[Paraview] Three Wall Stereo Projection with Paraview 3.6.1

Wed Oct 21 12:02:54 EDT 2009

Responses inline.

Note first, that to the best of my knowledge ParaView3 is _still_
missing the ability to have independent cameras. That is why berk
asked about flat/tiled display. On a tile display the cameras are all
more or less pointed in the same direction. In a cave you want the
cameras to point in different directions.

On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 12:08 PM, Steffen Kaufmann
<Steffen.Kaufmann at haw-hamburg.de> wrote:
> Hi Berk,
>
> I read through the wiki, but I do not understand how it works. How is the
> workflow / buildup? Let me try to illustrate our hardware buildup and my
> understanding.
>

You may also want to look at the slides from the paraview tutorial at
IEEE Cluster Computing 2009. They are on the paraview wiki too.

> We have 3 render server, with 2 graphic outputs on one graphic card (for the
> passive stereo projection). The machines have ubuntu/debian linux installed.
> The projection walls are plain, we have two walls and a bottom (two
> projectors per projection target - 6 overall).
>

First make sure you have mpi running on the linux machines. Once you
do that you should be able to run distributed parallel programs like
so:

mpirun -np N -machinefile filewithmachinenames.txt program

/bin/uname -a is a good program to try first.
if that doesn't work, google for an mpi helloworld program that spits
out each processors rank.

Next build paraview (at least it's server component - the Qt GUI is
not needed) on the linux machines. Ideally, build it on a shared file
system where all three machines can see and run the same executable
file. You need to build the server yourself because the binaries
(other than mac) do not have MPI enabled. Once you build it run the
server via:

mpirun -np 3 -machinefile filewithmachinenames.txt pvserver
You should get one "waiting for client...." message back which
indicates that all three processes are operating as one program.

> On the controlling PC is Windows XP installed.
>

A windows client controlling a linux server is perfectly fine. You can
even use a binary as long as the revision (3.6.1) matches that of the
server you've built.

> What I want is to control with the Windows XP - PC the contend which is
> displayed in our 3 wall cave. How do I have to start paraview?
>

Start paraview, click connect, enter in the ip address of the first
server machine. Use manual connection mode because you have already
started the server.

> I know I have to setup a machine file and server configuration file? But I
> don't know how...

machine file is just the list of machine names. It is how mpirun knows
where to spawn processes.
On our cluster, it is simply:
amber1
amber2
amber3
amber4
...
amber7

Server config file is most often set up automatically via the paraview
client when you hit connect. As long as you can ping from the XP
machine to the client, you probably don't have to worry about it.

>
> How is the command for the pvserver start? I read about:
> mpirun -np [NUMBER OF CORES] ./pvserver -m [MACHINE FILE]
> --use-offscreen-rendering -tdx=3 -tdy=1

Sounds correct to me.

>
> As I understand it starts a pvserver on one Machine, but I need 3 render
> servers? How can I start the other servers? How is the paraview application
> started? And how can I connect to the servers?

pvserver is an MPI program. Think of it as one program that spans
across several machines (one process per machine ussually). Once you
build paraview with MPI enabled, the task of starting up the parallel
program is up to mpirun. After you start the server, you connect the
client program to it simply by clicking connect and defining the host
name and port to connect to.

>
> Sorry for the many questions.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Steffen
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: Berk Geveci [mailto:berk.geveci at kitware.com]
> Gesendet: Montag, 19. Oktober 2009 15:31
> An: Kaufmann Steffen
> Cc: paraview at paraview.org
> Betreff: Re: [Paraview] Three Wall Stereo Projection with Paraview 3.6.1
>
> Hi Steffen,
>
> First and foremost, you need to run pvserver using MPI. Take a look here:
> http://paraview.org/Wiki/Setting_up_a_ParaView_Server
>
> I am not sure how your tiled display is setup. If you have one machine
> driving each display, you have to make sure that MPI distributed
> ParaView with one process per machine. If you have one machine with 3
> graphics output driving the whole thing, you have to run all processes
> on that machine but each process will have a different DISPLAY set.
>
> Once this is working, you should be able to run ParaView in
> client/server mode and see the windows on the tiled-display.
>
> After that, you will have to use the tiled-display arguments when
> running pvserver. I believe it will be -tdx=3 -tdy=1 in your case.
>
> -berk
>
> On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Steffen Kaufmann
> <Steffen.Kaufmann at haw-hamburg.de> wrote:
>> Hello Berk,
>>
>>
>>
>> we use flat walls. How can I used the tiled-display support?
>>
>>
>>
>> Is there a possibility to run more than one render server with one data
>> source? If yes how can this be archived?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>>
>>
>> Steffen
>>
>>
>>
>> Von: Berk Geveci [mailto:berk.geveci at kitware.com]
>> Gesendet: Montag, 12. Oktober 2009 19:42
>> An: Kaufmann Steffen
>> Cc: paraview at paraview.org
>> Betreff: Re: [Paraview] Three Wall Stereo Projection with Paraview 3.6.1
>>
>>
>>
>> Is this a flat wall or curved wall? There is still no Cave support in
>> ParaView but there is definitely tiled-display support.
>>
>> -berk
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 11:33 AM, Steffen Kaufmann
>> <Steffen.Kaufmann at haw-hamburg.de> wrote:
>>> Hello list,
>>>
>>> I am from the University of Applied Sciences Hamburg and new to the list.
>>> We
>>> have a three wall stereo projection environment and we want to display
> CFD
>>> contend with ParaView 3.6.1.
>>>
>>> I read that ParaView 3 didn't supported CAVE environments in early phases
>>> of
>>> Version 3. Is this problem already solved?
>>>
>>> If not can anyone point me out a solution? If yes can anyone give me step
>>> by
>>> step instructions?
>>>
>>> Thank you!
>>>
>>> Steffen
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Powered by www.kitware.com
>>>
>>> Visit other Kitware open-source projects at
>>> http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html
>>>
>>> Please keep messages on-topic and check the ParaView Wiki at:
>>> http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView
>>>
>>> Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe:
>>> http://www.paraview.org/mailman/listinfo/paraview
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Powered by www.kitware.com
>>
>> Visit other Kitware open-source projects at
>> http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html
>>
>> Please keep messages on-topic and check the ParaView Wiki at:
>> http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView
>>
>> Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe:
>> http://www.paraview.org/mailman/listinfo/paraview
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Powered by www.kitware.com
>
> Visit other Kitware open-source projects at http://www.kitware.com/opensource/opensource.html
>
> Please keep messages on-topic and check the ParaView Wiki at: http://paraview.org/Wiki/ParaView
>
> Follow this link to subscribe/unsubscribe:
> http://www.paraview.org/mailman/listinfo/paraview
>