Opyndx provides a Python language interface to the open source OpenDX visualization package. With this tool, from Python, users can generate images using combinations of various visualization tools from OpenDX, such as isosurfaces and streamlines. The images can be displayed and/or outputted to files. The display is active, allowing actions such as zooming and rotation of the image.
Opyndx contains two main pieces, the C code which interfaces between OpenDX and Python, and the Python code which provides many conveniences wrappers of and shortcuts to the interface. The C interface contains wrappers around some of the routines available in the OpenDX Data Explorer library, allowing them to be called from Python. The interface also creates a new Python type, which is a “black box” reference to OpenDX objects, so that such objects can be passed around at the Python level and into the OpenDX API.
The Python code contains tools and classes that make simple the generation and manipulation of the OpenDX objects, easing for example, the combination of multiple objects into a single image. It contains functions for the easy generation of many of the visualization objects, such as isosurfaces and cameras for example. This is done by using DXCallModule to call the associated DX functional modules. Also in Python is the code for handling the display, specifically for the active display. Finally there are higher level tools, for example routines to generate images directly from scattered data or gridded data, and an inheritable class that allows any Python object (with suitable interface) to be visualized.
In addition to Python and OpenDX, Opyndx requires Numpy.
To install Opyndx, run "python setup.py install".
Note that the setup.py may need to be edited to refer to the location with OpenDX is installed.
Opyndx runs on the major OS flavors: Unix, MacOSX, Windows
Opyndx will run on most computers, from laptops, to workstations, to massively parallel supercomputers.
and at Lawrence Belerkely National Laboratory