Considerations
When running FME Form on a virtual machine (such as Amazon EC2), 3D data may not display in Data Preview or FME Data Inspector. This happens because 3D mode is disabled in environments that do not meet graphics requirements. This is not a defect in FME Form, but a limitation of the virtual environment. Note that this only applies to 3D data.
Why This Happens
An update to FME Form introduced updated libraries that require OpenGL 2.0 or higher for 3D rendering in Data Preview and FME Data Inspector. Many virtual machines do not support this requirement because of the following possible reasons:
- Virtualized environments often lack GPU acceleration
- OpenGL support is limited or not configurable
- Standard VM configurations prioritize compute over graphics
As a result, 3D viewing is disabled even though the data itself is valid.
How to Resolve It
There are several options depending on your environment and requirements:
Option 1: Use a GPU-Enabled Virtual Machine (Recommended)
Provision a virtual machine that supports graphics acceleration. Common names for these configurations include: Accelerated Computing, Elastic Graphics, and GPU-enabled instances.
Please reach out to your cloud provider for setup instructions.
Option 2: Upgrade OpenGL (If Supported)
Some virtual machine environments allow upgrading OpenGL to version 2.0 or higher.
This depends on the VM type and installed drivers.
Option 3: Enable GPU Access via Remote Desktop
If the host machine has GPU acceleration enabled, ensure the remote session can access it.
For example, enable GPU rendering in the remote desktop settings and configure the session to use hardware acceleration.
Amazon EC2 Specific Setup
To support 3D viewing on Amazon EC2, you must use a GPU-enabled instance type, such as G4dn, G5, or P-series. These instances come with NVIDIA or AMD GPUs and the necessary drivers to support higher OpenGL versions.
Refer to Amazon EC2 documentation for detailed setup instructions, or contact AWS support.