Add an image as texture (plane) in the background#

Note

This document is part of a series teaching how to Create an image of sea surface speeds.

See also Add an image as texture on a sphere

You can find beautiful images on the NASA Blue Marble Next Generation page For this example, you can use a low-res version of the February image.

As our ocean data set has holes on the land points, we have to first create a plane behind it, before we can attach an image of Earth.

../../../../../../_images/000-ocean-with-holes.png

As a first step, we figure out the size of Earth in paraview. For this we need the Information View (View-> Information). There we look for the section Bounds and note the extreme values. The x-range is from roughly -300 to 300, the y-range is from roughly -131 to 150. The lower bound of the y-range is a bit weird, because Antarctica is cut off, because the oceans don’t reach 90 deg S. Now we know our plane needs to be -300 to 300 by -150 to 150, and just below z=0.

../../../../../../_images/00a-find-data-size.png

We can get a plane from the Sources menu, e.g. from Geometric Shapes.

../../../../../../_images/00b-get-plane.png

Here we adjust the x coordinates to +/- 300 and the y coordinates to +/- 150, keeping the signs as they were. As z-coordinate we use -0.1 to put this plane just below the ocean.

../../../../../../_images/00c-new-coordinates.png

After clicking Apply, we should have all land areas filled with white.

Now we can add the texture itself. Chose Filters->Search... and type texture. You will be presented with the three different texture filters. Chose Texture Map to Plane and hit Enter

../../../../../../_images/01-find-filter.png

Now you first have to click apply before you can set the texture (for whatever reason)

../../../../../../_images/02-apply.png

Now use the text box and search for texture. Click the Texture dropdown menu, and chose load.

../../../../../../_images/03-find-texture-field.png

Pick the small blue marble from the directory with the sample data (or use any one of NASA’s Blue Marble images, e.g. the low-res version of the February image. (Thanks, NASA for that great service!).

../../../../../../_images/04-texture-file.png

You should have Earth peeking out of the holes in the ocean.

../../../../../../_images/05-texture-on-earth.png

Next, you can Switch to camera parallel projection to reduce projection artifacts.