Lighting Properties

Control aspects of the rendered mesh’s lighting such as Ambient, Diffuse, and Specular. These options only work if the lighting argument to add_mesh is True (it’s True by default).

You can turn off all lighting for the given mesh by passing lighting=False to add_mesh.

from __future__ import annotations

import pyvista as pv
from pyvista import examples

mesh = examples.download_st_helens().warp_by_scalar()

cpos = [(575848.0, 5128459.0, 22289.0), (562835.0, 5114981.5, 2294.5), (-0.5, -0.5, 0.7)]

First, lets take a look at the mesh with default lighting conditions

mesh.plot(cpos=cpos, show_scalar_bar=False)

Static Scene

Interactive Scene

What about with no lighting

mesh.plot(lighting=False, cpos=cpos, show_scalar_bar=False)

Static Scene

Interactive Scene

Demonstration of the specular property

p = pv.Plotter(shape=(1, 2), window_size=[1500, 500])

p.subplot(0, 0)
p.add_mesh(mesh, show_scalar_bar=False)
p.add_text('No Specular')

p.subplot(0, 1)
s = 1.0
p.add_mesh(mesh, specular=s, show_scalar_bar=False)
p.add_text(f'Specular of {s}')

p.link_views()
p.view_isometric()
p.show(cpos=cpos)

Just specular

mesh.plot(specular=0.5, cpos=cpos, show_scalar_bar=False)

Specular power

mesh.plot(specular=0.5, specular_power=15, cpos=cpos, show_scalar_bar=False)

Demonstration of all three in use

mesh.plot(diffuse=0.5, specular=0.5, ambient=0.5, cpos=cpos, show_scalar_bar=False)

For detailed control over lighting conditions in general see the Lighting examples.