Python 3D Software Collection

Interactive molecular graphics modelling platform. Seems to be cross-platform. Quite good according to Steve Ludtke.

glumpy is a fast-OpenGL based numpy visualization based on top of PyOpenGL and IPython (for interactive sessions) that allows for the fast vizualization of numpy arrays (mainly two dimensional). It had been designed with efficiency in mind and if you want to have a sense of what's going on in your simulation while it is running, then maybe glumpy can help you.

MayaVi is a free, easy to use scientific data visualizer. It provides a Tkinter GUI

Molecular viewer and editor using PyOpenGL.

Built on top of VTK, TK/PMW GUI. Seems to be intended primarily for use by scientists who need to see time-dependent changes in datasets across the entire globe based on Lat/Long coordinate-indexed data-sets.

Large C++ rendering engine with what looks to be a fairly large user base. Rendering quality is rather good judging from the screenshots. Uses OpenGL for it's rendering back-end. Rather minimal homepage for the Python wrapper.

Pivy is a Coin binding for Python. Coin is a high-level 3D graphics library with a C++ Application Programming Interface. Coin uses scene-graph data structures to render real-time graphics suitable for all kinds of scientific and engineering visualization applications. Can be extended with PyOpenGL. Includes loaders for a number of common formats, including VRML97.

Interactive molecular and particle visualization Various visualization, plotting, and analysis tools for pre- and post-processing of molecular dynamics simulation data. Tools can be used via the command-line, Python scripting, or Tk GUIs.

Large research project written in C++ with Python either embedded in or embedding the engine. Focus appears to be on the creation of a single API usable across all platforms (at the C++ level).

PyMOL is a molecular graphics system with an embedded Python interpreter designed for real-time visualization and rapid generation of high-quality molecular graphics images and animations. Can also edit PDB files.

SIP-based wrapper to a C++ class library providing 3D graphing of functions, data-sets and the like.

Provides simple mechanisms for generating stimuli for psychology experiments with bitmap and text manipulations. The primary goals are to provide for the busy scientist tools to control timing and windowing and a simple set of pre-packaged stimuli.

Large AI/robotics project, lots of scientific tools where the visualisation component is just a small part of the total.

Provides a graphical interface for a particular modeling mechanism (CHILD) which simulates water flow patterns (such as streams and mudflows). Python interface to C++ visualization engine.

Academic focus on user-interface design. Uses OpenGL to render (2D) SVG graphics. Considered alpha quality.

Scientific Python is the first port-of-call for those wishing to use Python for any sort of scientific work. Among the large collection of code are numerous utilities which are useful when writing low-level 3D code. There is also some code for exporting VRML files (I believe version 1.0, however, not VRML97).

Lots of Python papers written about it. Molecular biology focus AFAICS. Quite good according to Steve Ludtke.

The Vision Egg is a high level interface between Python and OpenGL. In addition to methods for automatic generation of traditional visual stimuli such as sinusoidal gratings and random dot patterns, it has a number of functions for moving numeric data, images, movies, text, and 3D objects to and from your video card and allowing use of some of its features like perspective distortion. Written on top of PyOpenGL.

Vimes intends to provide tools to visualize molecules and materials, perform simple manipulations of the structures, input/output the structures to/from a variety of different file formats, and provide some tools for editing options for the input files for a some different applications..

Simple 3D scenegraph engine with focus on educational rendering. Large user community, novice friendly. Not really focused on cutting-edge rendering features or the like. Uses a simple C/C++ engine wrapped for use by Python.

VTK is a C++ retained-mode rendering engine with fairly complete Python bindings. It has quite a few mechanisms which attempt to make the process of visualising phenomena easier. Embeddable in wxPython.

PyOpenGL-based renderer for scientific data using scripting-friendly APIs.