Adding a reader plugin via VisIt Bridge

Development
1

Hello,

I’ve got a VisIt database plugin that i’d like to add to Paraview (which I built from source with PARAVIEW_USE_VISITBRIDGE=ON and Boost_INCLUDE_DIR is set).

In my plugin directory, I created a CMakeLists.txt similar to the one here : https://www.paraview.org/Wiki/VisIt_Database_Bridge#Custom_Plugin_of_VisIt_Reader

Except I get this error when configuring I don’t know how to solve :

CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:14 (ADD_VISIT_PLUGIN_READER):
    Unknown CMake command "ADD_VISIT_PLUGIN_READER".

Does anyone know what I’m missing ?
Thanks

2

Which version of ParaView are you using ?

3

Version 5.6.0

4

Did you try first to use the example visit plugin from paraview sources :
Examples/Plugins/VisItReader/

5

I just did, and I the same thing happens. So I guess my custom installation must be the problem.

6

That example plugin has been commented out for a long time (last touched in 2012 and it was commented before that too). I suspect that ParaView is not making the required CMake API available to external consumers (likely true on master as well). However, on master, the required CMake code is a lot cleaner and we can look at making it available. This would involve some work since the code ultimately assumes that there is only one consumer of the global properties used by the API (which is not a valid assumption for installed CMake APIs).

1 Like
8

I encounter the same problem.
I installed Paraview on Ubuntu 21 using sudo apt install paraview and then all the apt dev packages required by cmake. Then it fails on:

> CMake Deprecation Warning at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/cmake/paraview-5.9/paraview-use-file-deprecated.cmake:1 (message):
>   The `PARAVIEW_USE_FILE` is no longer used starting with 5.7.
> Call Stack (most recent call first):
>   CMakeLists.txt:8 (INCLUDE)
> 
> 
> CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:14 (ADD_VISIT_PLUGIN_READER):
>   Unknown CMake command "ADD_VISIT_PLUGIN_READER".
> 
> 
> -- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!

Then I tried to build paraview from sources (with an enhanced version of the paraview spack package.py). I failed to make the bridge:

 -- Generating done
CMake Warning:
  Manually-specified variables were not used by the project:

    BOOST_LIBRARY_DIR
    BOOST_ROOT
    Boost_INCLUDE_DIR
    MPI_Fortran_COMPILER
    PARAVIEW_ENABLE_EXAMPLES
    PARAVIEW_QT_VERSION
    PARAVIEW_USE_VISITBRIDGE
    PYTHON_EXECUTABLE
    SILO_INCLUDE_DIR
    SILO_LIBRARY
    SILO_LIBRARY_DIR

Is this feature abandoned or is there a pointer to a newer documentation ?
Thanks in advance.
Olivier Cessenat

9

@nicolas.vuaille

10

This feature is indeed unavailable / unimplemented for now. Some dev were started on VisItBridge (https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/visitbridge/-/merge_requests/83) to reintroduce it, but it was never merged due to lack of human resources :slight_smile:

11

Thanks a lot for you feedback.
Well, if it were to be reactivated, I would be interested, this would help me to try ParaView with Silo files.

12

also note that if you are ready to build ParaView itself, there is cmake options to build Silo support:

  • PARAVIEW_ENABLE_VISIT_BRIDGE to globally enable VisIt readers
  • then VISIT_BRIDGE_READER_Silo to explictily enable Silo
13

Let us know if you want to contribute to this effort.

14

Thanks for that but I failed to make it work still.
With 5.9.1 I get

CMake Warning:
  Manually-specified variables were not used by the project:

    BOOST_LIBRARY_DIR
    BOOST_ROOT
    Boost_INCLUDE_DIR
    MPI_Fortran_COMPILER
    PARAVIEW_ENABLE_EXAMPLES
    PARAVIEW_ENABLE_VISIT_BRIDGE
    PARAVIEW_QT_VERSION
    PARAVIEW_USE_VISITBRIDGE
    PYTHON_EXECUTABLE
    SILO_INCLUDE_DIR
    SILO_LIBRARY
    SILO_LIBRARY_DIR
    VISIT_BRIDGE_READER_Silo
15

I could contribute testing the feature:

  • reading a Silo database from ParaView,
  • testing a VisIt plugin in ParaView (I’ve got 2 that I could try),

Then I could also contribute

  • cheking the documentation,
  • French translation.

But contributing as a developper is another story, now I am not be able to do that.

16

And with git master I get a basic error

1 error found in build log:
     129    -- Looking for finite - found
     130    -- Looking for fenv.h
     131    -- Looking for fenv.h - found
     132    -- Looking for feenableexcept
     133    -- Looking for feenableexcept - found
     134    -- Could NOT find ExprTk (missing: ExprTk_INCLUDE_DIR) (Required is at least version "2.7")
  >> 135    CMake Error at VTK/CMake/vtkModule.cmake:4371 (message):
     136      Could not find the ExprTk external dependency.
     137    Call Stack (most recent call first):
     138      VTK/CMake/vtkModule.cmake:4965 (vtk_module_find_package)
     139      VTK/CMake/vtkModule.cmake:4836 (vtk_module_third_party_external)
     140      VTK/ThirdParty/exprtk/CMakeLists.txt:1 (vtk_module_third_party)
     141