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<TITLE>Re: [Paraview] remote rendering with paraview</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Yes, yes, yes, and yes.<BR>
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-Ken<BR>
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On 2/5/09 3:47 PM, "Jim Montine" <<a href="jmontine@sgi.com">jmontine@sgi.com</a>> wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'><FONT FACE="Arial">So in this case, pvserver is using the hardware GPU to render to an off-screen context?<BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"> <BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">It must also then be doing a pixel readback before it sends the image to the client?<BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"> <BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">On my server I have several proceesors and one gfx card. If I do something like:<BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"> <BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">mpirun -np 4 pvserver --use-offscree-rendering<BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"> <BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">will each process create an off-screen rendering conext using the same gfx card?<BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"> <BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">In this case are the four images read back and combined before they are sent to the client?<BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"> <BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">Thanks for the answers.<BR>
</FONT><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><BR>
<HR ALIGN=CENTER SIZE="3" WIDTH="100%"></FONT><FONT FACE="Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><B>From:</B> Moreland, Kenneth [<a href="mailto:kmorel@sandia.gov">mailto:kmorel@sandia.gov</a>]<BR>
<B>Sent:</B> Thu 2/5/2009 2:27 PM<BR>
<B>To:</B> Jim Montine; David E DeMarle<BR>
<B>Cc:</B> <a href="paraview@paraview.org">paraview@paraview.org</a><BR>
<B>Subject:</B> Re: [Paraview] remote rendering with paraview<BR>
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You need the DISPLAY environment variable because the standard way to get a gfx context on *nix is through an X server. To create an off-screen rendering context you first have to connect to an X server. It is also a convenient way to specify which GPU you want to use if a system has more than one.<BR>
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There is one exception to the DISPLAY/X server requirement. ParaView supports the use of OSMesa, which allows you to open a Mesa 3D rendering context without an X server. This simplifies running pvserver a great deal, but works exclusively with software only rendering. Thus, we recommend it if and only if you have no graphics hardware.<BR>
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-Ken<BR>
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On 2/5/09 1:26 PM, "Jim Montine" <<a href="jmontine@sgi.com">jmontine@sgi.com</a>> wrote:<BR>
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</FONT></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'><FONT FACE="Arial">In case 2 below (where the server optionally renders the polygons), why is it necessary to set the<BR>
DISPLAY to the gfx head of the server (things are displayed on the PC) Why is the DISPLAY environment<BR>
needed at all for this off-screen rendering case?<BR>
</FONT></SPAN></BLOCKQUOTE><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'><FONT FACE="Arial"><BR>
</FONT></SPAN><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT FACE="Consolas, Courier New, Courier"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:10pt'><BR>
**** Kenneth Moreland<BR>
*** Sandia National Laboratories<BR>
*********** <BR>
*** *** *** email: <a href="kmorel@sandia.gov">kmorel@sandia.gov</a><BR>
** *** ** phone: (505) 844-8919<BR>
*** web: <a href="http://www.cs.unm.edu/~kmorel">http://www.cs.unm.edu/~kmorel</a><BR>
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</SPAN></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'><BR>
</SPAN></FONT><FONT SIZE="2"><FONT FACE="Consolas, Courier New, Courier"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:10pt'><BR>
**** Kenneth Moreland<BR>
*** Sandia National Laboratories<BR>
*********** <BR>
*** *** *** email: <a href="kmorel@sandia.gov">kmorel@sandia.gov</a><BR>
** *** ** phone: (505) 844-8919<BR>
*** web: <a href="http://www.cs.unm.edu/~kmorel">http://www.cs.unm.edu/~kmorel</a><BR>
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