How to turn off VTK warnings noise

[oberstet]

Hi all,

I'm new here, I'm an OSS developer that recently became interested in RF and hardware, and I have started to experiment a bit with openEMS. Pretty cool tool! Thanks for creating it, and thanks for offering it as OSS! Awesome=)

Currently, I am piecing together my geometries for a PCB antenna, and I'm running into a bunch of newbie questions .. which I am hoping for tips/hints on this forum ;) I'm gonna post/ask in pieces, this is the first one.

---

One small but ultra annoying issue for me is: I am drowned in VTK originating warnings which I don't care about, but which make it increasingly time consuming scrolling around to find my own log messages. Here is what I mean:

(cpy311_7) oberstet@intel-nuci7:~/scm/typedefint/picoguard/pcb/subghz-dual-antenna/ems-model$ python subghz_dual_planar_helical_antenna.py 
Antenna base frequency (Hz): 223000000.0
Antenna base frequency wavelength (mm): 1344
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Add segment with angle 135°
Opening simulation at /tmp/subghz_dual_planar_helical_antenna/subghz_dual_planar_helical_antenna.xml in AppCSXCAD
Warning: Ignoring XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland on Gnome. Use QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland to run on Wayland anyway.
2023-11-10 06:33:39.188 (   0.319s) [        FF1B6A40]vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper:306   WARN| vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper::GetVertexShaderCode was deprecated for VTK 9.0 and will be removed in a future version.  Use vtkOpenGLShaderProperty::GetVertexShaderCode instead.
2023-11-10 06:33:39.188 (   0.319s) [        FF1B6A40]vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper:298   WARN| vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper::SetVertexShaderCode was deprecated for VTK 9.0 and will be removed in a future version.  Use vtkOpenGLShaderProperty::SetVertexShaderCode instead.
2023-11-10 06:33:39.188 (   0.319s) [        FF1B6A40]vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper:336   WARN| vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper::GetGeometryShaderCode was deprecated for VTK 9.0 and will be removed in a future version.  Use vtkOpenGLShaderProperty::GetGeometryShaderCode instead.
2023-11-10 06:33:39.188 (   0.319s) [        FF1B6A40]vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper:328   WARN| vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper::SetGeometryShaderCode 
...

And this goes on over hundreds of lines of log noise.

Even when using the following code at the very top of my openEMS Python script I can't turn it off:

# approach 1: doesn't work
from vtkmodules.vtkCommonCore import vtkLogger
vtkLogger.SetStderrVerbosity(vtkLogger.VERBOSITY_OFF)

# approach 2: doesn't work
from vtkmodules.vtkCommonCore import vtkObject
vtkObject.GlobalWarningDisplayOff()

# approach 3: doesn't work
import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')

How do I disable it completely? I don't want to see any warnings from VTK - I don't care!

Thanks so much!
Cheers,
/Tobias

[oberstet]

alright, the log noise got sufficiently on my nerves for me to dig down and figure it out:

• This issue is related to older VTK, e.g. on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, the default VTK version is 9.1!
• The issue is fixed by building VTK 9.3 (latest release) from upstream sources, and then also re-building all of openEMS using that VTK 9.3.

the result looks like (note the line "vtk -- Version: 9.3.0"):

(.venv) oberstet@intel-nuci7:~/scm/3rdparty/openEMS-Project$ openEMS
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 | openEMS 64bit -- version v0.0.36
 | (C) 2010-2023 Thorsten Liebig <thorsten.liebig@gmx.de>  GPL license
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
	Used external libraries:
		CSXCAD -- Version: v0.6.3
		hdf5   -- Version: 1.10.7
		          compiled against: HDF5 library version: 1.10.7
		tinyxml -- compiled against: 2.6.2
		fparser
		boost  -- compiled against: 1_74
		vtk -- Version: 9.3.0
		       compiled against: 9.3.0

 Usage: openEMS <FDTD_XML_FILE> [<options>...]

