# BillboardTextActor3D (or similar) for Python

**URL:** https://discourse.vtk.org/t/billboardtextactor3d-or-similar-for-python/9630
**Category:** Support
**Tags:** python
**Created:** [October 17, 2022, 8:47pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/billboardtextactor3d-or-similar-for-python/9630 "2022-10-17T20:47:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Kevin\_Sweeney](https://discourse.vtk.org/user_avatar/discourse.vtk.org/kevin_sweeney/32/3935_2.png) [@Kevin\_Sweeney](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/Kevin_Sweeney)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2022, 8:47pm UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/billboardtextactor3d-or-similar-for-python/9630/1 "2022-10-17T20:47:33Z")

</div>

I am working in Python (`vtk` with `ipywidgets`) and want to annotate my 3D glyphs with information (i.e. data point number etc)  
I see there is something available in C++ but I cannot find a method to perform the same in Python.  
 ![Screenshot 2022-10-17 at 21.46.32](https://discourse.vtk.org/uploads/default/original/2X/d/d091335655f7d13ae593feddc891dd4aca3274c6.png)

[https://kitware.github.io/vtk-examples/site/Cxx/Visualization/BillboardTextActor3D/](https://kitware.github.io/vtk-examples/site/Cxx/Visualization/BillboardTextActor3D/)

Example code of what I am currently generating

```python
class SpherePipeline:
    def __init__ (self, radius=0.03):
        self.radius = radius
        self.sphereSrc = vtk.vtkSphereSource()
        self.sphereSrc.SetRadius(self.radius)
        
        self.glyphs = vtk.vtkGlyph3D()
        self.glyphs.ScalingOff()
        self.glyphs.SetSourceConnection(self.sphereSrc.GetOutputPort())

    def setInput(self, data):
        self.glyphs.SetInputData(data)
        
...

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![amaclean](https://discourse.vtk.org/user_avatar/discourse.vtk.org/amaclean/32/224_2.png) [@amaclean](https://discourse.vtk.org/u/amaclean)
#### Post date: [October 19, 2022, 5:55am UTC](https://discourse.vtk.org/t/billboardtextactor3d-or-similar-for-python/9630/2 "2022-10-19T05:55:18Z")

</div>

Here is a python version of [BillboardTextActor3D](https://kitware.github.io/vtk-examples/site/Python/Visualization/BillboardTextActor3D/)

In the case of Python, I am not sure why a callback for the actor is even warranted, and, if it is used, the event: `vtkCommand.ModifiedEvent` will generate a set of

```auto
TypeError: 'NoneType' object is not callable

```

errors after the render. Hence the use of `vtkCommand.NoEvent` in its place.

I hope this helps.