[Paraview] Hardware suggestions for volume rendering

Tue Mar 24 10:48:55 EDT 2015

Hey Kevin,

On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 2:33 PM, Kevin Lau <kevin.d.lau at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Aashish,
>
> Thanks for your reply.
>
> (1)
>
> We tried testing it with 2 different data sets of simulation data, one
> medium sized and one very large:
>
> Medium
> Cells: 1309489
> Points: 247984
> Memory [MB]: 119.179
> Geometry [MB]: 8.201
>
> Very Large
> Cells: 51937191
> Points: 11019274
> Memory [MB]: 4709.731
> Geometry [MB]: 776.237
>
> These datasets are unstructured grids (tetrahedral meshes) read into
> ParaView using the Phasta data reader.
>
> I see. Most of the performance improvements we have achieved is with GPU
RayCast Volume mapper (uses image data). If you can sample your data into a
strucuted grid then you will be able to use the new mapper.

Thanks,

> (2)
>
> The OS used was Ubuntu
>
> (3)
>
> The graphics card was a NVIDIA Quatro K6000 running the NVIDIA drivers
> from the Ubuntu Repos (v 331.113)
>
> (4)
>
> We configured ParaView using the default CMake options, changing VTK
> _RENDERING_BACKEND=OpenGL2 and disabling all the plug-ins. These tests
> were run in serial, as building with MPI was throwing errors.
>
> (5)
>
> We expected that the OpenGL2 version of ParaView would be able to volume
> render faster than the standard OpenGL version. However the reported
> frame rates were the same in both builds when clicking and dragging (~2
> FPS).
>
> This is a problem because we're mainly interested in visualising our data
> and having users able to rotate the model and interact with it. At these
> frame rates the response is a bit sluggish.
>
> Also I've done serial test using an OpenGL2 build on Windows using an old
> GeForce 8800 with the same medium sized data. On this machine the frame
> rate was similar at around ~1.5 FPS.
>
> (6)
>
> ParaView was built by checking out the master from git. Sadly I'm not on
> that test machine now, so I can't check the SHA
>
> Many thanks for your help again.
>
> Kevin
>
>
> On 20 March 2015 at 10:33, Aashish Chaudhary <
> aashish.chaudhary at kitware.com> wrote:
>
>> Hey Kevin,
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 5:33 PM, Kevin Lau <kevin.d.lau at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear Aashish,
>>>
>>> Thanks for your reply, I've now managed to build ParaView from the
>>> Master branch with VTK_RENDERING_BACKEND set to OpenGL2 and I have noticed
>>> a visible difference in the rendering.
>>>
>>> However comparison of the rendering performance in the interactive mode
>>> of builds with the standard OpenGL backend vs the OpenGL2 backend, both
>>> show similar frame rates.
>>>
>>
>> Depending on the card and features you are using you may not see a huge
>> bump in performance. On some systems we have seen 300 times performance
>> improvements and on others there were close specially when you have VSync
>> on. Said that, can you provide more infromation on
>>
>> 1) Data size
>> 2) OS
>> 3) Graphics card
>> 4) Features you have enabled?
>> 5) You expectation and problem
>> 6) What SHA of ParaView you are using?
>>
>> Are there other build options that I'm missing? Should I be building the
>>> VTK libraries themselves?
>>>
>>
>> Just make sure that you built from a clean state other than that you
>> should be good.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>>
>>> Many thanks,
>>>
>>> Kevin
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3 March 2015 at 14:53, Aashish Chaudhary <
>>> aashish.chaudhary at kitware.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Kevin Lau <kevin.d.lau at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear Aashish,
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you very much for your reply. The latest work you're doing on
>>>>> volume rendering is very impressive.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> In order to access the latest VTK rendering in ParaView would we have
>>>>> to compile both the latest VTK and ParaView from source? Is it possible to
>>>>> link ParaView to specific VTK builds?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Latest ParaView from source should be fine. Just make sure that you
>>>> select VTK_RENDERING_BACKEND to OpenGL2
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Also do you know if it is preferential to have a single GPU (i.e. a
>>>>> workstation graphics card) or multiple GPU (i.e. gaming graphics card) when
>>>>> using ParaView?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If I remember correctly, we don't explicitly assign tasks to GPU in
>>>> ParaView if running a single process. You can find more information here:
>>>> http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/Setting_up_a_ParaView_Server#Multiple_GPUs_Per_Node
>>>>
>>>> Hope it helps.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Many thanks,
>>>>>
>>>>> Kevin
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 27 February 2015 at 08:15, Aashish Chaudhary <
>>>>> aashish.chaudhary at kitware.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear Kevin,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> First, I would like to mention that we have been working hard to
>>>>>> improve rendering in VTK that includes volume rendering as well. You may
>>>>>> want to read this source article:
>>>>>> http://www.kitware.com/source/home/post/154. Most of the changes
>>>>>> related to this work is now available in VTK github repository in master
>>>>>> branch. If you are targetting current VTK, I would suggest that any card
>>>>>> that can support OpenGL2.1 or higher would be great. The higher the GPU
>>>>>> memory the better. While these newer card will work with the previous
>>>>>> version of volume rendering, it may not scale very well (in our testing
>>>>>> that's what we have observed). Current the default in ParaView is OpenGL
>>>>>> Volume Rendering but that is going to change sometime soon and once that
>>>>>> happens you will have OpenGL2 backend for everything.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hope this helps.
>>>>>> - Aashish
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 5:41 PM, Kevin Lau <kevin.d.lau at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm looking to putting together a workstation to perform realtime
>>>>>>> volume rendering of our simulation data.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Are there any particular GPU features I should look for?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If there are multiple GPUs will Paraview be able to take advantage
>>>>>>> of each GPU for volume rendering?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Many thanks
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Kevin
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> *| Aashish Chaudhary | Technical Leader         | Kitware Inc.
>>>>>>     *
>>>>>> *| http://www.kitware.com/company/team/chaudhary.html
>>>>>> <http://www.kitware.com/company/team/chaudhary.html>*
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *| Aashish Chaudhary | Technical Leader         | Kitware Inc.
>>>>   *
>>>> *| http://www.kitware.com/company/team/chaudhary.html
>>>> <http://www.kitware.com/company/team/chaudhary.html>*
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>>
>>
>> *| Aashish Chaudhary | Technical Leader         | Kitware Inc.
>> *
>> *| http://www.kitware.com/company/team/chaudhary.html
>> <http://www.kitware.com/company/team/chaudhary.html>*
>>
>
>

-- 

*| Aashish Chaudhary | Technical Leader         | Kitware Inc.            *
*| http://www.kitware.com/company/team/chaudhary.html
<http://www.kitware.com/company/team/chaudhary.html>*
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