# How to build headless paraview in local?
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Tags:** python
**Created:** [March 22, 2022, 5:20am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248 "2022-03-22T05:20:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ying](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Ying)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2022, 5:20am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/1 "2022-03-22T05:20:28Z")
Hi all,
Now I use **ubuntu 18.04 + openfoam 4.1 + paraview 5.0.1 (compile installation)**, and I can run the python script using `pvpython XX.py`, but the interactive window would appear during the running.
So I want to use the **headless version of paraview** , I find some methods to build it, like directly download headless version form offical website, or compile the headless version by yourself using `EGL` or `OSMESA`. But I am still confused about how to use it.
Does anyone give me some suggestion? My local graphics device is NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660.
Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2022, 10:44am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/2 "2022-03-22T10:44:51Z")
Hi @Ying ,
> [@Ying](#):
>
> paraview 5.0.1
Super old, please use the last release from [https://www.paraview.org/download/](https://www.paraview.org/download/)
> I want to use the **headless version of paraview** ,
No, you want to use offscreen rendering, with **the latest paraview** this is `pvpython --force-offscreen-rendering`
---
### Author:  [@Ying](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Ying)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2022, 1:57pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/3 "2022-03-22T13:57:03Z")
Hi @mwestphal,
Thanks for your information! My current paraview 5.0.1 is compiled installed together with openfoam 4.1 in ubuntu 18.04. Can I just upgrade it? Or I need to download the latest version paraview and reinstall it in linux?
Thanks!
---
### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2022, 2:01pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/4 "2022-03-22T14:01:27Z")
> [@Ying](#):
>
> Can I just upgrade it
I dont think so. There is no reason to use the version of ParaView built with openfoam anyway.
> [@I want to visualize my OpenFOAM simulation results with ParaView but I'm confused, which version should I use ?](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/i-want-to-visualize-my-openfoam-simulation-results-with-paraview-but-im-confused-which-version-should-i-use/7232/1):
>
> Short Answer: go to [paraview.org/download](http://paraview.org/download) download the last version of ParaView available Use it to visualize your results Long Answer: OpenFOAM ships with a script named paraFoam, which can be used to call ParaView with custom OpenFOAM-specific reader modules, as well as with the standard reader that comes with ParaView/VTK. As stated in the OpenFOAM wiki, There is almost no reason to use these particular reader modules instead of the official binary release. Also, this discourse canβ¦
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### Author:  [@Ying](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Ying)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2022, 2:08pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/5 "2022-03-22T14:08:08Z")
Thanks! I will download the latest version from official website.
```auto
No, you want to use offscreen rendering, with the latest paraview this is pvpython --force-offscreen-rendering
```
By saying this sentence, do you mean the headless paraview (without graphics and X server) and the paraview with --force-offscreen-rendering is the same thing?
---
### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2022, 3:08pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/6 "2022-03-22T15:08:24Z")
I mean that they are not the same thing at all. Read this:
[https://kitware.github.io/paraview-docs/v5.9.0/cxx/Offscreen.html](https://kitware.github.io/paraview-docs/v5.9.0/cxx/Offscreen.html)
---
### Author:  [@catiocean](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/catiocean)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2023, 1:54am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/7 "2023-05-26T01:54:07Z")
Hi all,
I just would like to jump into this question since I have a similar issue that I donβt want the interactive window appear during when I run pvpython XXX.py. However, I am running Paraview 5.10.0 on cluster/supercomputer, which has strict limitation on rendering. So I wonder what steps I should take to build headless paraview that generate offscreen rendering without requiring an accessible X server. Thank you!
---
### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2023, 6:00am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/8 "2023-05-26T06:00:00Z")
Offscreen and headless are not the same thing.
You have a graphical environnement (Xorg) but do not want the window to show β offscreen
You do not have a graphical env or even no GPU at all β headless
To render offscreen, use the standard paraview release but instead of `pvpython`, run with `pvbatch`.
To render headless, use the EGL (need a GPU) and OSMESA (no GPU needed) release.
---
### Author:  [@catiocean](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/catiocean)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2023, 5:05pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/9 "2023-05-26T17:05:06Z")
Thank you very much Mathieu! We will explore the suitable solution for our case.
---
### Author:  [@dr-br](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/dr-br)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2024, 10:21am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/10 "2024-04-23T10:21:19Z")
Dear other paraview-on-supercomputers-users,
dear @catiocean ,
just fool paraview and pretend it uses an x-server π
```auto
xvfb-run -a -s "-screen 0 3840x2160x24" pvpython myScript.py
```
The tool `xvfb-run` is not uncommon on our machines. In case, you want to run many scripts in parallel (e.g. with a `&` at the end of above line), this might cause problems. Just have a look [xvfb-run unreliable when multiple instances invoked in parallel - Stack Overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/a/30336424)
The following command, however lets you run many post-processing scripts in parallel.
```auto
xvfb-run-safe -a -s "-screen 0 3840x2160x24" pvpython myScript.py
```
Edit: Of course other resolutions than 4K are possible as well π
---
### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2024, 1:07pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/11 "2024-04-23T13:07:40Z")
> [@dr-br](#):
>
> just fool paraview and pretend it uses an x-server π
And get very bad rendering performance because you are using mesa instead of GPU accelerated egl.
It could be considered an alternative to osmesa but I would not expect good performance compared to osmesa either.
---
### Author:  [@dr-br](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/dr-br)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2024, 3:53pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/how-to-build-headless-paraview-in-local/9248/12 "2024-04-23T15:53:59Z")
~~The performance is bad. I agree.~~
Reading my own answers below I can state: Performance is good
1. I donβt have GPU on compute nodes (most of them)
2. Typically on a supercomputer you submit a compute job and have to wait a couple of hours/days, till the job starts. The additional time delay due to performance does absolutely not hurt π
BTW: performance is actually not that bad! Depending on the viz-pipeline reading result files from the file system does consume more time than the actual rendering job. So file system IO is the bottleneck here.
3. I simply start many jobs in parallel if I have a couple of different visualization tasks
4. I can create images on a per-frame basis. So I can additionally introduce parallelism by creating one image per CPU core. RAM usage does not hurt me as I have enough of that.