Data: Visualization: ParaView Overview

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Overview

ParaView is an extensible, open source, multi-platform application for visualizing large data sets. It supports distributed computation models for processing large data sets. TeraGrid users can take advantage of TeraGrid resources to run the computation and rendering processes in parallel, and connect to them via a client application running on their local desktop. For smaller data sets, it can also be run locally in stand-alone mode. For more detailed information about ParaView and its capabilities, please take a look at the ParaView Website. In addition to the information available on this site, the ParaView Wiki has a nice tutorial on animation. There is also a book called The ParaView Guide.

Running ParaView on the UC/Argonne IA-32 Visualization Cluster

Before you start ParaView on the UC/Argonne Visualization Cluster, you will first need to download and install ParaView on your local machine. The latest version currently installed on the UC/Argonne Visualization nodes is ParaView 2.6.0. Binary distributions for a variety of platforms are available from the TGviz Software Download Page.

Since you will be running ParaView in server mode on the UC/Argonne Viz nodes, all of these nodes need to be able to read your data. To ensure this, data should be stored either in your home directory or, for better performance, in one of the global cluster high-performance file spaces. (See a list of the available storage locations.)

Using the TeraGrid Visualization Gateway

Note to Mac users: Safari has trouble launching the local ParaView client from the TGviz Gateway. It is recommended that use you use a browser other than Safari.

The TeraGrid Visualization Gateway is accessible by two different classes of users: TeraGrid users with full access (those users with existing accounts on TeraGrid resources), and Community users with restricted access (users without an existing TeraGrid account). In order to use the TeraGrid Visualization Gateway with full access, you must first meet several requirements:

• You must have a valid user account on the TeraGrid Visualization resource that you are trying to access (the visualization cluster at UC/Argonne, or Maverick at TACC). See the Accessing TeraGrid Overview.
• You must have a valid certificate.
• Your Distinguished Name (DN) must be in the grid-mapfile for the resources you are accessing.
• Your credentials must be available from the MyProxy service. See Certificate Proxies for details.

If you do not have a TeraGrid account, you may create a login on the Visualization Gateway, and make use of a shared community account at sites where this is supported (currently UC/Argonne). Future versions of the Visualization Gateway will provide individualized community accounts, with support at additional sites.

Once you have met these requirements, go to the TGviz Gateway and login. Your proxy certificate will automatically be retrieved and loaded into the Gateway when you login. Once logged in, click on the ParaView tab. When you do, the portal will check to see what projects, or allocations, you are associated with. If you have a single project, that project will be used when you submit your job request. If you have multiple projects, they will be displayed in the portal, where you can select which one you'd like to charge. Community users make use of a community visualization allocation. You then indicate the number of nodes and the duration that you would like to run ParaView, and press the "Launch ParaView" button. This will submit your request to the UC/Argonne Viz cluster scheduler, and then return control to the portal. The portal will then automatically check on the status of this request to see if the ParaView server has been started yet.

At any time you may use the "Cancel" button to cancel the most recent request to launch ParaView, whether that request is still pending, ParaView is currently running but no client has attached, or ParaView is running and there is a client attached.

Once it can be determined that ParaView has successfully started on the TGviz nodes, the portal displays a "Launch ParaView Client" button. Clicking on the button will launch the ParaView client on your local resource. See Starting the ParaView Client from the TGviz Gateway for information on configuring your browser properly. (It is also possible to launch ParaView on your local machine using the command line. See Starting the ParaView Client from the Command Line for more details on running the client in this manner.)

Starting the ParaView Client from the TGviz Gateway

Once the ParaView server has been started, the portal will display a "Launch ParaView Client" button. This button links to a file of MIME type "application/paraview" (PVX). The way that you configure your browser to appropriately launch ParaView locally using this file depends on your browser and the operating system. Here are some tips for configuring some of the more popular Browser/OS combinations.

• Internet Explorer on Mac OS X: Open Preferences. Under the tab "Receiving Files", click "File Helpers". Then click "Add". Enter ".pvx" for the Extension, and "application/paraview" for the MIME type. Click "Browse..." and find Applications/Paraview.app. Click "OK" to save this setup.
• Internet Explorer on Windows: You'll need to modify the Windows file type registry, outside of Internet Explorer. From a desktop window, choose Folder Options from the Tools menu. Click the File Types tab, and then click New to create an entry for files with the extension .pvx to be opened with pvclient.exe.
• Firefox (all platforms): When you click on the link, you'll see a dialog box asking "What should Firefox do with this file?" Choose "Open with" and select pvclient (Paraview.app on Mac), check "Do this automatically...", and click OK.
• Opera (all platforms): Go to File Types under Preferences, and create a new mapping. "MIME type" should be "application/paraview". "File Extension" should be ".pvx". Action should be set to "Open with other application". Then click "Choose" and find your pvclient application. Click "OK" to save this mapping. This applies to Opera on all platforms.
• Safari: Unfortunately, Safari has no way to let the user define helper applications for MIME types, and so it will always try to just download the .pvx files. This is a documented problem. You will need to launch the ParaView client using the command given in the portal. Details below.

Starting the ParaView Client from the Command Line

If for some reason using the link to automatically launch the client does not work with your browser, you can execute the command that was returned to the portal by cutting and pasting it from your browser to a command prompt on your local machine. It should look something like the following:

pvclient --server-host=<tg-viz-hostname> --server-port=<port_num>

Note:

• Mac and Linux users must issue this command in an X11 terminal.
• Windows users must issue this command from a command prompt.
• In all cases, it is assumed that pvclient is in your PATH.

Running ParaView on the Maverick Sun Terascale System at TACC

The easiest, and most recommended, way to run ParaView on Maverick at TACC is through a VNC session. A general guide to starting remote visualization jobs through a VNC session on Maverick can be found here: Running Remote Visualization Jobs on Maverick. To start ParaView through a VNC session on Maverick:

1. Start and connect to a VNC session (see Starting a VNC Session on Maverick)
2. To start ParaView in single-threaded mode, from a terminal in the VNC session type the command

   module load paraview

   followed by

   vglrun paraview

   
   OR, to start Parallel ParaView, from a terminal in the VNC session type the command

   ssh maverick /usr/local/qsub/paraview_mpi $DISPLAY <num_graphics_devices>

   
   ParaView will appear on your VNC desktop. This may take up to about 30 seconds.
   
   When rendering with Parallel ParaView, several smaller windows will show up in addition to the rendering window. These smaller windows show the portion of the frame buffer that is being rendered on each of the several graphics cards being utilized by ParaView (specified by the <num_graphics_devices> argument). You may minimize these windows. ParaView will use at least three but up to six graphics cards (depending on system load).

ParaView can also be run in client-server mode on Maverick. To start ParaView in this way:

1. Login to maverick.tacc.utexas.edu
2. Run the command:

   /usr/local/qsub/pvserver_mpi <PVSERVER_PORT> <num_graphics_devices>

   
   <PVSERVER_PORT> will be the port your pvclient will connect to. You may choose any port number above 1024.
3. Wait a minute or so for the pvservers to get started. Now you can connect to mav1.tacc.utexas.edu on port <PVSERVER_PORT> with your pvclient. On your local machine, run the command:

   pvclient -sh=mav1.tacc.utexas.edu -sp=<PVSERVER_PORT>

   
   The client should now be started and working.