Models Do Not Display in Visualizer Window

[Nathan Thompson]

Hello All,

I'm just starting to get my feet wet with openSIM and downloaded openSIM 4.0. Regardless of which model I try to load, nothing ever displays in the visualizer, and instead the camera seems to default to a close up of the floor. No amount of camera spinning/moving/panning helps, it looks like its simply not loading. Its also worth mentioning the the x,y,z default camera view buttons within the visualizer also don't seem to be doing anything, although the zoom buttons within the visualizer are.

A screenshot of the situation is below, and thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

[Ayman Habib]

Hi Nathan,

The image you posted suggests that the geometry mesh files are not found (or some problematic files are found instead). The camera tries to focus on the model but nothing in it is displayed. This is likely due to issue with setting Geometry search path. In the GUI you can check the preference (Paths: Geometry Search Path) and make sure it points to a directory that contains mesh files from the 4.0 distribution e.g. C:\OpenSim 4.0\Geometry. Remove everything else unless you have your custom meshes, then try again to load a model.

Please let me know if that works for you.

Best regards,
-Ayman

[Nathan Thompson]

Hi Ayman,

Bingo, that fixed it, the path was set elsewhere. Thanks for the quick response!

-Nathan

[Nathan Thompson]

For fear of sounding like I'm battling a ghost in the machine problem, I can no longer get models to open. I changed the Geometry path to the correct folder, and was able to work on openSIM before after changing it. But after closing and reopening the software, I can no longer see any models when loaded. The same thing is also happening on my lab machine (see below). The contents of C:\OpenSim 4.0\Geometry on both machines is 313 VTP files, 2 of each obj and stl files, a Python script, a README.md file, and an openSIM logo png.

Any help would be much appreciated!

- Nathan

[Ayman Habib]

Nathan,

This doesn't appear to be a Geometry problem at all. Your earlier capture showed the model loaded but the Geometry was not shown, this is different. The fact that the model is not loaded in the navigator altogether suggests something else (maybe permissions, or loading different files this time around). Usually when this happens (failure on load) you either get an error message in the messages window, or if low level internal error you get a red stop-sign at the lower right corner of the toolbar, that you can click to get more info. Please advise if either is the case now.

Thank you,
-Ayman

[Nathan Thompson]

Hi Ayman,

Yeah its a bit bizarre. After I fixed the geometry issue, it worked just fine, but then after closing the application for the first time, it started doing this. I've installed it on a few other Windows 10 computers and I'm having the same issue on all of them. One of my students loaded it on her Mac and is having the same issue. I'm not sure what is going on.

After the model fails to load, there are no error messages in the Messages window, and I do not see the red-stop sign either.

In terms of permissions, when I right-click on the Documents\OpenSim folder, I do see that some subfolders are read only. But unchecking this doesnt seem to fix the issue, and upon opening and closing the software again, the read only settings seem to restore themselves. Are there any other things you can think of that might fix this?

Thanks again,

Nathan

[Ayman Habib]

Hi Nathan,

To workaround the confusing and likely buggy permissions issue, I'd suggest you install OpenSim in a different location other than C:/Program Files/ (e.g. C:/OpenSim/4.0) or to install as an admin, in which case permissions would not be an issue.

Considering that the software has been installed on thousands of machines without issues, I tend to think this is environment/network specific, but please let us know what you find out as other users/labs may run into similar issues.

Best regards,
-Ayman

[Nathan Thompson]

Hi Ayman,

Thanks for the reply. I've now tried reinstalling on a new laptop (Dell XPS 15) which is fresh out of the box, which shouldn't have any permissions issues (Im the only user account). I installed the program (by right-clicking and running as administrator) to C:\OpenSim 4.0. On running the program (as administrator now every time), it prompts for the models and scripts save location, which I left as default (C:\Users\Research\Documents\OpenSim\4.0; see attached). On loading a model, again nothing loads. I changed the Geometry path to make sure that C:\OpenSim 4.0\Geometry is included, and again tried to load a model, but still nothing shows up (see attached).

Interestingly, it still lets me load .mot files, and shows all the coordinates of the model correctly, it simply doesn't appear in the visualizer. It may be worth noting that in all cases, Im loading OpenSim onto Dell computers, 2/3 have Nvidia graphics (the other is dell xps 13 with intel graphics) and all have 4k monitors.

Sorry for being a broken record here, but are there any other potential reasons (or settings that I need to look at on my computers), which would explain why its simply doesn't display the model? I feel like there's something silly I'm missing here since its so consistently happening.

Thanks in advance,

Nathan