FieldView
Install Guide

SOFTWARE RELEASE
VERSION 2025

To install FieldView from the downloaded archive, follow these instructions:

Linux users will see the End-User License Agreement, and need to answer 'y' or 'yes' to continue and enter the full path of the directory in which to install the software. This command installs the directory /fv at the directory level you specified. If you receive an error message during the install, please contact Tecplot, Inc at support@tecplot.com.

The installation script creates a FieldView startup script in the subdirectory /fv/bin of the current directory. This startup script is called fv. The startup script contains an environment variable called FV_HOME that points to the subdirectory fv in the directory where FieldView is installed.

You must install FieldView (and all software) as either Administrator, or as a user that has Administrator privileges, otherwise the FieldView installation will fail.

C:\Program Files\Tecplot\FieldView 2025

We STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you accept this default location. Installing to a directory name using UTF-8 / multi-byte characters is not supported.

After installation is complete, a Start menu program group will exist which contains the FieldView icon, a link to Copyrights and to documentation files.

The installation process for FieldView on mac systems is standard for macOS, where you will be presented with the following prompt after accepting the End-User License Agreement, and opening the .dmg file as shown below. FieldView must be installed to /Applications.

Refitting FieldView with an alternate MPI is accomplished by creating a new version of the installed mpirun script and the libmyFVMPI.so library in the ./plugins/lib directory, backing up each with the ".orig" file extension.

Run the following command to restore the default FieldView myFVMPI library and mpirun script (from the copies backed up by make install):

make uninstall

The following three additional steps can be performed to ensure remote FieldView Client-Server operation is functional:

Hints for troubleshooting any problems with steps 1-3 are provided in the following section. If all three of the steps listed above are completed successfully, FieldView Client-Server or FieldView Parallel should be expected to operate properly.

We will first test the relationship between the client machine and the server machine. There are two mandatory conditions for FieldView Client-Server to work: (a) you must be able to log in from the client to the server in some way, and (b) you must be able to connect from the server to the client using TCP protocol on a specified port. If either of these conditions are not met, then you will not be able to use Client-Server. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you test these conditions prior to proceeding with any other steps of the installation. If any of the tests fail, you may need assistance from your system administrator to adjust your configuration.

The first test is to make sure that the client machine and the server machine can communicate with each other. The ping command is used for this. (In Windows, you will need to run ping from the command prompt).

If you are not successful with Test 1, you will not be able to use FieldView in Client-Server mode, since your client machine cannot make contact with the server. There may be firewalls or routers involved in the communication path which need to be adjusted in order for the two machines to communicate. Contact your system administrator for assistance.

The next test deals with the mechanism that FieldView will use to start server processes on the server machine. Secure remote shell programs ssh or plink (Putty) can be used to log in to the server machine from the client. If you are unsure about the details of using either these protocols, it is highly recommended that you talk to a system administrator about your plans before proceeding, as each Customer site is different in terms of security policies which govern the client and server systems.

Test procedure - This test must succeed. (With Windows, you will need to run your secure remote shell command using the CMD prompt):

The above test must print the date without a prompt for a password for the test to be a success. If successful, you can use Automatic Server Start (AutoStart:) in a Server Configuration File (.), and proceed to Test 4 below. If you are not successful, then you may not be able to use Automatic Server Start. See your System Administrator to have passwordless login authentication set up for your user.

If you need a password to log in at the server, you can still use FieldView Client-Server in Manual Server Startup mode, as described under the heading Manual Server of the Users Guide, given that you can execute the following two steps.

Now connect to the server, and test connectivity from the server to your client system, to ensure the FieldView Server will be able to communicate back to the FieldView Client:

The next test ensures that the client machine is visible from the server machine.

This test may fail if there is a router between your client and server. In this case, the IP address needed to contact the client may be different than the IP address that the client thinks it has. For example: A computer connected to a DSL line through a firewall/router may have an IP address of 10.0.0.2 (which is assigned by the router), but on the other side of the router only the router’s IP address can be seen. In this type of configuration, the router/firewall must be configured to allow an incoming connection on this port to be routed to the client machine. Contact your system administration for assistance.

The final test ensures that you can connect back from the server to the client.

