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Is Opacity in Graphics3D flinky on your (Linux) system (Mathematica 4.1.0)?

Steven Hatton, Haphazard
Posted 9 months ago

After several years of using Windows, I recently returned to using Linux, so I can't say how long this has been an issue. I don't even know if it is a generic Linux problem, or specific to my setup. Under Linux, Graphics3D with opacity has "clipping" issues. I would like to know if others are experiencing a similar result. I note that the image generated by the server hosting this forum is not problematic.

After I originally posted, I noticed that if I "grab" the image with my mouse to move it around, the clipping vanishes until it is released.

Also, there is an errant comma in the graphics object list of the code I posted, but it appears to benign.

Without more resources, it is difficult to determine the source of this problem. It could be hardware, drivers, display server (X vs Windows), configuration (screen resolution, etc.), etc. Knowing if others are experiencing this problem, and under what circumstances, will help determine its source.

A notebook exhibiting the problem under Linux:

A screen-scrape of the problem taken from my Linux system:

Example of the problem under Linux

A screen-scrape of the preferred result taken from my Windows 11 system:

enter image description here

My Linux system's information:

Operating System: openSUSE Leap 15.6
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.11
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.115.0
Qt Version: 5.15.12
Kernel Version: 6.4.0-150600.23.22-default (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 32 × Intel® Core™ i9-14900KS
Memory: 94.0 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® Graphics
Manufacturer: ASUS
POSTED BY: Steven Hatton
3 Replies
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It appears that I sacrificed performance for quality. Now, with Mesa, when I manipulate 3D graphics there is significant latency. I don't know if a new graphics card would help. I'm using the onboard GPU of my intel i9. I have to go fairly high-end to exceed what intel is giving me.

My Windows machine has the best graphics hardware Lenovo puts in a laptop. Due to licensing restrictions, I can't test Mathematica under Windows on the machine running Linux, even though it is set up to dual boot into Windows.
POSTED BY: Steven Hatton

Try this:

  1. Select the graphics cell.
  2. From the menu, open Format > Option Inspector...
  3. Go to Graphics Options > RenderingOptions in the inspector.
  4. Try various things under "3DRenderingMethod" and "3DRenderingEngine". (There should be a pull-down menu with several choices.)

I don't have a Linux machine, so I'm not sure what you'll find. If you find something that works, say "OpenGL", then you can set the option on the Option Inspector or in code like this:

Style[<your 3D graphics>,
 RenderingOptions -> {"3DRenderingEngine" -> "OpenGL"}]

Or once for all:

SetOptions[$FrontEnd, RenderingOptions -> {"3DRenderingEngine" -> "OpenGL"}]

If nothing fixes it, then I'm barking up the wrong tree.
POSTED BY: Michael Rogers

Indeed. I switched from Automatic to OpenGL which didn't fix the problem. I then switched to Mesa, which seems to have fixed things.
POSTED BY: Steven Hatton
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