[Paraview] Save screenshot and Intel graphics: a workaround

[Christof König Beatty]

I'm posting this for a co-worker here:


Hello everyone,


As some people have already mentioned it, ParaView (here version 3.2.1,
but it's also true for previous versions) displays loads of errors when
you save an image with Intel Graphics cards. This problem seems to be
related to offscreen rendering (see
http://public.kitware.com/pipermail/paraview/2006-June/003294.html), and
it has been settled for Apple, but I don't know why it's not for others
computers using Intel Graphics as well.

For Paraview 3.2.1, "Save Screenshot" gives you several:

X Error: GLXBadContext 154
Extension: 143 (Uknown extension)
Minor opcode: 5 (Unknown request)
Resource id: 0x300b6f1

while your file is saved but is completely black.

Here is a little workaround (inspired by
http://public.kitware.com/pipermail/vtkusers/2006-August/086674.html,
tested on Ubuntu Gutsy, but clearly there's
no reason why it shouldn't work for other distributions). You will have
to compile ParaView from source, so read the documentation on the Wiki:

1) Download the sources + uncompress

2) Comment lines 1027 and 1046 of the file
/Servers/ServerManager/vtkSMRenderViewProxy.cxx which look like:

#if !defined(__APPLE__)
this->GetRenderWindow()->SetOffScreenRendering(1);
#endif

and

#if !defined(__APPLE__)
this->GetRenderWindow()->SetOffScreenRendering(0);
#endif

2) Download all the stuff necessary to install ParaView (e.g.: sudo
apt-get install cmake)

3) In order to avoid compiling QT from source, download the different
libs of QT4.2.3 successively:
a) http://packages.ubuntu.com/feisty/i386/libqt4-core/download
b) http://packages.ubuntu.com/feisty/i386/libqt4-gui/download
c) http://packages.ubuntu.com/feisty/i386/libqt4-sql/download
d) http://packages.ubuntu.com/feisty/i386/libqt4-qt3support/download
e) http://packages.ubuntu.com/feisty/i386/libqt4-dev/download

4) mkdir ../paraview-bin

5) cd ../paraview-bin

6) ccmake ../ParaView3.2.1/

7) Configure and generate with your options (in my case I haven't
modified the options, just press c + c + g)

8) make [wait... a bit less than one hour on my laptop (centrino
1.73GHz, 1Gb RAM)]
Caution: it will generate about 1.2 GB files and binaries!

9) su [pwd] + make install

10) Done!

Note that these steps are identical for previous versions of ParaView,
just find the file and the two lines to be commented in your version.

Finally, another trick has been proposed involving the 'ServerLayout'
section in the /etc/xorg.conf (but I haven't tested it) here:
http://openfoam.cfd-online.com/forum/messages/1/4438.html


' hope it helps! Good luck!


Olivier Lietaer
PhD student
Université catholique de Louvain