Paraview Glance vs. Paraview Web

Web Support
1

Hi, I am trying to investigate the possibilities to bring CFD results to VR/AR through Paraview Glance or Paraview Web.

  1. Can Paraview Web support VR/AR export as well? I noted that Paraview Glance can do this.
  2. For the supported file formats, it seems paraview glance doesn’t support many vtk file formats. Is there any plan to increase the supported file formats?
  3. Overall speaking, which tool do you think will be more suitable for my intended use? the Paraview Glance or Paraview Web?
2

For latency constraints, VR need to deal with rendering locally on a good GPU. ParaViewGlance rely on vtk.js which allow WebVR. For ParaViewWeb, we have 2 mode of operation, remote and local rendering.
When doing remote rendering, we just send images which won’t work for VR. In local rendering mode, we send a geometry extract to vtk.js which does support VR in the same fashion as Glance but we did not exposed the control to switch to VR graphically.

ParaViewWeb rely on a full feature ParaView which has many readers and filters.
ParaViewGlance on the other hand just rely on vtk.js for some readers and all its rendering along with itk.js for more medical oriented readers. The readers from itk.js are in fact the C++ version compiled to WebAssembly. This would be the way to go for vtk.js to add mode VTK/C++ readers to Glance. But that part is still WIP.

Regarding your questions:

  1. ParaViewWeb could be used to do VR but the main driver should be where is the data and how do you want to deploy your web application? Those will actually tell you if any solution is indeed viable.
  2. Yes via WebAssembly and @thewtex might be able to talk more about this.
  3. I would need more informations as the key points that should drive your decision are missing here.

HTH,

Seb

3

Thanks for the quick response, Seb!

Regarding the data location, it will be saved on the server where Paraview Web or paraview Glance is located. Both the server and the client that opening paraview web/glance will be GPU based workstations, so they can do the rendering when needed.

The main purpose is to use VR or AR equipment to visualize results so user can get better better ideas regarding the results.

Based on the above, which option do you think is better for my purpose, Paraview Web or Paraview Glance?

4

How big is the data that you want visualize? The size of the file could provide some indication.

5

The file size is around 100MB. Do you think Paraview Glance can handle this size if data? What is the upper size limit for files that can be dealt by paraview glance?

6

Glance should be able to handle that, but are you ready to wait for the data to be sent over network to the client?

7

This maybe an issue. How about Paraview Web, if the view was rendered in the server and only a picture is sent to the client, is it still possible to use VR or AR technology?

8

Is your data volumetric (3D cells?) or already a surface mesh?

If it is already a surface mesh, the amount of data that need to be sent to the client for doing VR will remain the same. But if the data come from simulation and extracting the surface would make the geometry transfer more manageable, then ParaViewWeb with local rendering could be an option for VR.

If VR is not require, simple image delivery can be done.

A way to present that to your user is to provide a progress bar only when he wants to go to VR, unless it’s the only purpose…

9

ParaView Glance supports a number of image file formats provided by itk.js. There are also some geometry file formats supported by vtk.js. In the future, more geometry file formats may be supported via WebAssembly.