Details: On the client machine, open a terminal window (or a CMD prompt window on Windows systems). Run the contest command, which you will find in the bin subdirectory of your FieldView installation directory. This command will use port number 12345 by default. If you are using a different port when running FieldView, supply it as a command-line argument to the contest program. For example, to test using port 20000, type the following command:

On the server machine, test the connection back to the client system using the telnet command. You must supply the same port number given to the contest program. The telnet command should use the client IP address printed by contest (the IP address after the client name). If you do not need Automatic Server Start and telnet fails with the client IP address, you can try the client name instead. If no port number was given to contest, you must supply port number 12345. For example, to connect to the contest program on port 20000:

If the connection is successful you will get the following message in the telnet window:

To conclude the test, quit the telnet session. The contest program will then shut down.

If telnet just hangs while trying to connect, or if you get a message that the connection is refused, there may be a firewall running on the client system or between the two systems which is blocking connections on this port.

Any firewall will need to be configured to allow connections on your chosen port number in order for FieldView to operate in Client-Server mode. Contact your system administration for assistance.

If you are successful with this test, you may proceed to Step 2.

Server scripts and executables must be installed on the candidate server machine(s). Note that if a FieldView client has previously been installed on that server, our standard and parallel servers are automatically installed to permit "local" Client-Server operation, and these components are found in the ./bin directory of that installation.

To install a FieldView server on a Linux server machine, perform the following steps:

Server Configuration Files (or "config files") are used to help the FieldView client identify and connect to the server. In addition, there are features to help you manage multiple projects in different directories on servers. After FieldView reads the config files, it uses them to populate the GUI selections for server machines. The name of the config file (minus the .srv extension) is what appears on the server selection menu. We provide one default server configuration file for Linux installations. This is called local.srv and it will start a server with the name local on the same system as the client.

Each server needs at least one config file. When FieldView (the client) starts, it reads the server config files. They are read from one of two places in the following order: (1) a directory specified by the environment variable FV_SERVER_CONFIG_DIR or (2) FV_HOME/sconfig. If FV_SERVER_CONFIG_DIR is set, but the directory does not exist, FieldView will write a warning message to the console (Windows) or xterm (Linux), and then fallback to FV_HOME/sconfig. If FV_HOME/sconfig does not exist, which means this is not a standard FieldView installation, FieldView will write a warning message to the console (Windows) or xterm(Linux), and then fallback to non-Client-Server.

The contents of the Server Configuration (.srv) file are presented in the table below.

Manual servers have a command-line option:

If PluginDirectory: is present in the server config file of a manual server, FieldView will suggest a manual server command line that includes the corresponding -plugin_dir option.

When a server configuration file is selected from the Data Files input menu, FieldView will fill in the correct arguments for the fvrunsrv wrapper program, based upon the above settings. When you select a dataset to be read, the fvrunsrv program launches the chosen server program (standard, shared memory or cluster), and echoes the current fvrunsrv configuration to the console window. This information is useful in case you encounter errors with your server configuration.

If the server is started manually, the port forwarding also has to be set up manually. In other words, you must manually start ssh or plink with the appropriate port forwarding arguments, along with manually starting the (browsing) server to use the forwarded port. The PortForward section in the sever config for manual start will trigger a pop-up with the ssh port-forwarding command.

Example 1: Local parallel

The server config file (.) in this case would contain a single line. Since this is running locally, there is no need to specify a different ServerDirectory.

There are several implicit defaults being used in this case. First, since we have not specified a ServerDirectory, we will run using the locally installed server programs. Next, since we have not specified a NumProcs value, we will default to four.

Example 2: Setting the Current Working Directory

Use 'CWD' for the StartDirectory keyword in the server config file:

Use this (case insensitive) setting to start FieldView in your current directory when running FieldView in Client-Server or Parallel mode. This is particularly useful if you routinely navigate through many directory levels below your home directory. This setting will take precedence, overriding the saved preferences behavior in FieldView (13 or later) which stores and returns you to the last directory visited by default. Within a FieldView session, if you navigate away from your current working directory, this is remembered. This server configuration setting only applies to the initial view in your file browser.

Example 3: Remote parallel

In this example, we need to specify the server name, my_remote_system, since it is remote and therefore different from the client. We must also explicitly specify where the server programs are located on the remote system. Since we want to run parallel, we must also explicitly choose either the shmem (shared memory) or p4 (cluster) option - in this example, we have chosen to run cluster or p4 parallel. Finally, we need to pick the number of processes since we have a pfv32 FieldView Parallel license available to us. Names in the example below are notional - you will need to substitute correct information for your ServerName and ServerDirectory.

