[Paraview] How is builtin different from localhost?

[David E DeMarle]

On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 2:22 PM, Biao She <shebiao at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for your reply.
> I have another question though. You said the two processes communicated via
> TCP sockets. What do they actually transfer? The final rendered image? The
> vtk class methods calls? Or both?
> I also have tested the pvserver on a remote computer, and I connected to the
> server with 100 M network. I am wondering if the network speed is good
> enough for paraveiw? In other words, no huge display delay because of
> network?
> Thanks.
>
> Biao
>
> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 11:43 AM, David E DeMarle <dave.demarle at kitware.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 1:33 PM, Biao She <shebiao at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hi all.
>> > I have tested paraview on a builtin server and a localhost server(run
>> > pvserver and connect client to it on the same computer). It seems to me
>> > that
>> > the builtin server is much faster than localhost server. Since the
>> > computer
>> > is the same, i am wondering if the localhost server have to readback all
>> > the
>> > data in GPU and transfer these data to client in order to be displayed?
>> > On
>> > the other hand, for the builtin server, the data in GPU is displayed
>> > directly(no readback). Could you please explain why the localhost is
>> > slower
>> > than builtin?
>> > Thanks very much!
>> >
>> > Aaron
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > ParaView mailing list
>> > ParaView at paraview.org
>> > http://www.paraview.org/mailman/listinfo/paraview
>> >
>> >
>>
>> The builtin server lives inside the same process as the client. All
>> communication between server and client takes place via pointers and
>> vtk class methods are directly called.
>>
>> "Localhost" ie, running pvserver on the same machine as the client and
>> connecting to it consists of two separate processes. It is slower
>> because both processes compete for CPU cycles and memory space more
>> importantly, because communication between the two takes place via TCP
>> sockets.
>>
>> --
>> David E DeMarle
>> Kitware, Inc.
>> R&D Engineer
>> 28 Corporate Drive
>> Clifton Park, NY 12065-8662
>> Phone: 518-371-3971 x109
>
>
>
> --
> She, Biao
> Department of Computing Science,
> University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
>

It depends on the settings.

* vtk class method names and arguments to data processing filters
(clip, slice, contour, surface generation) are always sent from the
client to the server whenever a filter parameter changes.

* If the resulting geometry is smaller than the
settings->remote->server->remote render threshold, than the geometry
is sent back (on each filter parameter change, NOT on every camera
setting change) to the client and rendered locally.

* If the geometry is larger than that, then the image is rendered by
the server and the pixels are sent back every frame.

* If the visible geometry is small enough that the client can render
it interactively, than a 100M connection shouldn't be any problem.

-- 
David E DeMarle
Kitware, Inc.
R&D Engineer
28 Corporate Drive
Clifton Park, NY 12065-8662
Phone: 518-371-3971 x109