[ncl-talk] getting empty plots

[Rick Brownrigg]

Brian,

We had seen this issue occasionally a few years back with systems that had
builtin Intel graphics, and most often on Ubuntu systems (I was never
convinced it had anything to do with Ubuntu, and everything to do with the
Intel graphics drivers). The behavior is part of a plot gets drawn, but
it's as though the last "buffer worth" does not get flushed. And this only
happens when drawing to an X11 window -- all other file-based workstation
outputs are OK. There is note this in the FAQ:

*When I send my NCL graphics to an X11 window, only a partial image is
drawn.*

We have seen issues with X11 on machines that have embedded Intel graphics
processors. The behavior is that the plot is only partially drawn, and if
you run the script several times back-to-back you may see the plot is drawn
to varying/random levels of (in)completeness.

If you determine you have an Intel GPU on your machine, make sure you have
their latest graphics drivers installed.


This issue hasn't been reported very much in more recent years. Since your
machine has an NVIDIA GPU, I don't know what to recommend. The default
out-of-the-box, open source graphics driver for NVIDIA GPU's is nouveau,
and I have to think that's what most of our users go with. NVIDIA offers
its own proprietary driver, but it takes considerably more awareness to i)
install it, and ii) disable the nouveau driver.  If you feel up to the
task, that might be a place to start.  I'd also note that the latest NCL
rev is v6.2.2 -- perhaps its worth upgrading to that.

I hope that helps and wish I had a better answer...

Rick



On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 12:56 PM Brian Thomas <brian.thomas at washburn.edu>
wrote:

> I’m using Mint 19.3, which is an Ubuntu derivative.  I was on openSUSE
> before.  I have Intel CPUs but an Nvidia graphics card.  The NCL version is
> 6.4.0
>
> On Feb 11, 2020, at 1:12 PM, Rick Brownrigg <brownrig at ucar.edu> wrote:
>
> Are you by chance now using Ubuntu and a machine with builtin Intel
> graphics processor (GPU). Otherwise, what flavors of linux did you change
> from/to, and which version of ncl (ncl -v)?
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 12:06 PM Brian Thomas via ncl-talk <
> ncl-talk at ucar.edu> wrote:
>
>> I’ve been using NCL for a while and been able to do a lot with it, but I
>> recently changed linux OS flavors and just discovered that my scripts are
>> now producing empty plots.  This is the case for different data and
>> different scripts.  I’ve checked data and coordinates to be sure they are
>> ok.
>>
>> The plot frame, labels and color bars are drawn, but the inside of the
>> plot is empty.
>>
>> I’ve tried removing and re-installing NCL, which didn’t help.
>>
>> Has anyone else seen anything like this?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> @#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@
>> Brian C. Thomas, PhD
>> Professor, Physics and Astronomy, Washburn University
>>
>> 785-670-2144 <(785)%20670-2144>
>> brian.thomas at washburn.edu
>>
>> Web: http://www.washburn.edu/faculty/bthomas/
>> ORCID profile: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9091-0830
>> ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brian_Thomas
>>
>> Department of Physics and Astronomy
>> Washburn University
>> 1700 SW College Ave.
>> <https://maps.google.com/?q=1700+SW+College+Ave.%0D+Topeka,+KS+66621&entry=gmail&source=g>
>> Topeka, KS 66621
>> <https://maps.google.com/?q=1700+SW+College+Ave.%0D+Topeka,+KS+66621&entry=gmail&source=g>
>>
>> @#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> ncl-talk mailing list
>> ncl-talk at ucar.edu
>> List instructions, subscriber options, unsubscribe:
>> http://mailman.ucar.edu/mailman/listinfo/ncl-talk
>
>
> @#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@
> Brian C. Thomas, PhD
> Professor, Physics and Astronomy, Washburn University
>
> 785-670-2144 <(785)%20670-2144>
> brian.thomas at washburn.edu
>
> Web: http://www.washburn.edu/faculty/bthomas/
> ORCID profile: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9091-0830
> ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brian_Thomas
>
> Department of Physics and Astronomy
> Washburn University
> 1700 SW College Ave.
> <https://maps.google.com/?q=1700+SW+College+Ave.%0D+Topeka,+KS+66621&entry=gmail&source=g>
> Topeka, KS 66621
> <https://maps.google.com/?q=1700+SW+College+Ave.%0D+Topeka,+KS+66621&entry=gmail&source=g>
>
> @#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@#@
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.ucar.edu/pipermail/ncl-talk/attachments/20200211/5cfc6f1c/attachment.html>