pvutils

A set of functions that should simplify the usability of python scripts in ParaView.

• The directory pvuitls contains the files for this module, utility functions and ParaView filter wrappers.
• Some useful programmable filters can be found in the directory filters. To use one of the programmable filters in a script, use the function programmable_filter from pvutils.

How to cite

If you use pvutils to create figures for your work, please acknowledge it with a link to the GitHub repository, for example:

Illustrations in this work have been created using the ParaView scripting toolbox pvutils (https://github.com/imcs-compsim/pvutils).

Feel free to leave us a ⭐ on GitHub.

ParaView version

The current version of this module is developed with ParaView 5.11.2.

Execute scripts with pvutils

The two basic ways to execute a python ParaView script are:

• Execute with the ParaView python interpreter (pvpython or paraview). Make sure that the path to the root pvutils directory is visible for the interpreter. There are several ways to do this, e.g.,

  • Add the path to the environment variable PYTHONPATH

    export PYTHONPATH="${PYTHONPATH}:${<path to pvutils>}

  • Add the path from within the python script

    import sys
    sys.path.append("<path to pvutils>")

  The call to the script can either be done with the ParaView python wrapper pvpython or the main ParaView application itself:

  • Execute the script with the ParaView internal python interpreter. Per default no graphical window is opened.

    <path to ParaView>/bin/pvpython <path to script>

  • Execute the script with the default ParaView application. A GUI will be opened.

    <path to ParaView>/bin/paraview --script=<path to script>

• Execute with the system python interpreter

  python3 <path to script>

  This is the recommended way to add the ParaView script to an existing python workflow. For this to work, certain things have to be considered:

  • Install pvutils in your pip environment

    # Only use pvutils
    pip install <path to pvutils>
    # Develop pvutils
    pip install -e <path to pvutils>

  • Add the path to the ParaView python interface

    export PYTHONPATH="${PYTHONPATH}:${<path to ParaView>}/lib/python3.9/site-packages"

  • Add the path to the ParaView python libraries

    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}:${<path to ParaView>}/lib"

  • If your existing python workflow depends on binary packages, e.g., cython or numpy, make sure the libraries provided by ParaView are compatible with your binaries.

Testing

A change in the repository also starts a pipeline in GitLab.

The unit tests are defined in tests/testing.pvutils.py.

To setup local testing, modify your ~/.bashrc to

• point the environment variable PARAVIEW_PATH pointing to the root directory of the ParaView installation (the one containing bin and lib)
• include the repository pvutils into your PYTHONPATH.

Then, all tests can be executed by

• navigating to tests/
• executing test_local.sh

Code formatting

pvutils uses the the python code formatter black. The testsuite checks that all source files are formatted accordingly.

License

pvutils is licensed under the Apache License v2.0 with LLVM Exceptions. See the LICENSE file for details.