In the example above, although we have chosen cluster_parallel, we have not specified a machine file. In this instance, we will use the default machine file openmpi-default-hostfile, which is typically empty and allows all nodes on the cluster to be utilized.

Example 4: Windows Client running Parallel on Linux

Here, we are trying to read a dataset which is sitting on a Linux system, my_LINUX_box, using a FieldView client on a Windows system, my_WINDOWS_box. The server config file needs to be on the Windows system. We need to specify the name of the server, location of the parallel server files on that system, and also specify a start up directory which lets us browse to the location of the file we want to read. Finally, we want to use plink to set up our connection from the Windows system to the Linux system.

In this example, we have explicitly specified all required arguments. No default settings are used. Also note the use of the exclamation mark, '!' to indicate the start of a comment line. As you develop server config files to meet your needs, we recommend the use of comments to help to document your efforts.

Example 5: Simple Port Forwarding

In this example, we look at a scenario in which port tunneling is required for communication between a client system, my_desktop_LINUX, and a secure server system, my_secure_LINUX. The server config file needs to specify both the client name and the server name. We will also specify the directory on our secure system where we want to start browsing. Lastly, we will simply specify that we want to make use of port forwarding.

Port forwarding is only supported if RemoteShell is set to either ssh or plink. In this example, we have not explicitly set RemoteShell to ssh - this is not a requirement since ssh is the default. When the server config file is read, and you browse to the StartDirectory and/or attempt to read data, the following server command is executed by FieldView:

Here the port number, 26010, has been specified using the environment variable:

Example 6: Using a Job Scheduler:

The following Server Configuration (.srv) content is provided as an example for submitting a job via PBS on a HPC login node (ie. ServerName) with fields to support PBS job directives:

The ServerDirectory locates the 'bin' directory of a FieldView installation where the servers would be found. This configuration will run 64 FieldView servers across 4 compute nodes, using the specified job allocation and queue and result in the following qsub command to be issued:

Note that if your job directives are out of specifications for the given HPC system, qsub will fail. FieldView keeps the user informed about the progress of the job submission in the Client/Server Connection panel, shown below:

FieldView will also write more detailed information about the submitted queue to logfile FieldView_Autostart.log which can be found in the following locations:

The fvrunsrv wrapper simplifies the start-up of FieldView servers, especially in parallel modes where the program mpirun and its arguments must be used. The wrapper generates the command line syntax required to launch servers based on the simplified argument set shown below. The fvrunsrv command is also used internally when the server configuration fields ServerDirectory: or ServerType: in Server Configuration (.) files are used. This command has the general syntax:

where:

The presence of the -hosts option implies that FieldView will run cluster (p4) FieldView parallel. This selection also requires that the -np option must be set. Using the arguments from the -hosts option, a temporary machines file is created. The -machinefile option is an alternate way to specify machines for use with cluster FieldView Parallel. If the -hosts ANY option is used, cluster FieldView parallel is run with the default machinefile. For Windows servers, use the -hosts ANY option or the -hosts WINHPC option to specify cluster operation. The Windows HPC job scheduler will select the specified number of processors from the idle processors in the cluster.

Some simple examples follow below:

The fvrunsrv program can also be used in Server Configuration (.) files using the deprecated field ServerProgram:.

While most of these arguments can be specified conveniently in the server config file, this simplification offers a specific benefit to those who need to run in FieldView Client-Server or FieldView Parallel in the manual mode.

For Windows users, the same syntax for the fvrunsrv program is used, with the following differences. First, a warning is issued if the -machinefile or -p4_rshcommand options are used - these options for running cluster parallel are not available on Windows. To run a cluster FieldView parallel job on Windows, use:

-hosts ANY (WINHPC is also an acceptable argument)

This will submit a cluster FieldView parallel job to the Windows HPC Server, which chooses the desired number of processors from the cluster automatically. At present, we are unable to allow you to choose specific server machines from within the Windows HPC cluster.

FieldView Parallel can only be run using the 64-bit servers.

The fvrunsrv program will run the 64-bit servers if the local machine is capable of running them, and they have been installed. It is highly recommended that all parallel servers be installed on all platforms which can run them.

An environment variable, FV_DEBUG_AUTOSTART, echoes the server command line that FieldView is trying to execute when AutoStart: true is set in your server config file. You will also see the server command line echoed when selecting a file to be read from your file browser.

