[Paraview] Question about custom interfaces within Paraview

[Berk Geveci]

Hi Nik,

There is no easy answer to your questions :-) We are working on structuring
paraview 3 such that building custom application easier. Furthermore, we are
working on providing most of the functionality through python such that you
can easily do anything from scripting paraview to creating a completely
custom app using something like Tkinter or PyQt. However, the main
difficulty is going to be climbing up the learning curve. Currently, there
is very little documentation on how paraview can be customized other than
some example apps and the documentation of the source code itself. I would
think that learning enough of the code base to build a custom app would
require quite a bit of dedication and at least several weeks if not months
of experimentation.

However, there is hope :-) There are several features in paraview that
allows customization without building a custom app:

* Modules - these allows exposing the interface of pipeline elements in a
way defined by xml configuration files. Once complete, they will also allow
custom user elements based on Qt
* Lookmarks
* Custom filters

I would start experimenting with paraview 3 but hold off any major effort
until it is actually release (later this spring).

-berk


On 2/28/07, Nikil Kapur <n.kapur at leeds.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I'm writing for some general advice about Paraview for a particular
> application I have in mind. I wish to write a simplified interface that
> early stage university students can use to bring in CFD datasets and
> explore these using paraview. The idea is that instead of giving
> students free reign over the tools within paraview to explore the
> datasets, they will be lead through a number of exercises to help them
> understand the physics of the flow simulations. Since this is targeted
> at 1st year students I don't want them to get caught up in intricacies
> of CFD (that comes later) - rather focus on the physics of the flow. I
> believe there's a real educational driver for this.  I'm looking at a
> variety of options but my questions are these:
> 1. Is it possible to build simplified interfaces within Paraview ?
> 2. Is it possible to script in basic functions so that students can dial
> in (say) Reynolds number using a slider bar and get Paraview  to load in
> the right datasets ?
> 3. How hard is something like this to a mathematically competent
> engineer with experience of programming in a variety of languages / cfd
> codes etc. etc. (OK and how long is string).
>
> I realise this is mighty vague but from the enthusiasm from a whole
> range of colleagues and the offers of people to provide all sorts of
> exciting data sets its something I'd really like to have a shot at!.
>
> Many thanks, Nik
>
> --
> Dr Nikil Kapur
> School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT
> T 0113 3432152   F 0113 2349679   E n.kapur at leeds.ac.uk
>
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>



-- 
Berk Geveci
Kitware Inc.
28 Corporate Drive
Clifton Park, NY, 12065
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