[Paraview] What part of the pipeline is producing the request for UPDATE_EXTENT?

[John Biddiscombe]

I'd like to be a fly on the wall in your office when you start getting 
the infamous "Update extent is not within the Whole Extent" messages 
when you change your VOI!

JB

> Thank you so very much. I was able to implement what you wrote and now 
> my reader is behaving much better in ParaView. I have put in some 
> additional checks to see if either the input file or the VOI has 
> changed to cut down on reading information from the file when it 
> hasn't changed.
>
> Thanks for everyone sticking with me
> Mike Jackson
>
> On Feb 13, 2008, at 12:48 PM, Moreland, Kenneth wrote:
>
>> In the example you give, you should just report 500, 1500, 200, 1800, 
>> 100, 105 in WHOLE_EXTENT and respond to whatever UPDATE_EXTENT the 
>> pipeline asks you for.  If you are in serial mode, UPDATE_EXTENT 
>> should be set to WHOLE_EXTENT.  On a parallel server, ParaView will 
>> automatically break up the WHOLE_EXTENT and set the UPDATE_EXTENT on 
>> each process to a different piece.  In either case, just respond to 
>> the UPDATE_EXTENT that the pipeline gives you and that should work.
>>
>> How is this not working?  Are we talking about the multiple calls to 
>> RequestData again?  Could it be that you have set the wrong extents 
>> information on the output data?
>>
>> -Ken
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: paraview-bounces+kmorel=sandia.gov at paraview.org [mailto:paraview-
>>> bounces+kmorel=sandia.gov at paraview.org] On Behalf Of Mike Jackson
>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 10:23 AM
>>> To: ParaView
>>> Subject: Re: [Paraview] What part of the pipeline is producing the 
>>> request
>>> for UPDATE_EXTENT?
>>>
>>> I understand. Now. my problem. In RequestInformation I read part of
>>> my file to get what I am assuming should be the "WHOLE_EXTENT", which
>>> is 7334 x 8448 x 200 as a uint8 vtkImageData object. This is too
>>> large to fit into memory the machines that this will be run on. I
>>> placed some auto-generated gui widgets in ParaView for the customer
>>> to select a VOI. I have used the normal vtk macros for the set/get
>>> methods for VOI.
>>>
>>> So say the customer is only interested in a VOI of 500, 1500, 200,
>>> 1800, 100, 105. Could you lay out what calls should be made in each
>>> of the RequestInformation and RequestData methods? (just the major
>>> things we have been talking about, I can fill in the rest). I have
>>> tried lots of different configurations and the only ones that seem to
>>> work are the ones that are NOT recommended to do.
>>>
>>> If you want the entire vtkH5RoboMetReader.h/cpp, I can send that
>>> along also.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>> Mike.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Feb 13, 2008, at 12:10 PM, Moreland, Kenneth wrote:
>>>
>>>> In the call to loadDataFromMXAFile, you should be using the value
>>>> in UPDATE_EXTENT, not VOI.  To review, WHOLE_EXTENT is what the
>>>> reader reports to the downstream components what data is available
>>>> (and reporting VOI is an easy way to limit the data to what the
>>>> user wants).  UPDATE_EXTENT is the part of the data that the
>>>> downstream components want.  If you return with data that does not
>>>> match up to UPDATE_EXTENT, the pipeline might execute again trying
>>>> to get the range of data it asked for.
>>>>
>>>> -Ken
>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: paraview-bounces+kmorel=sandia.gov at paraview.org
>>>>> [mailto:paraview-
>>>>> bounces+kmorel=sandia.gov at paraview.org] On Behalf Of Mike Jackson
>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2008 9:48 AM
>>>>> To: ParaView
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Paraview] What part of the pipeline is producing the
>>>>> request
>>>>> for UPDATE_EXTENT?
>>>>>
>>>>> Ok, so now I have
>>>>> RequestInformation()
>>>>> {
>>>>> ...
>>>>> outInfo->Set( vtkStreamingDemandDrivenPipeline::WHOLE_EXTENT(), this-
>>>>>> VOI, 6 );
>>>>> ...
>>>>> }
>>>>>
>>>>> and RequestData() I load the data into a newly created vtkImageData