The environment variable FV_DEBUG_STARTUP helps debug FieldView problems with clients and servers on non-Windows systems that are caused by limited system resources. If this environment variable is set, then FieldView prints the following information to the console on startup. RLIMIT_DATA is the maximum allocated data allowed for this process, in bytes. RLIMIT_AS is the maximum address space (virtual memory size), in bytes. RLIMIT_STACK is the maximum size of the process "stack", in bytes. RLIMIT_CPU is the maximum amount of CPU time allowed for this process, in seconds. The "hard" limit is the important number. On startup, with or without this environment variable, FieldView tries to set the soft limit equal to the hard limit (the soft limit is often smaller); if this fails, a message is printed to the console. The "ulimit" shell command can also print these limits.

When a local server is started, the same information is printed about the server (which should be identical to the client, since it is local). To get information about a non-local server, the environment variable needs to be set for the server. This is easy for a manual server. For a non-manual remote server, the environment variable can be set on the command line in the server config file.

Console output from FV_DEBUG_STARTUP

For Linux only, we also print the output of "cat /proc/meminfo", which is about 30 lines of information about physical memory (RAM) and virtual memory (RAM plus swap).

An additional environment variable, FV_NO_SCONFIG_ECHO has been added to turn off the server config print to the console window. Setting this variable makes the console output consistent with previous FieldView releases.

Based on customer feedback and our own testing, we have set the ReadWriteTimeOut default to be 0 - this changes from the previous default of 120 seconds. This is a necessary change since the ReadWriteTimeout mechanism does not work correctly with port forwarding. Server time-outs are part of the client-server start-up handshake. The benefit to users is that they will no longer need to type the time-out on the command line for manually starting servers. If these time-outs are still specified, they are ignored and a warning message is issued to state that the time-outs should be specified in the server config file.

In order to run FieldView in a standard (client-server) or parallel (shared memory or cluster) automated mode of operation, we strongly recommended that passwordless ssh is implemented. Please also note that passwordless connections are a requirement between the nodes of a cluster in order for p4 parallel to work.

At the time of this release, starting a Win64 cluster parallel server automatically from a remote system (one outside the cluster) does not work because the WINHPC "job" command does not allow us to specify where the controller server will run. If this is attempted, you will see an error message generated by Windows which is similar to:

"Aborting: Access denied by node 'compute-0-XX'
This node is a resource managed by the Miccrosoft HPC Scheduler
and mpiexec was attempting to use it without a scheduled job."

You can still run FieldView Parallel on a Windows 64-bit cluster as a local server, or by manually starting a remote server.

At present, FieldView Parallel has the requirement that the controller server must be run on the head node of the cluster in order for it to be seen remotely.

The first time you launch FieldView after a fresh installation, you will be prompted to enter your license information:

You will also see this dialog if FieldView cannot validate your license information (for example, because your evaluation license has expired, or because the network license server is not available). Additionally, you may change your license information at any time from the Help → FieldView Licensing menu.

Windows: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Tecplot

Linux: ~/.local/share/Tecplot

Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Tecplot

The above directories are specific to the individual workstation users. If you want all users of the computer to use the same license configuration for a given Tecplot, Inc. product, you may locate the license file (.lic) in a more general location during or after initial license setup so that users can select the License File option on the License Dialog at startup. This will automatically create a copy of fieldview.lic in the users home directory, described above.

The license file can also be placed in the top level of the FieldView installation itself to allow the application to run regardless of which user or host is launching that particular installation of FieldView. This is especially useful for network licensing.

In addition, network licenses can be accessed with an environment variable, or with more general content in the file fieldview.lic, as noted in the port@host Licensing section of this document.

Note: Each Tecplot, Inc. product has its own license configuration file. To prevent users from editing the license configuration, you may then change the permissions on the license file to be writable only by an administrator or root user.

How you install your license information depends on what type of license you have.

If you wish to evaluate the product before purchasing, you may obtain an Evaluation license with a single click. See Evaluation License Setup.

If you have an Activation Code for a Single-System license and have Internet access, you enter the activation code. See Single-System License Setup Using An Activation Code.

If you have a License File for a Single-System license, you select the license file. See Single-System License Setup Using A License File.

If you have a Network license, you specify the server name and port number of the RLM license server on your network. See Network License Setup.

