Update 3D Visualization programmatically

Development
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15

Hello again, @lassoan

I created a small IGTL server-client pair based on the examples of pyigtl.

Server side code:

import pyigtl

from time import sleep
import numpy as np

server = pyigtl.OpenIGTLinkServer(port=18944, local_server=False)
print(f"Starting server at: {server.host}:{server.port}")

timestep = 0
while True:
    if not server.is_connected():
        # Wait for client to connect
        sleep(0.1)
        continue
    print("Server connected")
    # Generate transform
    timestep += 1

    # Send transform
    transform = np.random.rand(4, 4) @ np.eye(4)
    print(f"time: {timestep}   transform: ({transform.ravel()})")
    transform_message = pyigtl.TransformMessage(transform, device_name="MyTransform")
    server.send_message(transform_message, wait=True)
    sleep(1)
    # Since we wait until the message is actually sent, the message queue will not be flooded



And client-side code:

import pyigtl  # pylint: disable=import-error
import socket


client = pyigtl.OpenIGTLinkClient(host=socket.gethostbyname(socket.gethostname()), port=18944)
# Get transform
input_message = client.wait_for_message("MyTransform", timeout=-1)
print(input_message)



My intention was to construct the communication like so, as we previously discussed:

image
image1241×418 44.2 KB


After starting the server and client pair, each in a different Python process, on the client side, the execution gets halted in the line that defines input_message. If I adjust the timeout to a value other than -1, the client receives the message once, and the execution finishes. In 3DSlicer, I want to update the transform every time I get the message, and I do not wish the module to hang in the line that defines input_message.
In addition, I do not want to use 3DSlicer’s IGTLinkF module, I would like to manage the connection entirely from the code of my module. Can IGTLinkF’s logic be replicated using pyigtl?

Thank you,

Marm