title: modern approach to 3D visualization in python: discuss mayavi
body: <p>Is Mayavi the "modern" approach to 3D visualization scripting with python?</p>
  
  <p>By modern, I mean a well informed person would choose to use Mayavi in 2015 for a variety of project requirements.</p>
  
  <p>I first discovered it about a month ago, and it works well most of the time. It's also based in vtk which I think will be sticking around for awhile even if Mayavi doesn't. </p>
  
  <p>A few things concern me, prompting me to make this post. Most of the activity including commits and posts in one of the main author's blogs seem to be 2010-2011. The users mailing list seems about dead, especially compared to say paraview. I also have had very poor luck getting questions answered here on StackOverflow.</p>
  
  <p>So am I going about this the wrong way? Surely there are lots of python users and probably ~1% of those users need 3D visualization in some way. So where is everyone?</p>