VCS2D Animation while Interacting

[chaosphere2112]

Big improvements to the animation controls during interaction; play works a lot better, can step a frame forward or backward, and added the ability to save out the animation and choose the framerate. Had to tweak a few things in the animation classes to make sure they worked with the changes, but I don't think I broke anything by doing so.

[doutriaux1]

hum.. just tried it from command line ubuntu (with merged master in)
configure button are now behind plots, so hard to get to
clicking (behind plot) on run, gen a lot of blinking.
pressing Q won't work anymore...
eventually (when pngs are done i think) flickering goes away , buttons stay on top, but pressing stop button does not work
Don't see a slider either.
Am i using a bad version?

[chaosphere2112]

Nope, looks like it's doing that on mine as well. I'll keep working on this.

[chaosphere2112]

So, I guess you shouldn't just keep spawning repeating timers in your timer event listener. Whatever. That would be why the Q key and the Stop Animation button didn't work– I was flooding the event loop.

Still have the UI flashing; it's because of the png generation. I'll keep working on that.

[chaosphere2112]

@doutriaux1 I can't think of any great way to not flash the UI during animation, given that we want to generate the PNGs. I guess we could leave the UI in, and then when you save, rebuild the PNGs and strip out the UI for those? Dunno, let's chat on Monday about it.

[doutriaux1]

I don't remember it flashing that way before. Before I was not using pngs until they were all ready so there was not flashing on first pass at all, second pass was super fast. Why do you need pngs on first pass? I think the issue is that before widgets come in it was barely noticeable and now the redraw time gets a bit longer and it is noticeable.

[chaosphere2112]

Sorry, miscommunication; the animation doesn't flicker at all anymore (since I fixed the timers spawning timers spawning timers issue), and runs fine. The widgets flash off and then on as the PNG is rendered.

[chaosphere2112]

@doutriaux1 Also, I think I've got an idea for how to get around this issue. I'm going to experiment to see if it works, and we can discuss if it seems like a good idea or not. Are you in this afternoon, or are you out today?

[doutriaux1]

I'm in but from home. Want to setup a gotomeeting at some point?

[chaosphere2112]

Got a sec to chat on the phone? I can explain my idea and see if you think it's crazy or not.

[chaosphere2112]

@doutriaux1 Alright, I got offscreen rendering working for animation. I had to add some logic so run() would do it straight in the main window; rendering offscreen on a non-main thread was making the objective-c runtime throw a hissy fit. Mind giving this branch a shot?

[doutriaux1]

almost there! Works like a charm from command line. BUT (theres always a but) in GUI I can't get the widget to show up (even clicking on edit pen). Am I missing something?

[chaosphere2112]

@doutriaux1 I haven't done the configure pen integration yet; I wrote the code to handle enabling and disabling the UI at the canvas level in another branch, but had not yet tied in with the configure pen in VisTrails. I'll have no problem knocking that out Monday morning. Presumably this should be easy to fix then as well.

[doutriaux1]

Should I merge that and you start a new branch? Or you keep working on this one?

[chaosphere2112]

I'll just do it in this one. I'll get that going right now.

[chaosphere2112]

OK, I fixed the UI not showing up in the GUI. Some of the buttons are still showing up behind the text. I made it so my stuff only happens while the configure menu is open, though you'll have to use this branch:

https://github.com/chaosphere2112/VisTrails/tree/configure_button_2d_interactions

I'll submit a PR to VisTrails when we have that UI nailed down.

[chaosphere2112]

I'm getting a segfault while resizing UV-CDAT with the configure menu open; working on sorting that out now.

[doutriaux1]

might be related to issue sI'm seeing on: #1135

[doutriaux1]

@chaosphere2112 on my mac 10.9 command line and interact work fine.
GUI though doesn't quite work. First of all it instantly bring up the widgets, did we not decide to do it only after we click the "pencil" buttons?
Then when I run the animation the ticks are all weirded out.

I'm using this branch for vcs, vtk: uvcdat-master with your timer fix, vistrails: your branch on pr

Am i missing sometihng?

[chaosphere2112]

@jbeezley Sorry, I ran into that bug as well. I have a fix for it, I'll push that up momentarily. To get at the controls in the GUI, you have to click the Configure pencil in the toolbar above the plot.

@doutriaux1 It's working on my machine... Are you sure you've got the latest of all of those?

[chaosphere2112]

@jbeezley OK, you can cancel a save now, and should be able to save multiple times without breaking things.

@doutriaux1 You still having issues? Are you in at all today?

[jbeezley]

Okay, I understand now. Looks to be working for me.

[doutriaux1]

@chaosphere2112 yes I'm sure I got latest of all. But will do a build from scratch just to be sure. And yes I'm in (from home) but turned off email so I can get things done.

[chaosphere2112]

Huh, wacky. If you want to debug it a bit, you can stick a breakpoint in `canvas.configure`, and see what's calling it.

[doutriaux1]

@chaosphere2112 interesting. When I click the pen and close the configure panel that makes the widgets disappear. Then clicking on the pen makes them reappear.

[chaosphere2112]

So you've definitely got the right code in there, if it's happening like that. Are you just plotting clt?

[doutriaux1]

yep. Wonder why it pops up with first plot.

[chaosphere2112]

Did you get anything with the pdb / set_trace() in the canvas.configure method?