To obtain a time-limited evaluation license key so you can try the product before purchasing, make sure the "Evaluation" license type is selected in the Licensing dialog, then click Begin Evaluation. The product evaluation period begins. You will see a notice on the product’s Welcome Screen indicating when your evaluation license will expire.

This procedure requires an active Internet connection. If for some reason you cannot fully evaluate FieldView on an Internet-connected computer, or if you need additional time to complete your evaluation, contact support@tecplot.com. for a time-limited Single-System license file, which may then be installed using the instructions in Single-System License Setup Using A License File.

If you received an activation code for your product, allowing it to be activated over the Internet, follow the instructions below. If you received a license key file, or if the workstation you have installed the product on does not have Internet access, see Single-System License Setup Using A License File.

To activate the product, simply enter or paste your activation code in the field provided. Then click Activate. The license key corresponding to your activation code is downloaded to your computer, and FieldView uses that license.

You will need the license file sent to you by Tecplot, Inc. as an e-mail attachment. Please save it to a file on your computer in an easy-to-find location, such as the Desktop.

FieldView now uses the chosen license.

With this option, FieldView is installed on any desired platform locally. When FieldView is run, it looks at the local copy of the fieldview.lic file to determine which machine is acting as the license server. It then contacts the license server for a license. If one is available, it is checked out to that machine. The directories where FieldView license utilities are installed on the license server do not have to be NFS-mounted by the local machines running it, but they all have to be on the same network. FieldView can be run on the License Server, but this is not required.

To use a network license you or your system administrator must first install the Reprise License Manager (RLM) and the license key for your product on a network server. (See the installation instructions included with the RLM download, available on the Reprise License Manager download page.) Once this has been accomplished, follow these steps:

FieldView will now use a license obtained from the license server.

If the product is unable to obtain a license key, an error message will appear, and you should verify that you have specified the correct network license information.

You can initiate roaming from the command line by setting the RLM_ROAM environment variable to the number of days you wish to roam, then starting FieldView from that command line session. The roaming session expires at the end of the day after the number of days specified (for example, if it is noon Tuesday, and you set RLM_ROAM to 2, the roaming license expires at the end of the day Thursday). RLM_ROAM may also be set to the special value today to have the roaming license expire at the end of the current day (the value 0 means that no changes to roaming will be made).

If RLM_ROAM is set permanently (for example, using the System Properties in Windows), the license roaming will be refreshed each time you run FieldView while connected to the network. If RLM_ROAM is 1, for example, each time you start FieldView, the roaming license is refreshed to expire at midnight the following day. This allows you to easily take your computer home with you any night and continue using FieldView while disconnected from the license server, without needing to explicitly roam each day.

You may end a roaming session early by setting RLM_ROAM to -1 before launching FieldView.

You can run FieldView servers with up to eight parallel worker processes and one controller process with a standard FieldView license at no extra cost.

If you would like to increase your current FieldView Parallel capacity you will need a special license. FieldView Parallel licenses are available for specific numbers of processors up to 64 and beyond 64 (HPC option).

As a specific illustration, here is what a properly configured license file would look like for a standard FieldView installation for FieldView 2025 with provision for 3 concurrent users, including support for DataGuide^TM (dg) and standard support for up to 8 Parallel worker processes (pfv8):

            Where <number> is the FieldView License Identifier for the given Customer

For FieldView Parallel, the license file contains a string, pfvN, where N specifies the maximum number of available parallel processes. In the example above, the license file permits operation of FieldView Parallel for up to 8 processes (pfv8).

To illustrate the operational difference between FieldView Parallel licensing and FieldView licensing, we will take a step back to consider FieldView Client-Server. For this mode of operation, FieldView Servers are not licensed. It is possible to run multiple FieldView Servers with a single FieldView Client. In Figure 3, two separate Server processes are used to read two different datasets. There is no limit to the number of Client-Server processes which can be run with FieldView. So, if you have a single user license, it is possible to run as many Client-Server processes as you wish, subject to the practical limitations of your hardware (i.e. RAM, graphics).

For the case of FieldView Parallel, following what is done for Client-Server, it is possible to run an unlimited number of server 'Controller' processes. What is licensed with the FieldView Parallel license is the total number of Worker Processes which can be run; the Controller processes are not counted towards this limit. In the example above (see Figure 4), we illustrate how it is possible to read two different datasets using a total of eight (8) worker processes, applying four (4) worker processes to each dataset. To do this, a FieldView Parallel license for 8 processes would be required.

