qt_plotting.rst

PyVista PyQt Interface

PyVista has an interface for placing plots in PyQt5 that extends the functionality of the QVTKRenderWindowInteractor class. The pyvista.QtInteractor class allows you to have the same functionality of the Plotter class within a PyQt5 application. This simplifies adding meshes, updating, and controlling them when using PyQt5.

Example PyQt5 PyVista QtInteractor

The following example shows how to create a simple application that adds a sphere to an empty plotting window.

import sys

from PyQt5 import Qt
import numpy as np

import pyvista as pv


class MainWindow(Qt.QMainWindow):

    def __init__(self, parent=None, show=True):
        Qt.QMainWindow.__init__(self, parent)

        # create the frame
        self.frame = Qt.QFrame()
        vlayout = Qt.QVBoxLayout()

        # add the pyvista interactor object
        self.vtk_widget = pv.QtInteractor(self.frame)
        vlayout.addWidget(self.vtk_widget)

        self.frame.setLayout(vlayout)
        self.setCentralWidget(self.frame)

        # simple menu to demo functions
        mainMenu = self.menuBar()
        fileMenu = mainMenu.addMenu('File')
        exitButton = Qt.QAction('Exit', self)
        exitButton.setShortcut('Ctrl+Q')
        exitButton.triggered.connect(self.close)
        fileMenu.addAction(exitButton)

        # allow adding a sphere
        meshMenu = mainMenu.addMenu('Mesh')
        self.add_sphere_action = Qt.QAction('Add Sphere', self)
        self.add_sphere_action.triggered.connect(self.add_sphere)
        meshMenu.addAction(self.add_sphere_action)

        if show:
            self.show()

    def add_sphere(self):
        """ add a sphere to the pyqt frame """
        sphere = pv.Sphere()
        self.vtk_widget.add_mesh(sphere)
        self.vtk_widget.reset_camera()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = Qt.QApplication(sys.argv)
    window = MainWindow()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())

PyQt5 pyvista QtInteractor

Background Plotting

Normal PyVista plotting windows exhibit blocking behavior, but it is possible to plot in the background and update the plotter in real-time using the BackgroundPlotter object. This requires PyQt5, but otherwise appears and functions like a normal PyVista Plotter instance. For example:

import pyvista as pv

sphere = pv.Sphere()

plotter = pv.BackgroundPlotter()
plotter.add_mesh(sphere)

# can now operate on the sphere and have it updated in the background
sphere.points *= 0.5

Attributes

.. autoautosummary:: pyvista.BackgroundPlotter
   :attributes:

Methods

.. autoautosummary:: pyvista.BackgroundPlotter
   :methods:

.. autoclass:: pyvista.BackgroundPlotter
   :members:
   :undoc-members:
   :show-inheritance:

.. autoclass:: pyvista.ScaledPlotter
  :members:
  :undoc-members:
  :show-inheritance: