[Paraview] Rendering in parallel

Thu Jul 3 09:13:23 EDT 2014

Ok, I have just set the environment variable DISPLAY to ":0" and it works.
I don't have these windows anymore so I guess the server renders the
geometry now.

Thank you again for your help.

Jérémy

2014-07-03 12:05 GMT+02:00 Jérémy Santina <jeremy.santina at gmail.com>:

> Actually, I don't use mpirun to launch pvserver but mpiexec in
> ParaView-4.1.0-RC1-Linux-64bit/lib/paraview-4.1/ and it is why the option
> is not recognized.
>
> Jérémy
>
>
> 2014-07-03 10:20 GMT+02:00 Jérémy Santina <jeremy.santina at gmail.com>:
>
> Thank you very much for your help.
>>
>> As you said, my DISPLAY environment variable is pointing back to my
>> desktop.
>> The problem now is that I have tried using the option -display for the
>> command pvserver but apparently it is unknown. Is it normal ? Is there
>> another way to make sure that the display is set correctly ? I didn't
>> mention it but my version of Paraview is 4.1.0-RC1-Linux-64bits. I don't
>> know if it might help.
>>
>> Jérémy.
>>
>>
>> 2014-07-02 22:34 GMT+02:00 Moreland, Kenneth <kmorel at sandia.gov>:
>>
>>  OK, I can see where things are going majorly wrong here. Let's start
>>> with the worst of the problems.
>>>
>>>  I notice on the bottom of your screenshot that your desktop has 4
>>> windows named ParaView Server #0, ParaView Server #1, etc. Those are X
>>> windows that the server is opening up on your desktop. You really don't
>>> want the server to do that. Those windows are used for OpenGL rendering. If
>>> they are opened on your desktop, that means that all four of those
>>> processes on your server are sending *all* the geometry to your
>>> desktop, your desktop renders *all* the geometry, and then the images
>>> get shipped to the server. The server then composites those images together
>>> and sends the result *back* to your desktop.
>>>
>>>  I'm sure that when you are running the server, your DISPLAY
>>> environment variable is pointing back to your desktop, which is causing the
>>> problem. You need to make sure the server is run with display set to
>>> localhost:0. More information is on the ParaView wiki at:
>>>
>>>  http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/Setting_up_a_ParaView_Server#X_Connections
>>>
>>>  That said, I'm not sure using your server is going to give you a big
>>> rendering performance boost over your desktop. The parallel rendering is
>>> really designed for large clusters with many GPUs. The rendering should
>>> work OK on your desktop as long as you're not thrashing your virtual memory
>>> (which is possible).
>>>
>>>  -Ken
>>>
>>>   From: Jérémy Santina <jeremy.santina at gmail.com>
>>> Date: Wednesday, July 2, 2014 4:17 AM
>>>
>>> To: Kenneth Moreland <kmorel at sandia.gov>
>>> Cc: "paraview at paraview.org" <paraview at paraview.org>
>>> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [Paraview] Rendering in parallel
>>>
>>>   Sorry for my poor description. I will try to give more information.
>>>
>>> I am loading a Multi-block Dataset without applying any filters and the
>>> rendering is surface rendering. In order to understand how it works, I am
>>> just running a pvserver in parallel on another computer (with a better GPU)
>>> connected via SSH. The graphics card is an NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600 and you
>>> have to know that I am not alone using this machine.  Server and client
>>> both work on Linux. So would the problem be because there is only one GPU ?
>>>
>>>  I join a picture with this message.
>>>
>>>  I would have another question. When I launch the rendering in
>>> parallel, a variable called vtkProcessId is generated. What is it ? Does it
>>> do the same thing if I apply Process Id Scalars filter ? Or are they two
>>> different things ?
>>>
>>>  Jérémy
>>>
>>>
>>> 2014-07-01 18:08 GMT+02:00 Moreland, Kenneth <kmorel at sandia.gov>:
>>>
>>>>  To check the distribution of the data, use the Process Id Scalars
>>>> filters. That should color the data based on which processor it is located.
>>>>
>>>>  It might help if you described your system more completely. What kind
>>>> of data are you loading? Is it image data? Polygon data? AMR? An
>>>> unstructured grid? Are you applying any filters? How are you rendering it?
>>>> Is it surface or volume rendering? Is there any transparency? Can you send
>>>> a picture? What kind of parallel computer are you using? Are you running
>>>> ParaView on your desktop in multi-core mode (I think rendering actually
>>>> serializes in that case because you still have only one GPU.), or are you
>>>> connecting to a cluster? How many nodes on your cluster and how are they
>>>> configured?
>>>>
>>>>  -Ken
>>>>
>>>>   From: Jérémy Santina <jeremy.santina at gmail.com>
>>>> Date: Tuesday, July 1, 2014 2:31 AM
>>>> To: Kenneth Moreland <kmorel at sandia.gov>
>>>> Cc: "paraview at paraview.org" <paraview at paraview.org>
>>>> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [Paraview] Rendering in parallel
>>>>
>>>>   Actually, I did try the D3 filter but I didn't really see any better
>>>> results. Maybe it is because I don't know how to configure it. How does D3
>>>> filter work ?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2014-06-30 16:21 GMT+02:00 Moreland, Kenneth <kmorel at sandia.gov>:
>>>>
>>>>>   Jeremy,
>>>>>
>>>>>  Like the other parallel processing in ParaView, the efficiency is
>>>>> dictated by the distribution of the data. If your data distribution is
>>>>> highly imbalanced such as when all the data is on one process as in your
>>>>> case, then all the processing will happen where the data is and the rest of
>>>>> the processors will remain idle.
>>>>>
>>>>>  You could try running the D3 filter. That should redistribute the
>>>>> point data more evenly.
>>>>>
>>>>>  -Ken
>>>>>
>>>>>   From: Jérémy Santina <jeremy.santina at gmail.com>
>>>>> Date: Monday, June 30, 2014 2:55 AM
>>>>> To: "paraview at paraview.org" <paraview at paraview.org>
>>>>> Subject: [EXTERNAL] [Paraview] Rendering in parallel
>>>>>
>>>>>    Good morning,
>>>>>
>>>>>  I am a novice user of Paraview and there are some aspects which I am
>>>>> not familiar with. Here is one of the issues I am having :
>>>>>
>>>>> I run Paraview in Client-Server mode, performing the data processing
>>>>> and the rendering on the remote server, and I read a Tecplot Binary File
>>>>> (.plt) composed of more than 30 millions of points. This take a lot of
>>>>> time. An idea to speed up the calculation is to launch the server in
>>>>> parallel. I know that many readers can not read in parallel (it is the case
>>>>> of TecplotBinaryFileReader I think) so I don't expect any improvment in
>>>>> this way.
>>>>>
>>>>> But, examining the Timer Log, I noticed that it doesn't speed up the
>>>>> rendering either. I tested many times displaying the points and both
>>>>> experiment with parallelism and without gave the same results (about 40-50
>>>>> sec). I don't understand why.
>>>>>
>>>>>  Do I misinterpret the Timer Log ? Is the time of rendering long
>>>>> enough to conclude ? Do I have to set specific parameters to make it works ?
>>>>>
>>>>>  I thank you in advance for your help.
>>>>>
>>>>>  Jérémy
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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