[Paraview] Concept: A world without the Apply button

[David Thompson]

Utkarsh,

I agree that composite readers (and probably other composite filters)  
can provide the dataset structure in the RequestDataObject pass, but I  
don't know that many currently do. Certainly the ExodusIIReader  
doesn't. It would be easy enough to provide an empty hierarchy of *all  
the available* blocks the file(s) contain, but doing that with all of  
the block/set selections plus populating empty arrays on each leaf  
(which I think would be useful) would be a lot of work.

	David

On Jun 1, 2011, at 13:33 , Utkarsh Ayachit wrote:

> Dave,
>
> Output types become a problem only for composite-datasets, for others
> data-types are known after RequestDataObject pass which happens before
> RequestData(). I am still not sure how (or if) to deal with composite
> datasets in this case. We can expect the reader to give meta-data for
> composite datasets and leaves in  the dataset in more details as well,
> but I am not sure we need to yet.
>
> As far as the scalars/vectors/tensors go, no filter in paraview
> requires active-scalars/tensors etc, it just checks for existence of
> array with a give number of components. The meta-data should indeed
> contain information about arrays and number of components.
>
> Utkarsh
>
> On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 4:09 PM, David Thompson <dcthomp at sandia.gov>  
> wrote:
>>> I like the idea. One possible problem that comes to mind is  
>>> filters that
>>> produce different output types based on the input. Will enough of  
>>> the
>>> metadata be passed through the pipeline before Execute() is called  
>>> for those
>>> filters to hint at their output type? Otherwise, you'll be forced  
>>> to hit
>>> Execute before adding any more filters.
>>
>> Or, for that matter, what about filters which are disabled in the  
>> menu when
>> there is no scalar/vector/tensor data on their input?
>>
>>        David
>>
>>> On Jun 1, 2011, at 12:30 , Utkarsh Ayachit wrote:
>>>
>>>> Folks,
>>>>
>>>> I have been investigating the ability to create pipelines in  
>>>> ParaView
>>>> without having to hit Apply at every single stage in the pipeline.
>>>> This would make it much easier to deal with really large data in a
>>>> usage scenario where the scientist is fairly familiar with the
>>>> visualization pipeline he's interested in setting up.
>>>>
>>>> Following the recent changes to the ParaView ServerManager, the
>>>> ServerManager level requirement that filters need to be updated  
>>>> before
>>>> connecting has disappeared. However, we still need to "Apply" to  
>>>> get
>>>> updated information about arrays etc.
>>>>
>>>> After a couple on discussions with Berk and Dave, I've consolidated
>>>> the thoughts on a Wiki page. If any one has any thoughts to  
>>>> share, it
>>>> would be great.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://www.paraview.org/ParaView3/index.php/No-Apply_Mechanism_for_Creating_Pipelines
>>>>
>>>> Note that this is merely a concept. We have no plans of  
>>>> implementing
>>>> it in near future (3.12/4.0).
>>>>
>>>> Utkarsh
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
>