ParaView/ParaView And Mesa 3D

ParaView requires OpenGL libraries for rendering. For machines with sophisticated graphics cards, the OpenGL libraries are typically provided by the device drivers for those cards. However, on certain machines such as supercomputers without specialized graphics hardware, one has to rely on software-based rendering alternatives such as Mesa. Mesa is an open-source implementation of the OpenGL specification.

Mesa can be configured to work within different environments ranging from software emulation to complete hardware acceleration when supported GPUs are present. This discussion only applies to software emulation.