 <options>
	--disable-dumps		Disable all field dumps for faster simulation
	--debug-material	Dump material distribution to a vtk file for debugging
	--debug-PEC		Dump metal distribution to a vtk file for debugging
	--debug-operator	Dump operator to vtk file for debugging
	--debug-boxes		Dump e.g. probe boxes to vtk file for debugging
	--debug-CSX		Write CSX geometry file to debugCSX.xml
	--engine=<type>		Choose engine type
		--engine=fastest		fastest available engine (default)
		--engine=basic			basic FDTD engine
		--engine=sse			engine using sse vector extensions
		--engine=sse-compressed		engine using compressed operator + sse vector extensions
		--engine=multithreaded		engine using compressed operator + sse vector extensions + multithreading
	--numThreads=<n>	Force use n threads for multithreaded engine (needs: --engine=multithreaded)
	--no-simulation		only run preprocessing; do not simulate
	--dump-statistics	dump simulation statistics to 'openEMS_run_stats.txt' and 'openEMS_stats.txt'

	 Additional global arguments 
	--showProbeDiscretization	Show probe discretization information
	--nativeFieldDumps		Dump all fields using the native field components
	-v,-vv,-vvv			Set debug level: 1 to 3

building VTK from sources has been done like described in their docs, but two important things to note rgd VTK

1. you must build VTK with "GUISupportQt" enabled
2. you must set VTK_DIR while doing the openEMS build

here is how to build one of the openEMS pieces:

cd openEMS
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ../ -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=${OPENEMS_HOME} -DFPARSER_ROOT_DIR=${OPENEMS_HOME} -DCSXCAD_ROOT_DIR=${OPENEMS_HOME} -DVTK_DIR:PATH=/usr/local/include/vtk-9.3
make
make install
cd ../..
tree ${OPENEMS_HOME}

---

to recap, the problem was the following noise:

(.venv) oberstet@intel-nuci7:~/scm/typedefint/rfminer$ rfminer --foi 446.0:446.2,200:1000 dipole show
k=2: n=10, a=1.8; r=1.4
Smoothed mesh for max_res=14, ratio=1.4
Created mesh of size 267264 (x=48, y=48, z=116)

Ok, created simulation with model with mesh refinement STANDARD using 267.3 thousand grid lines

Warning: Ignoring XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland on Gnome. Use QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland to run on Wayland anyway.
2023-12-15 18:36:38.919 (   0.499s) [        BE791A40]vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper:306   WARN| vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper::GetVertexShaderCode was deprecated for VTK 9.0 and will be removed in a future version.  Use vtkOpenGLShaderProperty::GetVertexShaderCode instead.
2023-12-15 18:36:38.919 (   0.500s) [        BE791A40]vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper:298   WARN| vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper::SetVertexShaderCode was deprecated for VTK 9.0 and will be removed in a future version.  Use vtkOpenGLShaderProperty::SetVertexShaderCode instead.
2023-12-15 18:36:38.919 (   0.500s) [        BE791A40]vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper:336   WARN| vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper::GetGeometryShaderCode was deprecated for VTK 9.0 and will be removed in a future version.  Use vtkOpenGLShaderProperty::GetGeometryShaderCode instead.
2023-12-15 18:36:38.919 (   0.500s) [        BE791A40]vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper:328   WARN| vtkOpenGLPolyDataMapper::SetGeometryShaderCode was deprecated for VTK 9.0 and will be removed in a future version.  Use vtkOpenGLShaderProperty::SetGeometryShaderCode instead.
...

and here is the same without the issue:

(.venv) oberstet@intel-nuci7:~/scm/typedefint/rfminer$ rfminer --foi 446.0:446.2,200:1000 dipole show
k=2: n=10, a=1.8; r=1.4
Smoothed mesh for max_res=14, ratio=1.4
Created mesh of size 267264 (x=48, y=48, z=116)

Ok, created simulation with model with mesh refinement STANDARD using 267.3 thousand grid lines

Warning: Ignoring XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland on Gnome. Use QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland to run on Wayland anyway.

[selcukmustafa]

Both vtk7 and vtk9 are available on Ubuntu 22.04 repo. You can try removing vtk9 and libvtk9* with apt, then installing "libvtk7-dev libvtk7-qt-dev vtk7" and recompiling openEMS. Hopefully you don't have any software depending on vtk9 while removing it.

[oberstet]

No worries, I'm fine: I am now building everything from vanilla upstream sources within a Docker container rather than relying on distro pkgs .. eg vtk-9.3 ..