Vedo: vtkplotter.dolfin.plot not working as usual

[bhaveshshrimali]

Hi Marco,

I was experimenting with vtkplotter.dolfin.plot in Jupyter notebook. I am noticing some unusual behavior between my local machine and a docker container that I built on binder.
A sample notebook with the container.

Initial problem on the container:

I was having trouble in making embedded inline plots using jupyter (+dolfin). A simple example like

from dolfin import UnitCubeMesh
from vtkplotter.dolfin import plot
plot(UnitCubeMesh(2,2,2))

would render the plot in a separate window, but on the container it would spit out the error

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'vtkOpenGLKitPython'

Try Installing MESA: namely libgl1-mesa-glx for rendering graphics

Following this I simply installed libgl1-mesa-glx libsm6 using

apt-get install libgl1-mesa-glx libsm6

on both my local machine and the container. Now everything works perfectly fine on the container, but I do not get any plot on my machine (neither embedded nor in a separate window). Would you happen to know the issue ?

Also attached is the notebook's output.pdf on my machine. Note that everything works smoothly when running a python script on the terminal, namely:

from dolfin import UnitCubeMesh, Function, FunctionSpace
from vtkplotter.dolfin import plot
import numpy as np
msh = UnitCubeMesh(4,4,4)
V = FunctionSpace(msh, "CG", 1)
w = Function(V)
w.vector()[:] = np.linspace(0,1,V.dim())
plot(w)

runs absolutely fine on the machine.

[marcomusy]

Hi Bhavesh,
try to update:
pip install -U git+https://github.com/marcomusy/vtkplotter.git
just to make sure we are on the same page.

Your first script in your link works as i expect:

In general you need to set
embedWindow(False) to make the vtk rendering window to pop up externally.
In jupyter session the default is embedWindow('k3d').
other options are 'panel' and 'itkwidgets'.

I do not get any plot on my machine (neither embedded nor in a separate window). Would you happen to know the issue ?

I'm not familiar with libgl1-mesa-glx and don't know exactly what it implies.. maybe you can find some help from this thread https://github.com/marcomusy/vtkplotter/issues/88 ?

[bhaveshshrimali]

Hi Marco,
Thanks for your prompt response. A quick update: so regarding

pip install -U git+https://github.com/marcomusy/vtkplotter.git
just to make sure we are on the same page.

I pip-installed vtkplotter-2020.2.5. Now

embedWindow(False)
vplot(w)
rendr1 = settings.plotter_instance.actors[0]
show(rendr1, newPlotter=True)

works and I can see the plot in a separate window, but switching back to `embedWindow("k3d") namely

embedWindow("k3d")
vplot(w)
rendr1 = settings.plotter_instance.actors[0]
show(rendr1, newPlotter=True)

doesn't render anything in the cell output.

Update: After installing panel and using embedWindow("panel") does render the plot in the output. However the colorbar is missing. I will play around with this in the meantime. Thanks again!

[marcomusy]

OK! then it's something related to k3d i guess.. it's weird though..
maybe with 'itkwidgets' you get the scalarbar?

[bhaveshshrimali]

I thought so too. Will try to do a fresh install of k3d and try again. panel is only one working so far without the scalarbar. Setting embedWindow("itkwidgets") doesn't work either an simply returns

Viewer(cmap='jet', geometries=[{'vtkClass': 'vtkPolyData', 'points': {'vtkClass': 'vtkPoints', 'name': '_point…

[marcomusy]

I see.. unfortunately the rendering part in jupyter is delegated to other applications so it not under control of the vtk library and has a lot of limitations..
Thanks for reporting these issues.

[bhaveshshrimali]

Thanks Marco. I think this is (partially) resolved at least to the extent of not being related to vtkplotter.