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.

# sphinx_gallery_thumbnail_number = 4
import pyvista as pv
from pyvista import examples

mesh = examples.download_st_helens().warp_by_scalar()

cpos = [(575848., 5128459., 22289.),
        (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)

Out:

[(575848.0, 5128459.0, 22289.0),
 (562835.0, 5114981.5, 2294.5),
 (-0.502518907629606, -0.502518907629606, 0.7035264706814484)]

What about with no lighting

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

Out:

[(575848.0, 5128459.0, 22289.0),
 (562835.0, 5114981.5, 2294.5),
 (-0.502518907629606, -0.502518907629606, 0.7035264706814484)]

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)

Out:

[(575848.0, 5128459.0, 22289.0),
 (562835.0, 5114981.5, 2294.5),
 (-0.502518907629606, -0.502518907629606, 0.7035264706814484)]

Just specular

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

Out:

[(575848.0, 5128459.0, 22289.0),
 (562835.0, 5114981.5, 2294.5),
 (-0.502518907629606, -0.502518907629606, 0.7035264706814484)]

Specular power

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

Out:

[(575848.0, 5128459.0, 22289.0),
 (562835.0, 5114981.5, 2294.5),
 (-0.502518907629606, -0.502518907629606, 0.7035264706814484)]

Demonstration of all three in use

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

Out:

[(575848.0, 5128459.0, 22289.0),
 (562835.0, 5114981.5, 2294.5),
 (-0.502518907629606, -0.502518907629606, 0.7035264706814484)]

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