ParaView LightViz

The ParaView LightViz is a Web application that aims to enable scientific visualization on the Web using a ParaView backend for data processing and rendering.

If you encounter any problems when using ParaView LightViz, you can find the solutions in Troubleshooting or ask me on GitHub or Mailing list. If you can’t find the answer, please report it on GitHub.

What is ParaView LightViz?

ParaView LightViz is a standalone application that leverage ParaView capabilities on the backend to produce interactive visualizations over the Web. The LightViz application can be used locally as a command line tool or remotely when properly deployed.

The ParaViewWeb LightViz aims to provides a simple and customizable visualization application for your browser.

Installation

It only takes few minutes to set up ParaView LightViz. If you encounter a problem and can’t find the solution here, please submit a GitHub issue.

ParaView LightViz require ParaView 5.2+ which can be downloaded here which also bundle the ParaView LightViz application along.

Although using ParaView LightViz from the command line via Node and NPM could be easier for trying it out.

In order to install and execute the LightViz application on your system from your command line environment, just run the following commands assuming Node is available on your system:

$ npm install -g light-viz
$ LightViz

  Usage: LightViz [options]

  Options:

    -h, --help                   output usage information
    -V, --version                output the version number
    -p, --port [8080]            Start web server with given port
    -d, --data [directory]       Data directory to serve
    -s, --server-only            Do not open the web browser
    
    --paraview [path]            Provide the ParaView root path to use
    --offscreen                  Use flag to specify that ParaView should be used in Offscreen mode
    
    --data-analysis              Inspect data directory and compute metadata
    
    --config [path]              Provide a Lightviz config file to use
    --profile [profile]          Specify which profile from the config file to use
    
    --add-dataset [path]         Specify a dataset to add to the given data directory.  Requires the description and data flags
    --description [description]  Specify the description for the dataset being added
    --autoApply                  Optional for use with --add-dataset.  Specifies that apply/reset buttons are not needed with the dataset

Once you’ve added your dataset(s) to your LightViz data directory using the --add-dataset option, you will be able to open it/them with a command line similar to the one below. 

$ LightViz --paraview /Applications/paraview.app --data ~/LightViz-database

Requirements

LightViz as opposed to other visualization tools requires to pre-process your data so it can make smarter choice via the user interface.

You can learn more how to get started with the setup guide.
Then once you have some dataset, you can learn more on how to use the application via our user’s guide.

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