MayaVi is a scientific data visualizer written in Python

Python (programming language)

Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

, which uses VTK

VTK

The Visualization Toolkit is an open-source, freely available software system for 3D computer graphics, image processing and visualization. VTK consists of a C++ class library and several interpreted interface layers including Tcl/Tk, Java, and Python. Kitware, whose team created and continues to...

 and provides a GUI

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

 via Tkinter

Tkinter

Tkinter is a Python binding to the Tk GUI toolkit. It is the standard Python interface to the Tk GUI toolkit and is Python's de-facto standard GUI, and is included with the standard Windows install of Python....

. MayaVi was developed by Dr. Prabhu Ramachandran, is free and distributed under the BSD license. It is cross-platform

Cross-platform

In computing, cross-platform, or multi-platform, is an attribute conferred to computer software or computing methods and concepts that are implemented and inter-operate on multiple computer platforms...

 and runs on any platform where both Python and VTK are available (almost any Unix

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

, Mac OS X, or Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

). MayaVi is pronounced as a single name, "Ma-ya-vee", meaning "magician" in Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

. The code of MayaVi has nothing in common with that of Autodesk Maya or Vi

Vi

vi is a screen-oriented text editor originally created for the Unix operating system. The portable subset of the behavior of vi and programs based on it, and the ex editor language supported within these programs, is described by the Single Unix Specification and POSIX.The original code for vi...

.

The latest version of MayaVi, called Mayavi2, is a component of the Enthought

Enthought

Enthought, Inc. is a software company based in Austin, Texas, USA that develops scientific computing tools using primarily the Python programming language...

 suite of scientific Python programs. It differs from the original MayaVi by its strong focus on making not only an interactive program, but also a reusable component for 3D plotting in Python. Although it exposes a slightly different interface and API than the original MayaVi, it is now more feature-rich.

Major features

• visualizes computational grids and scalar, vector, and tensor data
• an easy-to-use GUI
  Graphical user interface
  In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
  
  
• can be imported as a Python module from other Python programs or can be scripted from the Python interpreter
• supports volume visualization of data via texture and ray cast mappers
• support for any VTK dataset using the VTK data format
• support for PLOT3D data
• multiple datasets can be used simultaneously
• provides a pipeline browser, with which objects in the VTK pipeline can be browsed and edited
• imports simple VRML
  VRML
  VRML is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind...
  
   and 3D Studio
  3d studio
  3d studio can refer to:* A studio location where 3D work is created* 3ds Max, an animation software package previously named 3D Studio Max* Any 3D animation studio such as 3ds Max, Blender 3D, Cinema 4D, Lightwave, Maya, Houdini, or XSI...
  
   scenes
• custom modules and data filters can be added
• exporting to PostScript
  PostScript
  PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging...
  
   files, PPM/BMP/TIFF/JPEG
  JPEG
  In computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....
  
  /PNG images, Open Inventor
  Open Inventor
  Open Inventor, originally IRIS Inventor, is a C++ object oriented retained mode 3D graphics API designed by SGI to provide a higher layer of programming for OpenGL. Its main goals are better programmer convenience and efficiency.-Early history:...
  
  , Geomview OOGL, VRML
  VRML
  VRML is a standard file format for representing 3-dimensional interactive vector graphics, designed particularly with the World Wide Web in mind...
  
   files, Wavefront .obj files, or RenderMan RIB file