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## Getting started

The rest of this manual details the ins and outs to using VisIt, but you can also very quickly visualize your data by opening a database and creating plots. You must first select databases to visualize. Sample data files are usually installed with VisIt in a data directory in the directory in which VisIt was installed. If you are running VisIt on the Windows platform, you can double-click on one of the sample Silo data files to open it in VisIt or you can run VisIt and open the File Selection Window from the Main Window's File menu. Highlight some files and click the Ok button in the File Selection Window. The Main Window's File panel should now contain some files. To open a file, click on its entry in the File panel and then click the Open button. If the database was successfully opened, the Plot and operator menu will be enabled.

Once you have opened a database, you can use it to create a plot by selecting a plot type and database variable from the Plots menu. Once a plot is created, the Active plots list will show that the new plot has been added by displaying a description of the plot drawn in green text. The color green indicates that the plot is in the new state and has not been drawn yet. To draw the plot, click the Draw button in the middle of the Main Window. That's all there is to creating a plot using VisIt. For more detailed information on creating plots and performing specific actions in VisIt, refer to the other chapters in this book.