[Paraview] Shapefiles to Paraview (or VTK) format

Wed Jul 6 08:38:10 EDT 2011

Hi,

I may be a bit persistent about this and may be complicating things
more, but went on to port VisIt Shapefile database reader as a
ParaView plugin via VisItBridge

https://gitorious.org/avtshapefilefileformat_plugin

because I wanted to examine as much options as possible.

So now we have three options: ParaViewGeo (LGPL), vtkGDALVectorReader
(MIT License), and the VisIt reader (BSD License). Each of the three
turned out to have its strengths, to illustrate I took a screenshot:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7352393/ShapefileReadersScreenshot.png

where the two above are represented in Surface and the two below are
in Surface With Edges. Observations are

* ParaViewGeo and vtkGDALVectorReader represent polygons in lines,
  whereas the VisIt reader in polygons, propably due to difference in
  philosophy in handling polygons with holes, which is not supported
  natively in VTK. VisIt reader is characteristic in this point
  because it offers an option to tessellate polygons using the OpenGL
  tessellator.

* The VisIt reader with tessellation and vtkGDALVectorReader allows
  field values to be loaded as well.

For our own particular purpose vtkGDALVectorReader turned out to be
best suited, but for others other readers might be better. Either way,
I am really looking forward to seeing one (or more) of them included
in ParaView/VTK.

Takuya

Takuya OSHIMA, Ph.D.
Faculty of Engineering, Niigata University
8050 Ikarashi-Ninocho, Nishi-ku, Niigata, 950-2181, JAPAN

From: Aashish Chaudhary <aashish.chaudhary at kitware.com>
Subject: Re: [Paraview] Shapefiles to Paraview (or VTK) format
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2011 21:25:42 -0400

> Sure. I might be able make this reader as part of VTK and if you are
> willing to share your plugin then probably we could make that as part
> of Paraview source code.
> 
> Looking forward to your feedback.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 8:23 PM, Takuya OSHIMA
> <oshima at eng.niigata-u.ac.jp> wrote:
>> Hi Aashish,
>>
>> Great! My big thanks for sharing your reader. I will check and
>> hopefully I should be able to wrap the reader as a ParaView plugin.
>>
>> Takuya
>>
>> Takuya OSHIMA, Ph.D.
>> Faculty of Engineering, Niigata University
>> 8050 Ikarashi-Ninocho, Nishi-ku, Niigata, 950-2181, JAPAN
>>
>> From: Aashish Chaudhary <aashish.chaudhary at kitware.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Paraview] Shapefiles to Paraview (or VTK) format
>> Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2011 09:20:05 -0400
>>
>>> Hi Takuya,
>>>
>>> Instead of sending it over the email I decided to put it over
>>> gitorious so that it could be maintained.
>>>
>>> Checkout source code from here:
>>>
>>> https://gitorious.org/vtkgis_vector_reader
>>>
>>> The repository has a test program as well that could be used to view a
>>> shape file or write shape file gdal layers as vtk files. This test
>>> program won't work when you don't have a projection information in the
>>> shape file but you can still look at the test code to get an idea on
>>> how to convert the data into vtk files.
>>>
>>> If you have any questions or if you find any bugs please let me know.
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Aashish Chaudhary
>>> <aashish.chaudhary at kitware.com> wrote:
>>>> Sure. I will attach the reader header and source in my next email (by
>>>> the end of the day).
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 4:27 AM, Takuya OSHIMA
>>>> <oshima at eng.niigata-u.ac.jp> wrote:
>>>>> Hi Aashish,
>>>>>
>>>>> Would be great for me too if your reader may be shared (thus we have
>>>>> more options for importing Shapefiles)!
>>>>>
>>>>> Takuya
>>>>>
>>>>> Takuya OSHIMA, Ph.D.
>>>>> Faculty of Engineering, Niigata University
>>>>> 8050 Ikarashi-Ninocho, Nishi-ku, Niigata, 950-2181, JAPAN
>>>>>
>>>>> From: Aashish Chaudhary <aashish.chaudhary at kitware.com>
>>>>> Subject: Re: [Paraview] Shapefiles to Paraview (or VTK) format
>>>>> Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2011 10:29:22 -0400
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Lester,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have a Shapefile reader (actually a vector format reader) for VTK.
>>>>>> You would have to write a program to use it (I can send a sample app
>>>>>> too). It will require VTK and GDAL.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I can send you the code in my next email if you are interested.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 11:16 AM, Robert Maynard
>>>>>> <robert.maynard at kitware.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> It should be noted that the implementation in ParaViewGeo is LGPL not BSD.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 6:33 AM, Takuya OSHIMA <oshima at eng.niigata-u.ac.jp>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Just to share my finding, ParaViewGeo has a Shapefile reader plugin.
>>>>>>>> http://paraviewgeo.mirarco.org/index.php/Main_Page
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Several warnings are issued when I tried to compile the plugin in
>>>>>>>> conjunction with the latest git master of PV. Besides I don't know if
>>>>>>>> it is supposed to be a complete implementation, but as far as I tested
>>>>>>>> importing geometry worked.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Takuya
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Takuya OSHIMA, Ph.D.
>>>>>>>> Faculty of Engineering, Niigata University
>>>>>>>> 8050 Ikarashi-Ninocho, Nishi-ku, Niigata, 950-2181, JAPAN
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> From: Lester Anderson <lester_anderson1963 at hotmail.com>
>>>>>>>> Subject: [Paraview] Shapefiles to Paraview (or VTK) format
>>>>>>>> Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 09:19:24 +0000
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > Hello
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > Is there an easy way to get Shapefile data from ArcGIS into Paraview? It
>>>>>>>> > is an important file format and one which is widely used so it would be
>>>>>>>> > great if there was a method of importing this. As I see it, one has to
>>>>>>>> > somehow convert the format to a VTK structure (vector-based), not sure of
>>>>>>>> > the easiest solution.
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > Any suggestions?
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > Thanks
>>>>>>>> >
>>>>>>>> > Lester
>>>>>>>> >
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Robert Maynard
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Powered by www.kitware.com
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Visit other Kitware open-source projects at
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> | Aashish Chaudhary
>>>>>> | R&D Engineer
>>>>>> | Kitware Inc.
>>>>>> | www.kitware.com
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> | Aashish Chaudhary
>>>> | R&D Engineer
>>>> | Kitware Inc.
>>>> | www.kitware.com
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> | Aashish Chaudhary
>>> | R&D Engineer
>>> | Kitware Inc.
>>> | www.kitware.com
>>
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> | Aashish Chaudhary
> | R&D Engineer
> | Kitware Inc.
> | www.kitware.com