Paraview has problem displaying "Surface with edges"
 

Hi Foamers,

this issue is really annoying when showing "Surface with edges" in Paraview: the "edges" are partially displayed.

The mesh is displayed normally in other 3D softwares like Blender3D and meshlab, so I am sure it is not the video driver problem.

I have several laptops:

Debian 7 [64 bit] - Paraview works perfectly

Upgraded to Debian 8 [64 bit] - Paraview can NOT display surface+edges properly
Ubuntu 14.04 [64 bit] - Paraview can NOT display surface+edges properly

(Howver, paraview seems work fine in all 32-bit Linux system)

https://40.media.tumblr.com/d0af4289...o1_r1_1280.png


I could not figure out how to fix it, any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Greetings David,

Even if it doesn't seem like it, this is one of those situations where ascertaining which representation is correct would require access to the file you're using, so that detailed diagnosis could be performed.

I say this because there are two main possibilities:

1. It's possible that the problem is due to overlapping surfaces, which lead to some lines being hidden. This might not be as clear when using Blender, because it was designed precisely for handling properly surface meshes.
2. Or it could be a problem of interaction between ParaView and the installed OpenGL library, which is usually provided with the graphics card drivers.

My guesses are:

1. That you have an Intel GPU (as an embedded graphics chip, not a graphics card), which is the GPU maker more prone to having weirdly broken graphics drivers.
   • In the 32-bit installation that does work properly, it's probably using an older driver that uses an older implementation of OpenGL with less hardware acceleration.
2. Another possibility is that it might depend on how exactly ParaView was installed. Because if you're using a pre-built ParaView installation, said build might not be 100% compatible with all OpenGL implementations. Again, the Intel drivers are the most prone to these kinds of problems.
3. Although NVidia also has its problems, specially if you're using the "noveau" drivers, which are an open-source implementation for NVidia GPUs and which isn't fully operational yet.

Best regards,
Bruno

thank you wyldckat.

The laptops have Intel integrated GPU, and use the default system drivers. The issue persists even with mesh generated with blockmesh by OpenFoam. I believe it is OS based problem since I have a PC with latest OpenSUSE installed and have no problem.

The paraview has two version: compiled PV 3.12 64 bit and binary PV 4.1, both can not
display correctly. I guess it is the rendering problem: I copyed the same STL mesh and opened these 2 mesh files at once, One is surface and another is wireframe, still some edges of wireframe is not shown.

Can we change the render or camera setting to fix this?

[same mesh: screenshot of Gmsh ]
https://36.media.tumblr.com/dab6f8cb...ssaho1_540.png

Hi David,

The representation of lines isn't 100% accurate in my experience with ParaView. For example, if you have two entries of the same file, where one is defined as wireframe and the other is surface, I mostly get the same rendering bug you're getting, although only in some perspective views.
But I don't remember getting this issue when it's only one entry represented as "surface with edges".

You can try using the "Parallel View" option:

1. From the menu: Edit -> View Settings
2. Then check the option: General -> Use Parallel Projection
3. Click on Apply or OK.

This usually improves the rendering capabilities.


Also, in the "Display" tab/group in the "Object Inspector", try changing the "Backface Style" Representation. It might give you a more clear idea of where the representation bug is coming from.


Another hypothesis: try using the ParaView installed via apt-get. It should be the version more likely to accurately represent results.


Last but not least: Make sure you use a desktop interface that does not use 3D hardware acceleration. XFCE, MATE, Gnome classic and LXDE are usually the ones that don't use this. Because this might be interfering with the proper driver connection by ParaView to the GPU.


Best regards,
Bruno

Hi Bruno,

thanks for your reply. I did install the 3rd paraview 4.0.1 via apt-get install ..., and load all the plugins, unfortunately it does not help :( .

By the way, how to turn off/on 3D acceleration of video card in Linux?

thanks

cheers,

David

Hi David,

You're going to have to be more specific about which specific acceleration you're referring to.

Because AFAIK, the core 3D acceleration that affects all functionality can only be turned off if you uninstall the drivers and use the most basic VGA controller. Usually, the most basic one is provided by the "mesa" packages.

