PyVista is currently incompatible with ParaView

[banesullivan]

Describe the bug, what's wrong, and what you expected.

The following imports do not work when trying to import PyVista within ParaView's Python shell (using the VTK python bindings bundled with ParaView):

pyvista/pyvista/_vtk.py

Line 370 in f7800c9

from vtkmodules.vtkImagingMorphological import vtkImageDilateErode3D

pyvista/pyvista/_vtk.py

Line 385 in f7800c9

from vtkmodules.vtkPythonContext2D import vtkPythonItem

Since both of these classes are used in PyVista, this poses a bit of an issue. vtkImageDilateErode3D is an easy to deal with as it is used within the image_dilate_erode() filter -- this means it can be ignored. Unfortunately, since vtkPythonItem is directly used for a subclass wrapping, we have to disable quite a bit of code to get PyVista working:

pyvista/pyvista/plotting/charts.py

Line 980 in d3e01ee

class _CustomContextItem(_vtk.vtkPythonItem):

Additionally, there are some issue with scooby as well which I need to resolve.

Steps to reproduce the bug.

From the ParaView Python shell (embedded in the GUI):

import sys
sys.path.append('path/to/pyvista/')
import pyvista

System Information

Not including here as this is specific to ParaView's VTK bindings and PyVista's `_vtk` module.

Screenshots

No response

[banesullivan]

I think if vtkImagingMorphological or vtkPythonContext2D are not available, then PyVista should gracefully handle this by disabling some features. This is a classic example of mismatching what VTK modules are enabled in a given build. There will be plenty of other scenarios just like this.

[dcbr]

I can deal with the vtkPythonContext2D import in #2868 as that PR already disables this chart backgrounds feature for older VTK versions.

[banesullivan]

Thanks, @dcbr! I'll take on handling the other import(s)