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20050310: IDV - Can you script IDV



Inquiry: I have been reading about your fantastic IDV software product. Can you 
tell me whether it is possible to script your jobs to create visualisations in 
batch mode without using the GUI?



Thank you for the "fantastic" comment.
Yes, you can script the IDV. The current release supports this (but not very well) through command line arguments: 
-image some_image_filename.jpg
and
-movie some_movie_filename.mov
What you can do is provide a bundle or bundles on the command line argument. Bundles are the .xidv files that capture the state of the idv and can be loaded into the IDV later to recreate that state. 

There are some caveats about this:
1) Only the main display window is captured.
2) There are some issues with the timing of the capture. i.e., the capture may take place before the display has been fully created. 3) The start up time of the IDV would preclude the IDV from generating images on the fly. It really only works well in 
    batch mode.
4) And, most importantly, the IDV needs to have a screen (either windows or an active xwindows session) to display on. 
   Currently, we do not support off screen rendering.
Now, that said, the new release of the IDV, due out next week, has better support. Issues #1 and 4 have *not* been addressed in this release. However, issue #2 should not be a problem with the new release. We also have the ability to run the IDV in "imageserver" mode. In this mode the idv accepts http requests on a given port. Loads in the bundle, creates and returns the image or quicktime movie. This is an alpha feature and has not been exercised very well. 

-Jeff

Date:    Thu, 10 Mar 2005 21:00:52 GMT
From:    "Stephens, A \(Ag\)" <address@hidden>

Dear Jeff,

Thanks very much for the prompt response. That's really useful
information.

I saw some mention of Jython in the documentation. If you do plan to
migrate to a fully scriptable version sometime in the future I would
recommend using Jython so that Python can be the language of choice,
rather than inventing a new scripting language.

Thanks again,

Ag