This licensing option lets you run several instances of FieldView in a low cost, batch-only mode of operation. Running this way makes concurrent postprocessing possible.

The key limitations are that a GUI cannot be used in batch mode, so FieldView must be run from a script, and that you FieldView will use software graphics rather than accelerated graphics. With a batch-only license you can run FieldView from a command line for either type of scripting, as follows:

In the first example above, FieldView is run in batch mode, executing the commands in the FieldView script file called my_script.scr. In the second example, an FVX program called my_program.fvx is run in batch mode. The command line option, -fvb, is used to specify two things. First, that FieldView will be run in batch mode, and, second that it will attempt to use a batch only license for this run. The above examples could also be executed as follows:

The key difference between the -batch switch and the -fvb switch is that in the former case, a normal interactive FieldView license with accelerated graphics (if available) will be used to run your job. When you plan to run in batch mode, we recommend that you use a batch-only license.

Batch-only licenses are available for parallel operation, for increasing numbers of processors, defined as being up to 8, up to 16, up to 64 and beyond 64 (HPC option). Depending on your licensing options you will have one or more of the following LICENSE lines present in your FieldView fieldview.lic file, and the batch-only option will be shown as in the following example:

            Where <number> is the FieldView License Identifier for the given Customer

The FieldView scripts needed to carry out this concurrent set of operations would look something like this:

Within each of the four scripts above, a general restart (prep_streak) is used to compose the scene and create any surfaces and/or titles of interest. Since we will be calculating four separate streakline rakes, we have four separate streamline (STREAM) restarts. The streakline rakes are calculated over all timesteps using the SWEEP command. From a command line, using batch-only licensing, you would type the following:

In the above example, note that the command line switch, -port none, is used to let concurrent instances of FieldView run without each of them attempting to use the same default port (12345) for operation. Alternately, individual port numbers, or a range of ports (eg. -port 12345:12445) may be explicitly specified. Since all of the restarts in this example are attempting to read the same timestep initially, it may be a good idea to delay the start of each instance of FieldView using a SLEEP command.

FieldView has been enhanced with a License Expiration Warning message that alerts users when their password is about to expire and provides contact information for license renewal.

Within 30 days of license expiration, FieldView will issue a warning message upon startup. A pop-up window will appear in the GUI, as illustrated in the image below.

A message will also appear in the console window on the command line, e.g.,

This reminder benefits all FieldView users by giving them advance warning to renew their licenses. Users who have acquired FieldView directly through Tecplot, Inc. are provided with a live link to easily request a new password, while users who have acquired FieldView through a local distributor or sales representative are referred to their local FieldView representative.

You can run multiple products that require RLM license management on the same server. This can be done by having multiple license files (.lic) in the same location for the license server, or by combining licenses (and VENDOR lines) in the same license file.

Note that current FieldView products require use of at least version RLM 11 License Management Software.

Typically, the procedure for licensing FieldView is described in the above sections, but large, multi-national customers who have many user workstations and many FieldView licenses can entirely avoid use of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) for setting up access to a network license. This is generally done in one of two ways.

Note that this will not interfere with other vendors using the more general RLM_LICENSE environment variable on the same system.

To enable FieldView to search for licensing at more than one server, sequential arguments in environment variables are separated by colons (:) on Linux and semi-colons (;) on Windows. Note that FieldView considers the environment variable as well as the fieldview.lic files found in the locations noted above as it attempts to check out a license.

Using a redundant license is not our standard procedure and is handled on a case-by-case basis, so as you obtain your network license(s) from us, please advise us of your need for this redundancy. Note that the triad license configuration available with previous versions of FieldView has been replaced with a different implementation of license server redundancy.

If you want to be able to run FieldView by typing just fv (rather than the entire path of the startup script), you can add the directory containing the startup script to your command search path in your .login, .cshrc, or .profile files as appropriate. This step should be repeated by every FieldView user.

In order to work through the tutorials contained in the User’s Guide, we recommend that you obtain copies of the tutorial data and associated restarts. These files can be downloaded from the FieldView Customer Center at tecplot.com/products/fieldview/tutorials. A broader explanation of the location, sizes and content of this tutorial directory can be found in the section called FieldView Tutorial Introduction found in the User’s Guide. These files are optional, and do not need to be installed in order to run FieldView.