[Paraview] Problems in running parallel scripts through pvpython

[Raashid Baig]

I have some very fundamentel doubts regarding paraview and its working
in parallel.

1. Is it necessary to compile Paraview 3.0.1 from sources in parallel
to use paraview in parallel, if the binaries are available on n
different machines will it do the same job ?

2. I am able to launch pvserver (from the binaries not the compiled
sources) on 3 different computers using LAM/MPI, is it necessary that
the computer on which paraview's client will be launched should also
be within these 3 computer, which were booted through mpirun. If no
how should I connect to the 3 different severs from paraview ?

In the ParaView book it is said that if separate data and render
servers are running on 2 different clusters (Data Server/ Render
Server / Client configuration ) the client should connect to the
master node (or node 0) of both the data server and render server and
they in turn will connect to the other computers of their respective
servers.

Nothing is said how to connect when paraview is running in
Client/Server Mode. Should we connect to the master node of the server
and the other computers in the server will be controlled by the master
computer all by itself ? Or we have to do thing on over own ? 

Through GUI we can connect to only one server at a time. If we are
connected to one server and then connect to a second server the
connection to the first server is automatically closes.  

3. How to connect pvpython to server ? No command line argument seems
to be available with pvpython to connect to a running server. Should
we use paraview's active connection to connect to a particular server,
ex. paraview.ActiveConnection = paraview.Connect("10.101.11.71", 11111)
through script. 

If I try to connect pvpython to a pvserver through script the script
crashes

----------------------------------------------------------------
raashid at ogion:~/Desktop/paraview-3.0.1-Linux-x86/bin$ ./pvpython
Python 2.5 (release25-maint, Dec  9 2006, 14:12:17) 
[GCC 4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-20)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import paraview
>>> paraview.ActiveConnection = paraview.Connect("10.101.11.71", 11111)
>>> sphere = paraview.CreateProxy("sources","SphereSource","sources")
>>> renModule = paraview.CreateRenderWindow()
ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/Common/vtkServerConnection.cxx, line 67
vtkServerConnection (0x8260bc0): Server Connection Closed!

raashid at ged:~/Desktop/paraview-3.0.1-Linux-x86/bin$ ./pvserver
Listen on port: 11111
Waiting for client...
Client connected.
ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/Common/vtkProcessModule.cxx, line 971
vtkProcessModule (0x8066b00): Cannot create object of type "vtkIceTRenderManager".
while processing
Message 0 = New
  Argument 0 = string_value {vtkIceTRenderManager}
  Argument 1 = id_value {8}


ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/Common/vtkProcessModule.cxx, line 973
vtkProcessModule (0x8066b00): Aborting execution for debugging purposes.

Aborted
----------------------------------------------------------------

If I run the following script through pvpython the same problem occurs
------------------------------------------------------------------
# test2.py
import paraview
paraview.ActiveConnection = paraview.Connect("10.101.11.71", 11111)
# create a sphere and register it under sources.
sphere = paraview.CreateProxy("sources","SphereSource","sources")
# create a render module.
renModule = paraview.CreateRenderWindow()
renModule.UpdateVTKObjects()
# create a display
display = paraview.CreateDisplay(sphere, renModule)
# reset camera
renModule.ResetCamera()
# render.
renModule.InteractiveRender()
raw_input("Enter")

raashid at ogion:~/Desktop/paraview-3.0.1-Linux-x86/bin$ ./pvpython test2.py
ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/Common/vtkServerConnection.cxx, line 67
vtkServerConnection (0x83e8930): Server Connection Closed!

ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/ServerManager/vtkSMDataObjectDisplayProxy.cxx, line 272
vtkSMCompositeDisplayProxy (0x846d150): Input proxy has no output! Cannot create the display

ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/ServerManager/vtkSMDataObjectDisplayProxy.cxx, line 1355
vtkSMCompositeDisplayProxy (0x846d150): Display proxy not created!

ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/ServerManager/vtkSMDataObjectDisplayProxy.cxx, line 1282
vtkSMCompositeDisplayProxy (0x846d150): Objects not created!

