offscreen rendering and 5.5.2

ParaView Support
1

Hi guys,
I’m being dumb. I just downloaded the Linux version of 5.5.2, and cannot see where the setting is to turn offscreen rendering on. Did it go away, and if so, why?

Thanks all,
Alan

2

See this.

Following is the extract from Default Rendering Modes section.

  • pvserver, pvrenderserver and pvbatch always create an offscreen render window. If built with headless support, it will be an offscreen-headless window. There are a few exceptions where it will create an onscreen window instead:
    • if running in tile-display mode, i.e. -tdx or -tdy command line options are passed
    • if running in immersive mode e.g. CAVE
    • if PV_DEBUG_REMOTE_RENDERING environment is set
    • if --force-onscreen-rendering command line option is passed.
  • pvpython always creates an onscreen render window if built with onscreen support. The following are the exceptions when it creates offscreen (or headless if supported) render windows.
    • if --force-offscreen-rendering command line option is passed.

–use-offscreen-rendering command line option supported by ParaView 5.4 and earlier has now been deprecated and is interpreted as --force-offscreen-rendering.

Hope that clarifies things.

3

Greatly, well, somewhat. Two follow-on questions:

  • I didn’t know this documentation existed. Probably should have, but didn’t. How can a user find this? Is it linked in from either the wiki, from the superbuild page, or …? Or, should it be moved to a more standard location?
  • So, if a user is making a movie, using hardware rendered Linux, and wants to screen lock her system as the movie is being made, will this work? Do I need to throw magic switches (–force-offscreen-rendering)?
4

It’s on the ParaView Doxygen page here. Feel free to suggest where it should be linked to.

I don’t follow. What was the user doing previously? Was the user was using --use-offscreen-rendering on pvserver? If so, you don’t need to add any optional at all. It will be do offscreen by default. You can add --force-offscreen-rendering just to be safe, but not needed.

5

Lets say a user is running built-in server ParaView. Say said user wants to make movies. Say as these movies are being build, the screensaver comes on. Will the movies be of the visualization, or the screensaver? Second, if the user wants to make movies of a higher resolution, will this work?

6

Unless something has changed in the last 5 years, they will be corrupted or of the screen saver. I remember doing this in grad school and having to disable my screen saver because it corrupted the video ParaView was saving. Given that we still disable screen savers on dashboards so the image comparisons work, I’m going to say it will still corrupt the images.

7

Exactly. That’s why the Settings/ Rendering/ Use Offscreen Memory for Screenshots existed. And, now it appears to be gone…? This is important functionality for my team.

8

ANSWERED. I talked to Utkarsh, then did a little testing. The flag that use to be in the Settings area, which forced Use Offscreen Rendering For Screenshots is no longer needed. ParaView will use offscreen rendering for the client (built-in server) correctly and by default. In other words, making movies will work correctly even if the screen is screenlocked. It will also correctly make screenshots and movies that are larger than the current Rendering View.