Visible Vertices

Display vertices on a mesh in the same fashion as edge visibility.

from __future__ import annotations

import pyvista as pv
from pyvista import examples

mesh = examples.download_bunny_coarse()

cpos = [(0.036, 0.367, 0.884), (0.024, 0.033, -0.022), (-0.303, 0.895, -0.325)]

We can easily display all vertices of a mesh with a points style representation when plotting:

pl = pv.Plotter()
pl.add_mesh(mesh, style='points', color='magenta', render_points_as_spheres=True, point_size=10)
pl.show(cpos=cpos)

Static Scene

Interactive Scene

However, we often want to see the vertices of a mesh rendered atop the surface geometry. Much like how we can render the edges of a mesh:

pl = pv.Plotter()
pl.add_mesh(mesh, show_edges=True)
pl.show(cpos=cpos)

Static Scene

Interactive Scene

In order to display the vertices atop a mesh’s surface geometry, simply pass show_vertices=True to render them along side the original geometry.

Note

Vertex styling can be changed using vertex_color, vertex_opacity, and vertex_style.

pl = pv.Plotter()
pl.add_mesh(
    mesh,
    show_edges=True,
    vertex_color='magenta',
    render_points_as_spheres=True,
    point_size=10,
    show_vertices=True,
)
pl.show(cpos=cpos)

Static Scene

Interactive Scene

If you wish to have further control over the way surface points are plotted alongside the surface geometry, extract the surface points and plot them separately.

The first step is to extract the outer surface geometry of the mesh then grab all the points of that extraction.

surf_points = mesh.extract_surface().points

Now that we have the vertices extracted, we can use add_points() to render them along side the original geometry.

Color the points by their Y position.

pl = pv.Plotter()
pl.add_mesh(mesh, show_edges=True)
pl.add_points(
    surf_points,
    color='magenta',
    render_points_as_spheres=True,
    point_size=10,
    scalars=surf_points[:, 1],
    lighting=False,
    show_scalar_bar=False,
)
pl.show(cpos=cpos)

Static Scene

Interactive Scene