Offscreen Rendering in Linux Docker Containers

This tutorial demonstrates two features of ILNumerics Visualization Engine: 

• The ability to render arbitrary scenes without the existence of a visible surface / canvas area. 
• Compatibility throughout various platforms. Here, we show rendering in a Linux docker container.

Prerequisites

• Docker Desktop (all recent version should work) 

Setup, Environments and Goals

We use a Windows 11 host system with Docker Desktop 4.40. Any recent version will work, too. To create and to debug our text project we simply use the official Dotnet SDK on Windows to author our app. We then run the app on the docker container using a simple Debian based image, provided by Microsoft. 

The app "reads" in some data (auto-generated dummy data) and creates a simple line plot of the data. This plot is stored as a bitmap file. 

Creating the App 

• Visual Studio (to create the test project, otherwise not required).