vistle / vistle

Software Environment for High-Performance Simulation and Parallel Visualization

Vistle - A Modular Data-Parallel Visualization System

vistle: very smooth and elegant, nicely put together (Urban Dictionary)

License

Vistle source code is licensed under the LGPL v2.1. See LICENSE.txt for details. This does not apply to the subdirectory lib/3rdparty.

Installation

Installing with Spack

Add the HLRS Vis Spack repository to your installation of Spack:

  git clone https://github.com/hlrs-vis/spack-hlrs-vis
  spack repo add spack-hlrs-vis

Then you can install Vistle with this command:

  spack install vistle

macOS with Homebrew

Install most of Vistle's dependencies by invoking brew bundle within Vistle's root source directory. You can also install Vistle with

  brew install hlrs-vis/tap/vistle

Installing From Source

Build Requirements

• C++ compiler: support for C++14 (ISO/IEC 14882:2014) is required, known good compilers:

  • GCC (8-14)
  • Clang (Xcode 14, 15)
  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2022

• CMake: at least 3.10, on Windows 3.15

• MPI: Microsoft MPI, Open MPI, MPICH and MVAPICH2 has been used successfully.

• Boost: At least 1.59.00 is required. Note:

  • in order to switch MPI implementations without requiring a recompilation of Boost, we compile Boost.MPI together with Vistle

• Botan: Crypto and TLS for Modern C++ is used for verifying HMACs during connection establishment, version 2 or 3 should work

• Python: for interpreting Vistle workflow scripts (.vsl), Python 3 should work.

• COVISE/OpenCOVER: OpenCOVER or a version of COVISE including OpenCOVER compiled by you is necessary, get it from GitHub, needed for the COVER module and COVER plug-ins You can shorten the build process and cut down on dependencies by building only OpenCOVER. In addition you should set COVISEDESTDIR to a location where compiled COVER plug-ins should go. Hints: - The COVISE repository contains further information on how to build dependencies on Linux (README-Building-deps-linux.txt) and Windows (README-Building-deps.txt).

• OpenSceneGraph: the version of OpenSceneGraph that was used for compiling OpenCOVER

• Qt: The Qt 6 libraries Qt6Core, Qt6Widgets and Qt6Gui are required by the graphical user interface, alternatively also Qt 5 can be used.

You can set the environment variable EXTERNLIBS to a directory where Vistle should search for 3rd party libraries. It will search in e.g. $EXTERNLIBS/boost, if CMake is looking for Boost.

Getting Vistle

Getting Vistle is as easy as

  git clone --recursive https://github.com/vistle/vistle.git

If you need to update an existing working copy, then change to its directory and issue the following commands:

  git submodule sync --recursive
  git submodule update --init --recursive

Building Vistle

Create a subdirectory for building, change to it, and invoke CMake:

  cmake ..

Then build with your build tool, e.g.:

  make -j20

Invoking Vistle

Environment Set-Up

Vistle modules are run on clusters via MPI. You have to configure how they have to be spawned by providing a script named spawn_vistle.sh (or spawn_vistle.bat on Windows) somewhere in your PATH. It could be as simple as

  #! /usr/bin/env bash
  mpirun "$@"

But it also might require invoking your batch system. An example is provided in vistle/bin.

For COVER to find its plug-ins, you should add the directory from COVISEDESTDIR to COVISE_PATH.

Command Line Switches

Synopsis:

  vistle [--batch|--gui|--tui] [scriptfile]

Options:

• -b|--batch: do not start a user interface

• -g|--gui (default): start a graphical user interface on rank 0

• -t|--tui: start a command line user interface on rank 0

You can connect a user interface to a running Vistle session later on, e.g.:

  vistle_gui localhost 31093

Source Code Organization

• cmake: CMake modules

• contrib/scripts: support scripts for building and running Vistle

• lib/3rdparty: 3rd party source code

• lib/vistle: Vistle libraries source code

  • lib/vistle/util: support code
  • lib/vistle/core: Vistle core data structures
  • lib/vistle/userinterface: common library for user interfaces
  • lib/vistle/net: library for Vistle network communication
  • lib/vistle/control: Python code for controlling a Vistle session
  • lib/vistle/module: base class and support code for visualization algorithm modules
  • lib/vistle/renderer: base class and support code for render modules
  • lib/vistle/rhr: library for remote hybrid rendering servers and clients

