Load and Plot from a File

Read a dataset from a known file type.

Loading a mesh is trivial - if your data is in one of the many supported file formats, simply use pyvista.read() to load your spatially referenced dataset into a PyVista mesh object.

The following code block uses a built-in example file and displays an airplane mesh.

# sphinx_gallery_thumbnail_number = 5
import pyvista as pv
from pyvista import examples
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

The following code block uses a built-in example file, displays an airplane mesh and returns the camera’s position:

# Get a sample file
filename = examples.planefile
print(filename)

Out:

/home/travis/build/pyvista/pyvista/pyvista/examples/airplane.ply

Note the above filename, it’s a .ply file - one of the many supported formats in PyVista.

mesh = pv.read(filename)
cpos = mesh.plot()

You can also take a screenshot without creating an interactive plot window using the Plotter:

plotter = pv.Plotter(off_screen=True)
plotter.add_mesh(mesh)
plotter.show(screenshot="myscreenshot.png")

The points from the mesh are directly accessible as a NumPy array:

print(mesh.points)

Out:

[[896.994    48.7601   82.2656 ]
 [906.593    48.7601   80.7452 ]
 [907.539    55.4902   83.6581 ]
 ...
 [806.665   627.363     5.11482]
 [806.665   654.432     7.51998]
 [806.665   681.537     9.48744]]

The faces from the mesh are also directly accessible as a NumPy array:

print(mesh.faces.reshape(-1, 4)[:, 1:]) # triangular faces

Out:

[[   0    1    2]
 [   0    2    3]
 [   4    5    1]
 ...
 [1324 1333 1323]
 [1325 1216 1334]
 [1325 1334 1324]]

Loading other files types is just as easy! Simply pass your file path to the pyvista.read() function and that’s it!

Here are a few other examples - siply replace examples.download_* in the examples below with pyvista.read('path/to/you/file.ext')

Example STL file:

mesh = examples.download_cad_model()
cpos = [(107.0, 68.5, 204.0), (128.0, 86.5, 223.5), (0.45, 0.36, -0.8)]
mesh.plot(cpos=cpos)

Example OBJ file

mesh = examples.download_doorman()
mesh.plot(cpos="xy")

Example BYU file

mesh = examples.download_teapot()
mesh.plot(cpos=[-1, 2, -5], show_edges=True)

Example VTK file

mesh = examples.download_bunny_coarse()
cpos = [(0.2, 0.3, 0.9), (0, 0, 0), (0, 1, 0)]
mesh.plot(cpos=cpos, show_edges=True, color=True)