545379ad75ab788940fac97077511fb2da25d99bf7cd508883b316fab1fc0`
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Publishing platform: GitHub Actions
Publishing repository: github.com/preamer/cffview
Publishing commit: github.com/preamer/cffview/tree/93ca256820a49dff1d3e2cd684a8807d58f844b4

Workflow

Publishing configuration: github.com/preamer/cffview/blob/93ca256820a49dff1d3e2cd684a8807d58f844b4/.github/workflows/build_wheels.yml
Publishing logs: github.com/preamer/cffview/actions/runs/33513311815/attempts/1

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SHA-256 checksum: ac4545379ad75ab788940fac97077511fb2da25d99bf7cd508883b316fab1fc0 Verifying attestations

Release files / cffview-0.5.1-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	cffview-0.5.1-py3-none-any.whl
Size	29.1 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`7f757cad2d51c6285f970f9b3a05ec44dbd7456b48d39dc4a1859a4a6a90c149`
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Upload date	Sep 1, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	Yes
Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14`

Provenance

Identity

Publishing platform: GitHub Actions
Publishing repository: github.com/preamer/cffview
Publishing commit: github.com/preamer/cffview/tree/93ca256820a49dff1d3e2cd684a8807d58f844b4

Workflow

Publishing configuration: github.com/preamer/cffview/blob/93ca256820a49dff1d3e2cd684a8807d58f844b4/.github/workflows/build_wheels.yml
Publishing logs: github.com/preamer/cffview/actions/runs/33513311815/attempts/1

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Subject: cffview-0.5.1-py3-none-any.whl
SHA-256 checksum: 7f757cad2d51c6285f970f9b3a05ec44dbd7456b48d39dc4a1859a4a6a90c149 Verifying attestations