• app: Vistle applications

  • app/hub: Vistle session controller
  • app/gui: graphical user interface

• module: visualization algorithm modules and base library

  • module/general: modules useful to a wider audience
  • module/test: various debugging aids
  • module/render: renderer modules transforming geometry into pixels
    • module/render/DisCOVERay: a parallel remote hybrid rendering server based on Embree (CPU ray-casting)
    • module/render/OsgRenderer: a parallel remote hybrid rendering server based on OpenSceneGraph (OpenGL)
    • module/render/COVER: wrap OpenCOVER as a render module
      • module/render/COVER/plugins: plugins for OpenCOVER, e.g. for connecting to Vistle
        • module/render/COVER/plugins/RhrClient: OpenCOVER remote hybrid rendering client plugin

Documentation

Some documentation on Vistle is posted to vistle.io.

vistle's Issues

Single-process quit error (message)

Starting vistle_manager, connecting it to vistle_gui and calling "quit()" from the python interface causes Vistle to shut down with some "message::send: error: Broken pipe" messages.

Default RHR mode (mesh) usually does not work

DisCOVERay on Hawk, COVER on visent.
On visent: go to /mnt/raid/soft/vistleHawk and start vistle
On Hawk compute node: source /opt/hlrs/non-spack/visualization/spack/share/spack/setup-env.sh
spack load vistle
vistle -b -c visent.hlrs.de:port
load /mnt/raid/soft/vistleHawk/RHR_mesh_not_working.vsl
execute

Sync color module over multiple ranks when using getMinMax

When color modules on different ranks calculate the lower and upper values themselves, they calculate different values on each rank and the colors do not fit together in the composited picture.

GUI can leave invalid port connection lines

infrastructure for easy handling of several mapped fields

modules should automatically support an arbitrary number of fields mapped onto a grid,
UI and scripting interface should be able to handle that

Remote rendering with reprojection with Mesa drivers does not work

apparently, a context compatible with OpenGL 2 is required, but not provided by Mesa

Module connection fails if a line is drawn from an Input to an Output

Works when drawn from an Output to an Input.

data on boundaries for OpenFOAM reader

read data to be mapped onto boundaries

support for structured grid types

uniform grid (uniform spacing, but different per dimension, on a rectilinear lattice)
rectilinear grid (cartesian product of arbitrarily spaced points in each dimension)
structured grid (arbitrary coordinates for grid vertices)

renderers don't remove data objects when creating connection is removed

should be integrated into renderer API: #1

COVER gets stuck when changing min/max in Color plugin

COVER hangs when changing min or max value in the Vistle color plugin.

Fix COVER keeping empty timesteps

COVER keeps empty timesteps when the number of timesteps is decreased.
(Example: I first read the first 4 timesteps then reduced it to the first 2 timesteps and re-executed it - all in one go)

ghost cells for OpenFOAM reader

create ghost cells on inter processor boundaries and send them to MPI ranks handling the neighbouring processors

API for reusing arrays from other data objects

the accessor object classes (derived from Object) should provide a mechanism that is more friendly than obj1-d()->x[0] = obj2->d()->x[0];

UI for parameter port connections

partial updates of displayed objects

don't make renderers update the combination of grid+normals+colors as a whole when e.g. only color was changed

DisCOVERay stuck after re-linking input

DisCOVERay on Hawk, COVER on visent.
On visent: go to /mnt/raid/soft/vistleHawk and start vistle
On Hawk compute node: source /opt/hlrs/non-spack/visualization/spack/share/spack/setup-env.sh
spack load vistle
vistle -b -c visent.hlrs.de:port
load /mnt/raid/soft/vistleHawk/RHR_mesh_not_working.vsl
execute
remove links between DomainSurface and DisCOVERay and between Color and DisCOVERay
recreate removed links
execute

IsoSurface crashes when shader parameter is misspelled/unsupported

Maybe change it to a choice parameter so no unsupported string can be entered.

Iso Surface runs even when the input data is mismatched

No warning is displayed when the grid and data objects have different sizes.

get rid of Collect

provide a better way to establish relation between grid and associated data

ShowUSG only shows Hexahedrons

Add support for other cell-types.

parameterChanged(vistle::Parameter) gets called twice when a parameter is changed

renderer API

create common routines for managing data object life time in renderers

currently, OSGRenderer, VistlePlugin, and Ray do it on their own

enable cellToVert to work with Polygons

enable cellToVert to work with Polygons and Polygon Mapped Data.