VTKStreaming

This module provides classes to encode and stream frames from a VTK OpenGL render window using video codecs. It supports video encoding with VP9 (through libvpx) and H.264/H.265 (through NVENC).

Installation

VTKStreaming is available on PyPi on the following platforms:

• Linux x86_64 for python 3.10 to 3.13 included.
• Windows x86_64 for python 3.10 to 3.13 included.
• MacOSX arm64 for python 3.10 to 3.13 included.

It is currently based on VTK 9.6.0.

pip install vtk-streaming

Building from source

Build for quick development

Requirements:

• Linux: A C++ compiler (GCC 11.4+ or any other compiler supported by VTK.)
• Windows: MSVC (Visual Studio Build Tools). (ensure visual studio environment is initialized)
• macOS: Xcode command line tools. (xcode-select --install should have completed successfully)

Linux/macOS

python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e . --extra-index-url https://vtk.org/files/wheel-sdks

Windows

Open a powershell with MSVC initialized (ex: Visual Studio Developer Powershell)

python3 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/activate.ps1
pip install -e . --extra-index-url https://vtk.org/files/wheel-sdks

Reproduce CI artifacts

Wheels are built with cibuildwheel.

Requirements:

• Linux: Docker (the build runs in a manylinux container).
• Windows: MSVC (Visual Studio Build Tools). (ensure visual studio environment is initialized)
• macOS: Xcode command line tools. (xcode-select --install should have completed successfully)

Build a wheel for one Python/platform target:

# Linux
uvx cibuildwheel --only cp310-manylinux_x86_64

# Windows
uvx cibuildwheel --only cp310-win_amd64

# macOS
uvx cibuildwheel --only cp310-macosx_arm64

uvx comes with uv; alternatively pipx run cibuildwheel or if you use pip:

pip install cibuildwheel

# Linux
cibuildwheel --only cp310-manylinux_x86_64

# Windows
cibuildwheel --only cp310-win_amd64

# macOS
cibuildwheel --only cp310-macosx_arm64

Substitute cp310/cp311/cp312/cp313 to target other Python versions. The wheel is written to wheelhouse/ and can be installed directly:

pip install wheelhouse/vtk_streaming-*.whl

Examples

1. examples/simple_encoder_decoder.py - Live VP9 encode/decode round-trip with two render windows side by side.
2. examples/resize_encoder_decoder.py - VP9 encode/decode round-trip that survives window resizes.
3. examples/simple_nvenc_record.py - Record a render window for later playback using NVENC. This needs ffplay to playback the .h264 file.

Getting help

• For issues with the API, usage or bugs in VTKStreaming libraries, please report them on the original repository.
• For issues with wheel installation, supported Python and VTK versions or Python-side issues, please report them on the GitHub Fork.