[CentralOH] using python in web applications...

[Brian Costlow]

Hi Pete,

Okay, I did a bit of digging because I'm not familiar with Paraview and VTK.


What you seem to want, is a web application (i.e. the interface is, or runs
in, a browser) that has more of the interactivity available in the GUI of
the Paraview desktop application.

I don't know if the external API to Paraview or VTK is extensive enough to
do this, but assuming that it is, I would envision it works something like
this.

Current app: User submits parameters in a web form, that connects with
Paraview, which renders an image(s). That gets dispayed to users in browser.
(Is this real time, or does the user submit the request, you do some batch
process to generate the render, and then the students get the images later
off the web?)

Desired version: User submits parameters in a web form, that connects with
Paraview, which renders images and or animations and displays back to user
in near real time. That gets displayed  with controls to pan/zoom etc. If
user requests a view or modification that can't be shown using the current
render, browser requests additional render data from Paraview/VTK.

I don't think there's a silver bullet here for you. Certainly parts of
TurboGears would help in developing the part of the web application that
takes data from the user and calls the Paraview/VTK api, and also help in
simplifying generation of the web pages themselves.

But I think the bigger issue is what rendered image/movie/animation formats
can Paraview return that the browser can also display, and how will you
develop an interactive GUI in the browser.

I suspect the gui programming in JavaScript, ActionScript, or whatever you
decide to do it in may end up being more complex than the python part.

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 4:35 PM, Pete Carswell <pete at osc.edu> wrote:

> Thanks, Brian.
>
> I thought it might be helpful to include a segment of email I had sent to
> the Paraview forum. Initially I was inquiring about embedding Paraview in a
> web portal. What we want is greater control with the sci viz processes in
> generating viewable images from the CFD parameters. Python is also an API
> for both VTK and Paraview. Here is that email:
>
> "I would like to clarify how we would like to use paraview in this fashion,
> in the hope that it might generate some response. Currently, there is a CFD
> course that is taught online. Parameters to a particular problem are entered
> in a web page and submitted for a run on our HPC cluster. Images of the
> solution are generated and supplied to the student through the web
> interface. The batch script runs a processed script generated from Paraview
> 2.6. We currently also have Paraview 3 installed on the cluster.
>
> We would like to have more flexibility in processing the images after the
> solution is submitted, i.e. switching the modes of the data, vector or
> scalar data, and panning and zooming on the images, and, subsequently,
> handled by the students in the web application.
>
> I hope this describes our intentions better. Would appreciate any
> feedback."
>
> I hope this might give someone some ideas. Thanks.
>
> pete
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