Segmentation fault (core dumped)



On running server the message displayed is :

raashid at ged:~/Desktop/paraview-3.0.1-Linux-x86/bin$ ./pvserver
Listen on port: 11111
Waiting for client...
Client connected.
ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/Common/vtkProcessModule.cxx, line 971
vtkProcessModule (0x8066b00): Cannot create object of type "vtkIceTRenderManager".
while processing
Message 0 = New
  Argument 0 = string_value {vtkIceTRenderManager}
  Argument 1 = id_value {8}


ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/Common/vtkProcessModule.cxx, line 973
vtkProcessModule (0x8066b00): Aborting execution for debugging purposes.

Aborted


I had similar doubt which I posted on the mailing list and got a reply
from Utkarsh Ayachit. As suggested by Utkarsh Ayachit in paraview
mailing list, Vol 38, Issue 32 a similar script fails in the same
manner. Utkarsh wrote:-
"The Distributed stand-alone mode as described in the ParaView book is
no longer supported by ParaView i.e. to run in parallel, one must run in
client-server mode. This isn't that cumbersome really,
instead of"
  mpirun -np 4 paraview
we do
  mpirun -np 4 pvserver
  paraview (and then connect to the correct server).

Same is true for pvpython.

Here's script to read a file and then render in parallel.

import paraview
# Create default built in connection
paraview.ActiveConnection = paraview.Connect("localhost",11111);

# Create the reader proxy.
# Note that one must create the correct reader based on the type of the
# file being read.
reader = paraview.CreateProxy("sources", "ExodusReader", "sources")
reader.SetFileName("/tmp/somedataset.ex2")
reader.UpdateVTKObjects()

# Create render window
renWin = paraview.CreateRenderWindow()
# Till the view to always render on all processess in parallel and then
# composite the image together.
renWin.SetRemoteRenderThreshold(0);
renWin.UpdateVTKObjects();

# create and add display
display = paraview.CreateDisplay(reader, renWin)
# render
renWin.ResetCamera()
renWin.StillRender()

I ran mpirun on 3 computers including the computer on which I started the pvpython and tried a similar script as suggested in reply
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
# test5.py
import paraview

paraview.ActiveConnection = paraview.Connect("localhost", 11111)

reader = paraview.CreateProxy("sources", "XMLUnstructuredGridReader", "sources")
reader.SetFileName("fire_ug.vtu")
reader.UpdateVTKObjects()

isosurface_filter = paraview.CreateProxy("filters", "Contour", "filters")
isosurface_filter.SetInput(reader)
isosurface_filter.SetContourValues(298.38, 396.84, 495.31, 593.775, 692)
isosurface_filter.UpdateVTKObjects()

renWin = paraview.CreateRenderWindow()
renWin.SetRemoteRenderThreshold(0)
renWin.UpdateVTKObjects()

display1 = paraview.CreateDisplay(isosurface_filter, renWin)

renWin.ResetCamera()
renWin.StillRender()
raw_input("Enter")      

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again this resulted in a crash


raashid at ogion:~/Desktop/paraview-3.0.1-Linux-x86/bin$ ./pvpython test5.py
ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/Common/vtkServerConnection.cxx, line 67
vtkServerConnection (0x83e8240): Server Connection Closed!

ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/Common/vtkServerConnection.cxx, line 338
vtkServerConnection (0x83e8240): Server could failed to gather information.

ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/ServerManager/vtkSMDataObjectDisplayProxy.cxx, line 272
vtkSMCompositeDisplayProxy (0x8470430): Input proxy has no output! Cannot create the display

ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/ServerManager/vtkSMDataObjectDisplayProxy.cxx, line 1355
vtkSMCompositeDisplayProxy (0x8470430): Display proxy not created!

ERROR: In /home/berk/Work/ReleaseBuilds/ParaView3/Servers/ServerManager/vtkSMDataObjectDisplayProxy.cxx, line 1282
vtkSMCompositeDisplayProxy (0x8470430): Objects not created!

Segmentation fault (core dumped)


4. Who does D3 filter work in ParaView3, is its working same as it was
in the previous version 2.X

I may be missing something very fundamental, can someone please help
me with this.

  
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