black (blank) plot on ubuntu

[AndrewAnnex]

on ubuntu, with a recent install of anaconda in a new environment I just get a black screen for the plotting window, if I use the file menu in the background plotter menu to save a screenshot I can view a rendering but otherwise the screen is blank. I installed via the conda-forge, and I can see some differences in the dependencies in the environment yml in this repo and the feedstock, but not sure if that is the issue.

>>> pv.Report()                                                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                                           
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                                           
  Date: Wed Sep 02 18:32:22 2020 EDT                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                           
                OS : Linux                                                                                                                                 
            CPU(s) : 16                                                                                                                                    
           Machine : x86_64                                                                                                                                
      Architecture : 64bit                                                                                                                                 
               RAM : 62.8 GB                                                                                                                               
       Environment : Python                                                                                                                                
NVIDIA Corporation : GPU Vendor                                                                                                                            
GeForce GTX 1080 Ti/PCIe/SSE2 : GPU Renderer                                                                                                               
4.5.0 NVIDIA 435.21 : GPU Version                                                                                                                          
                                                                                                                                                           
  Python 3.7.8 | packaged by conda-forge | (default, Jul 31 2020, 02:25:08)                                                                                
  [GCC 7.5.0]                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                           
           pyvista : 0.25.3                                                                                                                                
               vtk : 9.0.1                                                                                                                                 
             numpy : 1.19.1
           imageio : 2.9.0
           appdirs : 1.4.3
            scooby : 0.5.6
            meshio : 4.1.1
        matplotlib : 3.3.1
         pyvistaqt : 0.2.0
             PyQt5 : 5.12.3
           IPython : 7.18.1
             scipy : 1.5.2
              tqdm : 4.48.2

  Intel(R) Math Kernel Library Version 2019.0.5 Product Build 20190808 for
  Intel(R) 64 architecture applications
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

error when calling disable_eye_dome_lighting()

>>> plotter.disable_eye_dome_lighting()
2020-09-02 18:33:32.815 (  85.569s) [        1750E740]      vtkEDLShading.cxx:97     ERR| vtkEDLShading (0x56159871d580): FrameBufferObject should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
ERROR:root:FrameBufferObject should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
2020-09-02 18:33:32.816 (  85.570s) [        1750E740]      vtkEDLShading.cxx:102    ERR| vtkEDLShading (0x56159871d580): ColorTexture should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
ERROR:root:ColorTexture should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
2020-09-02 18:33:32.816 (  85.570s) [        1750E740]      vtkEDLShading.cxx:107    ERR| vtkEDLShading (0x56159871d580): DepthTexture should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
ERROR:root:DepthTexture should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
2020-09-02 18:33:32.816 (  85.570s) [        1750E740]      vtkEDLShading.cxx:112    ERR| vtkEDLShading (0x56159871d580): FrameBufferObject should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
ERROR:root:FrameBufferObject should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
2020-09-02 18:33:32.816 (  85.570s) [        1750E740]      vtkEDLShading.cxx:117    ERR| vtkEDLShading (0x56159871d580): ColorTexture should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
ERROR:root:ColorTexture should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
2020-09-02 18:33:32.816 (  85.570s) [        1750E740]      vtkEDLShading.cxx:122    ERR| vtkEDLShading (0x56159871d580): FrameBufferObject should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
ERROR:root:FrameBufferObject should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
2020-09-02 18:33:32.817 (  85.570s) [        1750E740]      vtkEDLShading.cxx:127    ERR| vtkEDLShading (0x56159871d580): ColorTexture should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
ERROR:root:ColorTexture should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
2020-09-02 18:33:32.817 (  85.570s) [        1750E740]      vtkEDLShading.cxx:132    ERR| vtkEDLShading (0x56159871d580): ColorTexture should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().
ERROR:root:ColorTexture should have been deleted in ReleaseGraphicsResources().

[AndrewAnnex]

I am wondering if this is due to pyqt/pyqt5 as pyqt installs some packages like sip from pypi and not the conda-forge

pyqt5 5.11.x are not available on the forge

[akaszynski]

Could you try installing vtk==8.1.2? That's been causing some issues and it might be part of the problem. Installing it through vtk should work.

Also, pyqt5==5.11.x has been the most successful for us, so we've gone with that, but you're free to choose a different version.

[AndrewAnnex]

I’ll try the older vtk but I want to stick with what is available on the conda forge as much as possible so I think I am stuck with 5.12.3 or 5.9.

…

-Andrew Annex

On Sep 2, 2020, at 9:15 PM, Alex Kaszynski ***@***.***> wrote:  Could you try installing vtk==8.1.2? That's been causing some issues and it might be part of the problem. Installing it through vtk should work. Also, pyqt5==5.11.x has been the most successful for us, so we've gone with that, but you're free to choose a different version. — You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[akaszynski]

That might be part of the issue then. I've found pyqt5 to be incredibly finicky version to version, and I think you'll have better luck outside the conda releases. If you're using Ubuntu (as am I), the python wheels tend to be quite stable (at least with the right versions).

