Contents
1 Introduction
This page aims to collect answers for frequently asked questions how to build ParaView, when using OpenFOAM's own makeParaView script(s). Feel free to extend this page with more details.
2 Error message: "GL version 2.1 with the gpu_shader4 extension is not supported by your graphics driver"
- Version
- ParaView 5.0.0 and newer
- Reason
- This has a higher chance of occurring inside a virtual machine, rather than in a real machine. As of ParaView 5.0.0, using OpenGL2 has become the default and this version of OpenGL isn't fully supported by many graphics drivers that are used inside virtual machines... unless the 3D graphics acceleration feature is turned on and a few adjustments are made.
- For more details about this feature, see the at Kitware's blog the post New OpenGL Rendering in VTK. It was already available as an optional build setting in ParaView 4.4.0.
- Solution
- The solution is to build ParaView with the option VTK_RENDERING_BACKEND=OpenGL, which can be done by running makeParaView with this additional option:
-
./makeParaView VTK_RENDERING_BACKEND=OpenGL - Or within the context of an existing installation instructions, for example installing OpenFOAM+ v1606+ in CentOS 6.7, this command:
-
./makeParaView -qmake $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/$WM_ARCH$WM_COMPILER/qt-4.8.6/bin/qmake -mpi -python > log.makePV 2>&1
- becomes this:
-
./makeParaView -qmake $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/$WM_ARCH$WM_COMPILER/qt-4.8.6/bin/qmake -mpi -python VTK_RENDERING_BACKEND=OpenGL > log.makePV 2>&1
2.1 Alternative solution
In OpenFOAM 5 and 6, it's possible to use the option -rendering, for example:
./makeParaView -qmake $WM_THIRD_PARTY_DIR/platforms/$WM_ARCH$WM_COMPILER/qt-4.8.6/bin/qmake -mpi -python -rendering OpenGL > log.makePV 2>&1
2.2 Alternative solution for ParaView 5.5 and newer: Build On-Screen Mesa
The majority of virtual machine software and older graphics cards do not provide OpenGL2 support, namely OpenGL versions 3.3 and newer. And given that as of ParaView 5.5 it is not possible to use the old OpenGL rendering engine, then the next best alternative is to build the On-Screen Mesa OpenGL driver, for which we are providing instructions here: Installation/On-Screen_Mesa
3 Building ParaView and plug-ins without Qt
- Version
- ParaView 3.12.0
- Instructions on how to build ParaView 3.12.0 and the official OpenFOAM 2.2 plug-ins for ParaView, are available at the CFD-Online OpenFOAM forum, here: OpenFOAM 2.2.2 on a server (no X) - post #7 to #9
4 Override the supported GCC versions
- Version
- ParaView 4.0 and newer, perhaps also older versions
- If ParaView complains about an incompatible GCC version, you can try and override that as instructed on the following post at CFD-Online OpenFOAM forum: 3.0.x ParaView compiling error Fedora 24 - post #2
