# Viewer: Show 3D numpy array with colours specified by array
**URL:** https://discourse.itk.org/t/viewer-show-3d-numpy-array-with-colours-specified-by-array/5439
**Category:** Beginner Questions
**Tags:** python
**Created:** [October 24, 2022, 9:29am UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/viewer-show-3d-numpy-array-with-colours-specified-by-array/5439 "2022-10-24T09:29:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Kevin\_Sweeney](https://discourse.itk.org/u/Kevin_Sweeney)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2022, 9:29am UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/viewer-show-3d-numpy-array-with-colours-specified-by-array/5439/1 "2022-10-24T09:29:59Z")
I have a 3D numpy array (shape = `(224, 224, 3)`) which defines the RGB values at each pixel (`uint8`).
How can I use `ikwidgets.view()` method to show this array using the RBG colours instead of a colourmap?
**Code:**
`view(array, rotate=False, axes=False, view_mode='XPlane')`
**Desired:**
**Actual:**
**Aside**
The `view_mode='XPlane'` is not setting the view mode as expected. The view is still in `volume` mode and i need to click on the icon to change to X Plane. I have tried (`XPlane`, `x`, `1`)
---
### Author:  [@dzenanz](https://discourse.itk.org/u/dzenanz)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2022, 1:33pm UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/viewer-show-3d-numpy-array-with-colours-specified-by-array/5439/2 "2022-10-24T13:33:12Z")
@matt.mccormick or @PaulHax might answer this.
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### Author:  [@PaulHax](https://discourse.itk.org/u/PaulHax)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2022, 1:59pm UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/viewer-show-3d-numpy-array-with-colours-specified-by-array/5439/3 "2022-10-24T13:59:04Z")
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for the 2 issues reported here. Can you post a couple lines of python that generate the numpy array. My guess is that the image is interpreted as a “volume” 3 voxels deep, rather than a 2D image with 3 components. Maybe we can convert to a image format where we can specify that. If the viewer recognizes 3 components it will default to red/green/blue. Can see the number of components as tabs with checkboxes in the middle of the UI.
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### Author:  [@Kevin\_Sweeney](https://discourse.itk.org/u/Kevin_Sweeney)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2022, 2:51pm UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/viewer-show-3d-numpy-array-with-colours-specified-by-array/5439/4 "2022-10-24T14:51:59Z")
@PaulHax
Thanks for your reply. Please see below.
```auto
array = np.random.randint(0, 255, size=(224, 224, 3))
array.shape # (224, 224, 3)
view(array)
```
Name: itkwidgets
Version: 0.32.0
---
### Author:  [@PaulHax](https://discourse.itk.org/u/PaulHax)
#### Post date: [October 25, 2022, 12:41pm UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/viewer-show-3d-numpy-array-with-colours-specified-by-array/5439/5 "2022-10-25T12:41:41Z")
I actually don’t know how to convert an numpy to a itk or vtk image with 3 components. This looks promising: [Image type for an ITK image from numpy array](https://discourse.itk.org/t/image-type-for-an-itk-image-from-numpy-array/2348)
---
### Author:  [@matt.mccormick](https://discourse.itk.org/u/matt.mccormick)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2022, 2:52am UTC](https://discourse.itk.org/t/viewer-show-3d-numpy-array-with-colours-specified-by-array/5439/6 "2022-11-24T02:52:07Z")
We can clarify that the array should be interpreted as a multicomponent 2D image versus a 3D image with `is_vector=True`:
```auto
image = itk.image_from_array(array, is_vector=True)
```
[Here is a full example](https://github.com/InsightSoftwareConsortium/itkwidgets/blob/main/examples/integrations/itk/MulticomponentNumPy.ipynb).