[AndrewAnnex]

@akaszynski I think there is a typo in either the pyvista or pyvistaqt conda forge yamls where "pyqt" and "qt" is being installed along with pyqt5, pyqt5-sip, pyqtchart, pyqtwebengine that are installed by pip in one or the other recipe. I wasn't able to get a working conda environment until I used pip only to install pyvista and pyvistaqt and necessary dependencies (see below), and when I did I didn't see any additional "qt" dependencies from the conda forge in the environment.

creating a new environment and then running "pip install pyqt5==5.11.3 pyvista pyvistaqt vtk==8.1.2" worked for me,

however this issue will need to be fixed because vtk 8.1.2 is not available for python 3.8 or forward

I think some version pinning or TLC for the conda forge feedstocks are needed

[AndrewAnnex]

@akaszynski I should amend this to say, that in this environment I want to be able to run jupyter which requires qt/pyqt. So although you can get a working environment it would be difficult to resolve a functioning environment without careful editing. The end solution is to fix whatever is wrong with pyvista/pyvistaqt

[GuillaumeFavelier]

The environment.yml config file was updated recently so I think it's worth trying again on master(a0babd5) @AndrewAnnex. Do not hesitate to let us know how it goes for you.

[AndrewAnnex]

@GuillaumeFavelier I am actually still running into this issue, annoyingly I cannot downgrade vtk because 8.2 and 8.1.2 does not support python 3.8 so I am stuck with vtk 9.0.1unless I can safely downgrade the python version

[GuillaumeFavelier]

So you upgraded pyvista and pyvistaqt? Can you share a minimal snippet of the code that reproduces the issue?

[AndrewAnnex]

code snippet:

import pyvista as pv                         
import pyvistaqt as pvqt                     
p = pvqt.BackgroundPlotter()                 
p.add_mesh(pv.Sphere())                      
p.show() 

as some amount of time has passed here is an updated run of pv.Report:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Date: Tue Jun 22 09:15:50 2021 EDT

                OS : Linux
            CPU(s) : 16
           Machine : x86_64
      Architecture : 64bit
               RAM : 62.8 GB
       Environment : IPython
        GPU Vendor : NVIDIA Corporation
      GPU Renderer : GeForce GTX 1080 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
       GPU Version : 4.5.0 NVIDIA 460.80

  Python 3.8.5 (default, Sep  4 2020, 07:30:14)  [GCC 7.3.0]

           pyvista : 0.31.2
               vtk : 9.0.1
             numpy : 1.19.5
           imageio : 2.9.0
           appdirs : 1.4.4
            scooby : 0.5.6
            meshio : 4.1.1
        matplotlib : 3.3.0
         pyvistaqt : 0.5.0
             PyQt5 : 5.12.3
           IPython : 7.17.0
          colorcet : 1.0.0
             scipy : 1.6.3
        itkwidgets : 0.32.0
              tqdm : 4.61.1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[akaszynski]

You can update to the latest dev wheels with pip install vtk==9.0.20210612.dev0. We're working on a few bug fixes regarding these wheels, but it's quite stable outside of Mesa OpenGL in Windows.

[AndrewAnnex]

@akaszynski yay it works!

Note for others the steps were to:

1. uninstall pyvista/pyvistaqt/vtk first with mamba/conda
2. pip install vtk==9.0.20210612.dev0
3. mamba install pyvista pyvistaqt --no-deps (otherwise it tries to install vtk from conda-forge)

Although my immediate issue is solved, eventually I would like to be able to continue to rely on the conda-forge distribution to make my conda env easier to share. If fixes can't be worked into the feedstock for vtk, maybe the docs for pyvistaqt/pyvista could be updated to include the fix(es) for this issue? I'm not sure how commonly this issue is run into but judging by the repo maybe I just have a strange conda environment

[akaszynski]

Thanks for posting the steps to your workaround.

maybe the docs for pyvistaqt/pyvista could be updated to include the fix(es) for this issue?

We're going to wait some time until VTK either releases stable wheels or, should that take longer than a month or two, add in notes regarding the workaround you noted.

[Xiaoyuew]

I encountered same problem, could you please help me? I have:
Python 3.8.10
vtk==9.1.0
PyQt5==5.15.6
pyvistaqt==0.7.0
pyvista==0.33.3
I tried the above solutions but didn't help. I cannot find vtk==9.0.20210612.dev0.
The strange thing is the above versions work on my Windows system but do not work on Ubuntu. Any idea of why is that?

[Xiaoyuew]

I solved the black screen problem by cancelling anti-aliasing, but I don't understand why

[GuillaumeFavelier]

I solved the black screen problem by cancelling anti-aliasing, but I don't understand why

Thanks for reporting here @Xiaoyuew. We discovered in some cases that anti-aliasing, when not supported by the renderer, produces a black screen. I am not entirely sure of the reason but I have some guesses. Do you use MESA?

One way to know is to look at the GPU Renderer section of python -c "import pyvista; print(pyvista.Report())"

[Xiaoyuew]

Yes I use MESA. If it is a problem of GPU I could probably solve it. I will be changing my GPU tomorrow.

[Xiaoyuew]

I have changed to a NVIDIA card and the anti-aliasing no longer causes black screen. Thank you! @GuillaumeFavelier

[JacobBumgarner]

@Xiaoyuew Could you elaborate on how you configured pyvista to recognize your NVIDIA card on Ubuntu? I'm in WSL2 and am having some trouble getting it configured. Thanks!

[Xiaoyuew]

It's some time ago, but I think it is just a matter of GPU driver. If you get the correct driver then pyvista can recognize it. @JacobBumgarner

@Xiaoyuew Could you elaborate on how you configured pyvista to recognize your NVIDIA card on Ubuntu? I'm in WSL2 and am having some trouble getting it configured. Thanks!

[JacobBumgarner]

I appreciate your response. I'm guessing that I would need to recompile VTK with the appropriate GPU configurations. Does that seem right to you? No worries if you don't remember, I know it's been a long time 😄

Thanks, @Xiaoyuew

[Xiaoyuew]

No need to recompile. Just download and install the correct GPU driver should be enough. @JacobBumgarner