User documentation for Cinema’s reference Python Library¶
The cinema_python package provides a set of APIs that provide a standard way to write, read, search and process Cinema databases of various specs and formats.
Requirements¶
- Python 2.x
- numpy
- cmake (required only to run unit tests)
- scipy (required only to run unit tests)
- PIL (default resource for exporting/importing compressed rasters)
- VTK (alternative to PIL for exporting/importing compressed rasters)
- OpenEXR (optional, for exporting/importing compressed rasters)
- ParaView (optional, to generate stores from ParaView/Catalyst)
Basic Usage¶
If you have dependencies setup, you can use this example to test your setup by generating a small Cinema database.:
$ python examples/simple_vtk.py
This should generate a number of png files and one json files that looks similar to this:
{
"metadata": null,
"name_pattern": "{phi}\/{theta}\/{contour}.png",
"arguments": {
"contour": {
"label": "contour",
"type": "range",
"values": [
160,
200
],
"default": 160
},
"phi": {
"label": "phi",
"type": "range",
"values": [
0,
40,
80,
120,
160
],
"default": 0
},
"theta": {
"label": "theta",
"type": "range",
"values": [
-180,
-140,
-100,
-60,
-20,
20,
60,
100,
140,
180
],
"default": -180
}
},
"associations": null
}
For details about the format of Cinema databases, see the Cinema specs repo. You can view the generated database using the Python Qt viewer or the basic Web viewer.
Besides generating data, you can also use the Cinema library to search and analyze the collected data, as well as view the contents graphically. The examples directory Examples has the getting started scripts for all three purposes.