[doutriaux1]

@chaosphere2112 does this helps:

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ create plot functions:  [('graphicsMethodName', ['a_boxfill']), ('plotOrder', ['1']), ('boxfill_type', ['linear']), ('color_1', [16]), ('color_2', [239]), ('datawc_calendar', [135441]), ('datawc_timeunits', ['days since 2000']), ('datawc_x1', [1e+20]), ('datawc_x2', [1e+20]), ('datawc_y1', [1e+20]), ('datawc_y2', [1e+20]), ('levels', [[1e+20, 1e+20]]), ('ext_1', ['n']), ('ext_2', [False]), ('fillareacolors', [None]), ('fillareaindices', [None]), ('fillareastyle', ['solid']), ('legend', [None]), ('level_1', [1e+20]), ('level_2', [1e+20]), ('missing', [1]), ('projection', ['linear']), ('xaxisconvert', ['linear']), ('xmtics1', ['']), ('xmtics2', ['']), ('xticlabels1', ['*']), ('xticlabels2', ['*']), ('yaxisconvert', ['linear']), ('ymtics1', ['']), ('ymtics2', ['']), ('yticlabels1', ['*']), ('yticlabels2', ['*'])]
/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vcs/Canvas.py:3512: UserWarning: Unrecognized vcs plot keyword: cdmsfile, assuming backend (vtk) keyword
  warnings.warn('Unrecognized vcs plot keyword: %s, assuming backend (%s) keyword'%(keyarg,self.backend.type))
/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vcs/Canvas.py:3512: UserWarning: Unrecognized vcs plot keyword: cell_coordinates, assuming backend (vtk) keyword
  warnings.warn('Unrecognized vcs plot keyword: %s, assuming backend (%s) keyword'%(keyarg,self.backend.type))
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/vistrails/vistrails/uvcdat.py", line 131, in <module>
    v = app.exec_()
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/vistrails/vistrails/packages/spreadsheet/spreadsheet_tab.py", line 961, in dropEvent
    sheetName, row, col))
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/vistrails/vistrails/packages/spreadsheet/spreadsheet_tabcontroller.py", line 1064, in plotDropped
    self.emit(QtCore.SIGNAL("dropped_plot"), info)
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/vistrails/vistrails/gui/uvcdat/project_controller.py", line 776, in plot_was_dropped
    self.check_update_cell(sheetName,row,col, update)
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/vistrails/vistrails/gui/uvcdat/project_controller.py", line 910, in check_update_cell
    self.update_cell(sheetName, row, col, reuse_workflow)
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/vistrails/vistrails/gui/uvcdat/project_controller.py", line 992, in update_cell
    reuse_workflow)
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/vistrails/vistrails/gui/uvcdat/project_controller.py", line 1039, in update_workflow
    self.update_plot_configure(sheetName, row, column)
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/vistrails/vistrails/gui/uvcdat/project_controller.py", line 847, in update_plot_configure
    plot_prop.set_controller(self)
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/vistrails/vistrails/gui/uvcdat/plot.py", line 30, in set_controller
    self.updateProperties(None)
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/vistrails/vistrails/gui/uvcdat/plot.py", line 58, in updateProperties
    canvas.configure()
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vcs/Canvas.py", line 981, in configure
    traceback.print_stack()

[chaosphere2112]

@doutriaux1 Yeah; can you do a git pull in vistrails? I forgot to push a commit.

[doutriaux1]

@chaosphere2112 ok widgets now work, but I still get a weird ticks behaviour when runnig anim see attached png

[doutriaux1]

oh and closing edit then clicking on pen again and clicking run anim again leads to this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/vcs/VTKAnimate.py", line 139, in modified
    shutil.rmtree(os.path.dirname(self.animation_files[0]))
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 239, in rmtree
    onerror(os.listdir, path, sys.exc_info())
  File "/lgm/uvcdat/2015-03-20/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 237, in rmtree
    names = os.listdir(path)
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/Users/doutriaux1/.uvcdat/bbd027a9bafe410f3900b5f1a700c7a780d1d03a'

[chaosphere2112]

Hmm... I'm not having exactly those issues, but definitely similar ones. I think there are some resizing quirks to work out on Monday.

[chaosphere2112]

@doutriaux1 Latest commit should fix issue where animation starts off with ticks in wrong places, and will speed up resizing the window while animating; since resizing the background render window doesn't work well, I'm just rendering pngs at double the original resolution, and letting them get scaled appropriately for now. When we get #1148 fixed, I'll update it to work more like it ought to. I'm still working on the exception after closing the animation.

[chaosphere2112]

@doutriaux1 Fixed the exception, helps to actually put the plot renderers back on the screen when configuration ends.

[doutriaux1]

@chaosphere2112 ticks are fixed but resize doesn't resize while animating any longer.

[doutriaux1]

@chaosphere2112 of course works, user error, sorry about the noise. @dlonie @jbeezley @aashish24 it's ready to go in as soon as we have your blessing.

[alliepiper]

Still segfaults for me, but @aashish24 said he'll take a look on his Ubuntu.

[aashish24]

I am thinking now that we can merge it and see if we can reproduce the crash on other systems. I will try it tomorrow.

[aashish24]

Lets wait if @williams13 has any suggestions.

[chaosphere2112]

@doutriaux1 mentioned yesterday that he was just about ready to merge this so we can get as many people testing it as possible to work out the last few kinks.

[doutriaux1]

@chaosphere2112 merging now.