>>>>> object, then shallow copy into the
>>>>> actual output data object:
>>>>>
>>>>> vtkInformation* outInfo = outputVector->GetInformationObject(0);
>>>>> vtkImageData* output = vtkImageData::SafeDownCast(outInfo->Get
>>>>> (vtkDataObject::DATA_OBJECT()));
>>>>> vtkTypeInt32 error = 1;
>>>>> vtkSmartPointer<vtkImageData> imageData =
>>>>> vtkSmartPointer<vtkImageData>::New();
>>>>> error = loadDataFromMXAFile(outInfo, imageData, this->VOI);
>>>>> output->ShallowCopy(imageData);
>>>>>
>>>>> In paraview from CVS this causes multiple executions of the pipeline.
>>>>> Before, where I thought I had "fixed" the issue I was calling:
>>>>>
>>>>> outInfo->Set( vtkStreamingDemandDrivenPipeline::WHOLE_EXTENT(), this-
>>>>>> VOI, 6 );
>>>>>
>>>>> in RequestData(). Berk said that wasn't a good idea so I removed it.
>>>>> So now I am back to square 1 again.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks
>>>>> Mike
>>>>>
>>>>> On Feb 13, 2008, at 10:17 AM, Kent Eschenberg wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Indeed, each of the my routines to set the VOI bounds (one each for
>>>>>> the min/max in X/Y/Z) calls Modified().
>>>>>>
>>>>>> During development I had temporary print statements everywhere and
>>>>>> as I remember it these routines to set the VOI were called both
>>>>>> before and after RequestInformation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Kent
>>>>>> Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Moreland, Kenneth wrote:
>>>>>>> I belive it is supposed to work that your SetVOI() method should
>>>>>>> call modified, which will in turn cause the pipeline to call
>>>>>>> RequestInformation() on the next update.  Make sure that SetVOI()
>>>>>>> is actually calling Modified().
>>>>>>> -Ken
>>>>>>> On 2/12/08 9:26 PM, "Mike Jackson" <imikejackson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>     Pretty sure that was where we were going to end up BUT as far
>>>>>>> as I
>>>>>>>     can tell, the order of execution is :
>>>>>>>     RequestInformation()
>>>>>>>     SetVOI() // From the GUI in ParaView
>>>>>>>     RequestData();
>>>>>>>     So we never really get a chance to get the VOI until
>>>>>>> RequestData
>>>>>>>     fires.. Is that what you have seen?
>>>>>>>     Mike
>>>>>>>     On Feb 12, 2008, at 11:21 PM, Kent Eschenberg wrote:
>>>>>>>>  Mike,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  I accomplished what you want with one of our custom
>>>>>>> readers. In my
>>>>>>>>  opinion the documentation for RequestInformation, RequestData,
>>>>>>>>  extents, etc. is so poor that it is useless.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  At RequestInformation I read enough of the input to get the
>>>>>>> overall
>>>>>>>>  input array size; apply the user-selected VOI; and return the
>>>>>>>>  desired subset as the whole extent. At RequestData I read
>>>>>>> the rest.
>>>>>>>>  I just don't bother letting VTK/ParaView manage the
>>>>>>> selection of
>>>>>>>>  the VOI. This has worked for 2.6.1 through 3.2.1.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  Kent
>>>>>>>>  Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  Mike Jackson wrote:
>>>>>>>>> I can do that but I don't think it will work.
>>>>>>>>> In paraview, I have managed to set an auto-generated UI
>>>>>>> for the
>>>>>>>>> VOI. Now, the user opens our file, RequestInformation is
>>>>>>> run (I
>>>>>>>>> can put some sane defaults for the VOI) and things are ok
>>>>>>> so far.
>>>>>>>>> Now the user clicks "Apply" and then SetVOI is called with
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>>> values from the GUI and then RequestData() is called after
>>>>>>> that.
>>>>>>>>> So where do I update WHOLE_EXTENT? Or just take the values
>>>>>>> from
>>>>>>>>> the VOI, create a vtkImageObject from that, and then just
>>>>>>>>> ShallowCopy to the output object?
>>>>>>>>> I'm a bit confused at this point. If our case is NOT a
>>>>>>> standard
>>>>>>>>> use case for the pipeline than I guess I can look more
>>>>>>> seriously
>>>>>>>>> into developing a full blown Plugin for our data file.
>>>>>>>>> Mike
>>>>>
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