[Paraview] Concept: A world without the Apply button

[Utkarsh Ayachit]

Sam,

Please note that this proposal does not preclude the user from
choosing which array to load from the reader's properties panel. That
indeed will be supported. This proposal in fact allows you go back the
reader change it's array selection, and then go the properties panel
for a contour filter connected downstream (for example) and choose the
array to contour by as the newly selected array without having to
execute any of the reader/intermediate filters until you have setup
the full pipeline. After which, you hit "Execute". That's when the
reader will actually read the data. Currently, before you can choose
the array to contour with, you have to hit "Apply" so that the reader
will produce the newly selected array. Then alone will it be reflected
on the contour panel.

Also, changing parameters on filters will have no immediate effect per
say. The new proposal is not simply "auto-apply". You have to hit
"Execute" before the filters will be executed, so you can tweak
parameters to your hearts contents before triggering any execution
(similar to the Apply mechanism).

Utkarsh

On Tue, Jun 7, 2011 at 1:31 PM, Samuel Key <samuelkey at bresnan.net> wrote:
> All--
>
> Technical reasons aside, my own simulation efforts (software that relies on
> ParaView for post-processing) span a great variety of solid and structural
> mechanics applications. The software is not a single-formulation,
> single-solution, one-off problem solver.
>
> Put briefly, I find the "Apply" button exceptionally useful.
>
> The EnSight-formatted results files produced contain a surfeit (excess) of
> simulation results for any one application. I use the "Apply" button on
> loading results files for several purposes:
>
> 1) Load only results that are most useful to the current problem or
> application.
>
> 2) Limit the results I examine to those relevant to the phase st hand:
>     i) Phase 1. Are the results OK (BC's OK? Energy Balance OK? Loading OK?)
>    ii) Phase 2. Which result describes the response most effectively?
>   iii) Phase 3. Presentation animations and figures for communicating.
>
> 3) Frequent tuning of various filters to refine the display of the results
> being studied.
>
> 4) Last but not least, limit the results being examined at any one session
> to avoid the MS O/S crashing PV because of the MS O/S limits on resources
> usable.
>
> Thanks for the opportunity to express my support for ParaView and its
> exceptional versatility and effectiveness as a post-processing tool.
>
> Sam Key
>
> On 6/7/2011 8:56 AM, Moreland, Kenneth wrote:
>>
>> One thing that strikes me about this proposal, is that it relies a lot on
>> VTK readers/filters providing the necessary meta data, particularly about
>> fields.  For example, the elevation filter would have to report in its
>> meta data that it will be adding a scalar field named Elevation.  That
>> sounds easy enough to implement, but would have to be independently added
>> for all readers/filters.  This would be especially problematic for
>> user-provided plugins.
>>
>> Is there a way to mitigate the issues with the meta data mismatching what
>> is actually generated?  Perhaps there could be a check to make sure that
>> the data generated matches the meta data previously reported and issue a
>> warning if there are any mismatches.  This would not solve the problem per
>> se, but would quickly alert developers to problems and make it easier to
>> debug.
>>
>> -Ken
>>
>>    ****      Kenneth Moreland
>>     ***      Sandia National Laboratories
>> ***********
>> *** *** ***  email: kmorel at sandia.gov
>> **  ***  **  phone: (505) 844-8919
>>     ***      web:   http://www.cs.unm.edu/~kmorel
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 6/1/11 1:30 PM, "Utkarsh Ayachit"<utkarsh.ayachit at kitware.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>> I have been investigating the ability to create pipelines in ParaView
>>> without having to hit Apply at every single stage in the pipeline.
>>> This would make it much easier to deal with really large data in a
>>> usage scenario where the scientist is fairly familiar with the
>>> visualization pipeline he's interested in setting up.
>>>
>>> Following the recent changes to the ParaView ServerManager, the
>>> ServerManager level requirement that filters need to be updated before
>>> connecting has disappeared. However, we still need to "Apply" to get
>>> updated information about arrays etc.
>>>
>>> After a couple on discussions with Berk and Dave, I've consolidated
>>> the thoughts on a Wiki page. If any one has any thoughts to share, it
>>> would be great.
>>>
>>>
>>> http://www.paraview.org/ParaView3/index.php/No-Apply_Mechanism_for_Creatin
>>> g_Pipelines
>>>
>>> Note that this is merely a concept. We have no plans of implementing
>>> it in near future (3.12/4.0).
>>>
>>> Utkarsh
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>>
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>