On the other hand, if you only want to turn off 3D acceleration on the desktop interface (namely the pretty desktop 3D animations), that usually either has to be done by configuring Compiz or it's preferable to simply logout and login into another desktop interface, as I mentioned before.

Beyond this, if you really want to figure out how 3D acceleration is handled in Linux, I suggest you search/ask in a dedicated forum (i.e. not in this one), since that this topic is a Linux distribution related topic and not related to ParaView/paraFoam/OpenFOAM ;)

Best regards,
Bruno

surface with edges fails
 

hello everyone

I have a problem with "surface with edges" of parafoam or paraview

when i use "Surface" for display format I got the true geometry but when I want to see the mesh and the solution contours simultaneously, paraview shows the attached picture

the problem geometry is the cavity of openfoam tutorials

"surface" mode
Attachment 50764
"surface with edges" mode
Attachment 50765

Tnx

Quick answer: Several details are missing on how to reproduce what you're seeing. Questions:

1. Which OpenFOAM version/fork are you using?
2. Which ParaView version are you using?
3. Which Linux Distribution are you using?
4. Are you running the Linux Distribution in a real machine or inside a virtual machine?
5. What are the exact options you've used for the "Contour" filter?

Hello
I hoped someone would answer.Tnx
As a response to your questions:
I use open foam 4 with para view 5.0 on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on a VMware and I use windows seven. But I don't use any filters. I just use the para view to show the particular result as in picture 1 of previous post is demonstrated. But when I command to show the result with "surface with edges" the para view fails to show the correct field and the whole domain is shown by the color of edges and I am sure that the mesh is course and edges can not cover the domain in that view.

Thank you agian.

Quick question: Do you have the 3D acceleration option turned on in your VM's display settings?

yes I do. it was turned on.

Could it be that your mesh cells are too small, (and the visualization is the color of the mesh) ?
I have an example with very fine mesh with grading, and you can see the same blue color and the velocity countour in the background.

As I mentioned before, my mesh is so course that this would not happen, more precisely I've used the cavity problem of OF tutorials in which the mesh is course.(U can see yourself) but I can not show you that my mesh is not fine because of my paraview big failure.
Tnx

Quick answer: Looks like I will need more details, since I'm unable to reproduce the same issue.
Attached is an image that demonstrates that it works when using the following software stack:

• VMPlayer 6.0.5 on Windows 7 64-bit
• Ubuntu 14.04 x86_64 inside the VM
• Installed OpenFOAM 4.0 + ParaView 5.0 via Deb packages, as instructed here: http://openfoam.org/download/4-0-ubuntu/
• Installed "open-vm-tools-desktop" inside the VM, via apt-get. I did not use VMWare's add-ons that come in an ISO/DVD/CD.

Knowing what you did differently will make it easier to reproduce the error.

Hello again

my software is just as you said above but VMPlayer, I use VMware Workstation if it helps.
But Dear Mr Santos my problem is too old and I remember when I was playing with paraview to learn more ,I entered a Filter from Filter tab and use it to integral a result over a region and then when I select plot over line, it was ruined and doesn't show any thing except legend and then I realized that I have this problem with paraview too. I reinstall it again but this problem remained with it.
One more thing that is really strange is that when I use the filter clip to see the cut view of my mesh and then delete this filter this problem vanishes until I exit the software and even in reuse, I get this again.(I accidently discover this self-made method)
Tnx

Hello everyone!

I am facing the exact same issue in my desktop pc running Fedora 23. Paraview and VMTK (www.vmtk.org) suffer this issue when "Surface with edges" rendering is applied. Paraview and VTK are installed from the official repositories while VMTK is installed usinga python egg based installer. As David mentioned, other tools like Meshlab or Gambit does not show any problem.

Details of my hardware,
Thanks a lot for your time.

Jabir.

Greetings Jabir,

Based on my experience of using different Linux Versions like Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSUSE, etc, this Paraview issue of displaying surface with edges is most likely affected by the OpenGL driver provided by your Linux system.

Sometimes this issue wont happen in a relatively older Linux version if your video card is old as well. In this sense, you might need to downgrade the graphics driver to an older version provided by your LINUX system.

best regards,
David

Thanks for the suggestions David. :) I am going to try upgrading/downgrading of graphics drivers. I shall update you the results.

Thanks and Regards,
Jabir