Running a script in the background? / VR black screen

ParaView Support
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Hello, we are a group of students currently working on a project using Paraview.
To sum up, our project, constists in actively loading terrain data around a person which is in control of the camera. All of that using python scripts. But we currently are facing a couple of problems.

Problem 1: We can’t manage to make our program run as a “background” process. When running the script, no interaction with Paraview are possible.

Problem 2: When running the integrated VR of Paraview. The screen on which a view of what’s happening in VR shows the data sent through OpenGL. While the rest of the screen is completly black thus preventing us from using any tools.

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  1. Very classic issue, you will have to run your python program in another thread. See here : https://docs.python.org/3/library/threading.html

If you encounter issues with race condition our segfault with the paraview python interpreter, you will have to build ParaView and make sure VTK_NO_PYTHON_THREADS is OFF and VTK_PYTHON_FULL_THREADSAFE is ON.

  1. VR has seen a lot of improvements lastly, you may want to try with the last nightly version of ParaView. https://www.paraview.org/download/
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Thank you for replying so quickly. We will explore these options and update you on whether it worked out for us.

2 Likes
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I’m not the OP, but this topic interests me, so permit me to ask a “followup” question:

For the threaded python code: is there a recommended place for the code? I.e. since there
are several places where one can add Python to ParaView – ProgrammableSource vs. LiveProgrammableSource
vs. ProgrammableFilter vs. Python Shell vs. Macro vs. Animated Python script.

And regarding the improved VR interface, I know this isn’t the place, but since it’s mentioned:
would it be possible to include the VR plugin in the pre-compiled MacOS version of ParaView 5.8?

Thanks,
Bill
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The location of this threaded python code depends on your usecase.

For the OP, I suppose it should be put in a script run from the python shell or in pvpython, as it looks like they want to run it client-side

For others, who wants to run it server-side, a programmable filter or a python plugin would be the right place.

There is no example for either of these usecases I’m afraid.

For you VR on MacOS question, I defer to @cory.quammen, @martink and @Michael .

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We have a request for this here: https://gitlab.kitware.com/paraview/paraview/issues/18704

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If i’m not mistaken @wsherman or at least @sohayb_bahi is talking about the OpenVR plugin, not the VRPN plugin. I know, confusing :slight_smile:

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Maybe? I’m not aware of anyone who has compiled or run OpenVR on macOS, but if a headset can be drive from a Mac, seems like it should be possible.

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In any case, the VRPN plugin does not have an “Improved” interface in 5.8, contrary to the OpenVR plugin.

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I thought perhaps Sebastian @jourdain and maybe Patrick @olearypatrick might have it running on MacOS since they both gave me (offline) advice on the purchase of an external graphics card for my MacBookPro.
Bill

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So yes, in this case, I was referring to the OpenVR plugin to use with my Vive.

However! Just this morning in a group meeting, we got out an old Space Mouse to use with ParaView, and it doesn’t really interface well by default, so I also happen to have a need for a pre-compiled VRplugin plugin, so a +1 vote for that too – though I see the MR thread on that ended with a need/request for funding.
Bill

(p.s. and unrelated, I just noticed that I mistyped my username when I created it!)

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I haven’t tried it on ParaView proper, but ParaView Glance with Firefox is working for me with the Vive.

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Is there anything that needs to be done to activate a Glance view for VR? E.g. Sketchfab has a little “View in VR” icon.

What steps do you use?

Thanks,
Bill
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Yes i was speaking about OpenVR plugin