Maxwell Render

hi !

is there a way (using Python) to 'call' pyMaxwell, so a specific .py file gets directly executed ?

in other words :
- start pyMaxwell instance (if needed with GUI or just as a batch process does not matter)
- execute provided code
- kill instance



any help very welcome !

cheers !

_________________
Death Metal Team

http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/

PyMaxwell python editor have some command-line options (try pymaxwell.exe -help):

pymaxwell [-nogui] [-runscript] [scriptfilename]

So you can run your .py code using pymaxwell this way:

pymaxwell -nogui -runscript yourpythoncode.py

(I'll try to update the documentation for this asap!)

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Next Limit Team

hi !

very cool & good to know !

1 issue :

this works :


but this doesn't do anything :


is there something wrong with that syntax ?

let me know ..

pyMaxwell is great !

ps. is it planned to expand to maxwell studio ?

_________________
Death Metal Team

http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/

If you're running the code in pymaxwell.exe (pymaxwell calling itself! ) I'm not sure that pymaxwell.exe will be able to capture subprocess output (I'm afraid not).

If you want (and you beliebe that's will be useful, it seems that it will be), I can add a python function to pymaxwell like this:

runScript(scriptfile);

If you are running pymaxwell from python.exe, it should work fine so I need to investigate a little more.

Don't expect python scripting in studio soon, but is in the agenda

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Next Limit Team

hi, nope, not calling it from itself.. externally [ using Jython from within CityEngine ].

but a runScript() function would be cool, of course !

can you give me a hint then on the following :
I guess currently, it is then impossible to create any script which imports a series of obj files in Studio and then assigns a specified referenced material ?

cheers !

_________________
Death Metal Team

http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/

The right way to run python scripts that uses the PyMaxwell module is copying it in your platform python folder for external packages. The bad news are that CitiBuilder uses Python 2.5, and we support only 2.6 and above. So it seems that the only way to run scripts that uses the PyMaxwell python module is calling an external interpreter. Calling pymaxwell.exe is a good idea, but pymaxwell.exe is not concibed to be runned from external applications, so it doesn't return the result of the script after running it (and it may fail sometimes).

You can try calling python.exe instead of pymaxwell.exe that way:

import subprocess
app = "C:/Python26/python.exe"
file = "D:/DATA/../myFile.py"
subprocess.call([app, file])

To do that, you must install Python 2.6 (if you don't have it, http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.6.6/), and copy the files pymaxwell.py and _pymaxwell.pyd from here:
C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell 2\python\pymaxwell\python2.6
to here:
C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages

Both Maxwell and Python must be 32-bits or 64-bits, no mixing!



I've just realized that python 2 have a function that do that: execfile(scriptfilename);



The only way to do that for now is implementing a python script that opens the .mxs scene, creates a new object (Cmaxwell::createMesh(..)), and populate it with the geometry readed from the .obj file using the following methods: CmaxwellObject::setVertex(...), CmaxwellObject::setTriangle(...), CmaxwellObject::setNormal(...). Is not an easy

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Next Limit Team

hi !

In general, I'd not need to return a result, so calling pyMaxwell.exe is totally okay for me and this works. The only thing I noticed (couple posts above) that it just does not work with the "-nogui" flag. Do you have the feeling this could be a pyMaxwell issue (flag handling) ?

greetings and thanks for the inputs !

_________________
Death Metal Team

http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/

I've just try this in CitiEngine, and it works:



I guess your script is failing someway. Maybe you can find out running the same command in ms-dos (I made a mistake in the last post, pymaxwell.exe prints the result in the console if you use the -nogui flag). Try something like this in a MS-DOS command prompt:

"C:\Program Files\Next Limit\Maxwell 2\pymaxwell.exe" -nogui -runscript "D:\DATA\yourscript.py"

It should return the same result as calling pymaxwell.exe using subprocess in python (that's what you're doing in CitiEngine), so if the MS-DOS command fails, the script you're running in CitiEngine failed too.

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Next Limit Team

hi ..


as you mentioned, the same behavior as from CityEngine.

again, via console, the '-runscript' flag works --> the file is opened
but with both flags, I get this error :


[ if you want, I can send you the files to reproduce .. ]

_________________
Death Metal Team

http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/

That python syntax error in the line "from pymaxwell import *" is very strange. Maybe the .py file was created in an environment with different "new line" characters (like linux)?

A .py failing would be helpful!

_________________
Next Limit Team

hi !

see PM ..

_________________
Death Metal Team

http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/

I receive your .py script. Good news, I've found the problem! Your .py file have "carriage returns" instead of "new lines" in some lines, and it seems that Python API doesn't like strings with carriage returns as input commands... so you found a bug in pymaxwell.exe

I fixed that replacing all the "carriage returns" with "new lines" and it works. I have to check it with linux and osx, but I can send you a fixed pymaxwell.exe, see your PM inbox

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Next Limit Team

HA !

and it works now with the new build no my side too .. ! thanks a lot for tracking this down. that was a nice session !


GREAT support !!

have a nice easter holiday !

matt

_________________
Death Metal Team

http://www.esri.com/software/cityengine/