ImmersiveParaView

Immersive ParaView

ParaView is a good general-purpose visualization tool built on VTK (Visualization ToolKit). Recently, virtual reality features have begun to be incorporated into the main trunk of ParaView. This page describes how to compile, configure, and run ParaView with these extensions.

How to Run Immersive ParaView

1. make sure the MPI daemon is running

   % mpd &

2. make sure the PARAVIEW_ROOT environment variable points to your Build directory

   % export PARAVIEW_ROOT=/opt/ParaView-3.10.1/Build

   or % setenv PARAVIEW_ROOT /opt/ParaView-3.10.1/Build

3. Run the ParaView server application (perhaps in the background)

   This is where the screen configuration file is specified (see below)

   % (mpiexec -np 1 ${PARAVIEW_ROOT}/bin/pvserver /path/iqstation.pvx &)

4. Run the ParaView client w/ stereo and tracker options

   % ${PARAVIEW_ROOT}/bin/paraview --stereo --stereo-type="Checkerboard" --server=localhost --vrpn --vrpn-address=head@156.56.14.123

   or % ${PARAVIEW_ROOT}/bin/paraview --stereo --stereo-type="Checkerboard" --server=localhost --vrui --vrui-address=localhost

   Other common options for stereo-type:

   • "Anaglyphic"
   • "CrystalEyes" (ie. active stereo glasses)

How To Build Immersive ParaView

• Install missing dependencies

  Commonly needed packages include:

  • mpich2
  • ...

• Download the latest source (3.10.1 as of this writing):

  http://paraview.org/paraview/resources/software.html

  NOTE: the pre-built packages do not contain the new position-tracking plugins

• Untar/unzip the source ball

  E.g. % tar -zxf ParaView-3.10.1.tar.gz

• Make a build directory:

  % mkdir ParaView-3.10.1/Build

  % cd ParaView-3.10.1/Build

• Use Cmake (or ccmake) to enable the immersive options:

  • General options:
    • set BUILD_SHARED_LIBS to ON
    • set PARAVIEW_USE_MPI to ON
  • Immersive Interface options:
    • For VRPN:
      • PARAVIEW_BUILD_PLUGIN_VRPNPlug set to "ON"
      • VRPN_INCLUDE_DIR set appropriately (perhaps "/usr/local/include")
      • VRPN_LIBRARY set appropriately (perhaps "/usr/local/lib/libvrpn.a")
    • For Vrui:
      • PARAVIEW_BUILD_PLUGIN_VRUIPlug set to "ON"
      • ParaView_DIR set to the build directory (perhaps "/opt/ParaView-3.10.1/Build") -- only needed until a bug in cmake config file is fixed
  • Now make the application
    1. hit 'c' to configure
    2. if you get an error message page: hit 'e' to exit that page

       NOTE: you may get an error that ParaView can't handle QT version 4.7.0 -- ignore this

    3. hit 'g' to generate the makfiles
    4. run make

       % make -j 8

How to Configure Immersive ParaView

Kitware also maintains a wiki site with instructions on how to use ParaView on a VR display.

Issues

• stereo appears in the main PV window, even though that is typically a mono-screen -- so question is, how to control which windows are stereo, and which are not