ray_trace

PolyDataFilters.ray_trace(origin, end_point, first_point=False, plot=False, off_screen=None)

Perform a single ray trace calculation.

This requires a mesh and a line segment defined by an origin and end_point.

Parameters:

originnp.ndarray or list

Start of the line segment.

end_pointnp.ndarray or list

End of the line segment.

first_pointbool, optional

Returns intersection of first point only.

plotbool, optional

Whether to plot the ray trace results.

off_screenbool, optional

Plots off screen when plot=True. Used for unit testing.

Returns:

intersection_pointsnumpy.ndarray

Location of the intersection points. Empty array if no intersections.

intersection_cellsnumpy.ndarray

Indices of the intersection cells. Empty array if no intersections.

Examples

Compute the intersection between a ray from the origin to [1, 0, 0] and a sphere with radius 0.5 centered at the origin.

>>> import pyvista as pv
>>> sphere = pv.Sphere()
>>> point, cell = sphere.ray_trace([0, 0, 0], [1, 0, 0], first_point=True)
>>> f'Intersected at {point[0]:.3f} {point[1]:.3f} {point[2]:.3f}'
'Intersected at 0.499 0.000 0.000'

Show a plot of the ray trace.

>>> point, cell = sphere.ray_trace([0, 0, 0], [1, 0, 0], plot=True)

See Ray Tracing for more examples using this filter.