Ascent¶
A many-core capable flyweight in situ visualization and analysis infrastructure for multi-physics HPC simulations.
Introduction¶
Ascent is an easy-to-use flyweight in situ visualization and analysis library for HPC simulations:
- Supports: Making Pictures, Transforming Data, and Capturing Data for use outside of Ascent
- Young effort, yet already includes most common visualization operations
- Provides a simple infrastructure to integrate custom analysis
- Provides C++, C, Python, and Fortran APIs
Ascent’s flyweight design targets next-generation HPC platforms:
- Provides efficient distributed-memory (MPI) and many-core (CUDA or OpenMP) execution
- Demonstrated scaling: In situ filtering and ray tracing across 16,384 GPUs on LLNL’s Sierra Cluster
- Has lower memory requirements than current tools
- Requires less dependencies than current tools (ex: no OpenGL)
Ascent focuses on ease of use and reducing integration burden for simulation code teams:
- Actions are passed to Ascent via YAML files
- Replay capability helps prototype and test actions
- It does not require GUI or system-graphics libraries
- It includes integration examples that demonstrate how to use Ascent inside existing HPC-simulation proxy applications
Getting Started¶
To get started building and using Ascent, see the Quick Start Guide and the Ascent Tutorial. For more details about building Ascent see the Building documentation.
Ascent Project Resources¶
Website and Online Documentation
Github Source Repo
http://github.com/alpine-dav/ascent
Issue Tracker
http://github.com/llnl/ascent/issues
Help Email
Contributors¶
- Cyrus Harrison (LLNL)
- Matt Larsen (LLNL)
- Eric Brugger (LLNL)
- Jim Eliot (AWE)
- Kevin Griffin (LLNL)
- Hank Childs (LBL and UO)
- Utkarsh Ayachit (Kitware, Inc)
- Sudhanshu Sane (UO)
- Seif Ibrahim (LLNL, UCSB)
Ascent Documentation¶
- Quick Start
- Ascent User Documentation
- Ascent Overview
- Example Integrations
- Building Ascent
- Overview
- Build Dependencies
- Getting Started
- Build Options
- Host Config Files
- Building Ascent and Third Party Dependencies
- Uberenv Options for Building Third Party Dependencies
- Compiler Settings for Third Party Dependencies
- Building with Uberenv on Known HPC Platforms
- Building Third Party Dependencies for Development
- Building with Spack
- ParaView Support
- Using Ascent in Another Project
- Building Ascent in a Docker Container
- Building Ascent Dependencies Manually
- Asking Ascent how its configured
- Ascent API
- Ascent Actions
- Ascent Actions Overview
- Pipelines
- Scenes
- Extracts
- ParaView Visualization
- Queries
- Triggers
- Ascent Actions Examples
- An example of the contour filter with a single iso value.
- An example of rendering a point field with constant radius.
- An example of creating a mesh plot.
- An example of using the volume (unstructured grid) extract.
- An example if using the vector component filter to extract a scalar component of a vector field.
- An example of using the log filter.
- An example of creating a render, specifying all camera parameters.
- An example rendering a 2d field.
- An example of using the log filter.
- An example of rendering with no background (alpha channel = 0)
- An example of changing the azimuth of the camera.
- An example of the contour filter with a number of evenly spaced levels.
- An example an inverted sphere clip using a center and radius
- An example of creating a transfer function for volume rendering.
- An example of specifying trigger actions without a trigger trigger actions file.
- An example of the interconnecting pipelines.
- An example of using the gradient filter and plotting the magnitude.
- An example of the three slice filter.
- An example of disabling a color table.
- An example of using the volume (unstructured grid) extract with min and max values.
- An example of filtering fields not present in the actions file.
- An example of using the gradient filter on a element centered fieldand plotting the magnitude.
- An example of the contour filter with a multiple iso values.
- An example of the slice filter with a single plane.
- An example of creating a mesh plot of a contour.
- An example of using inverted clip with field.
- An example if using the vector magnitude filter.
- An example of using the log filter and clamping the min value. This can help when there are negative values present.
- An example of the slice filter with a single plane (off-axis).
- An example of the slice filter with a single plane.
- An example of creating a plot specifying the min and max values of the scalar range.
- An example a plane clip defined with a point and a normal
- An example of using clip with field.
- An example if using the re-center filter (to vertex).
- An example of rendering with no annotations.
- An example of rendering custom background and foreground colors.
- An example of using the isovolume filter.
- An example if using the re-center filter (to element).
- An example of using the gradient filter and plotting the magnitude.
- An example of the slice filter with a single plane.
- An example of using the gradient filter and plotting the magnitude.
- Example of rendering multiple topologies
- An example of creating a render specifying the image size.
- An example a blox clip
- An example of creating a custom color map.
- An example if using the composite vector filter to compose three scalar fields into a vector.
- An example a sphere clip using a center and radius
- Example of adding 1 ghost field with 2 topologies
- An example of using the gradient filter and plotting the magnitude.
- An example of using queries in filter parameters.
- An example of rendering a point field with variable radius.
- An example of using the threshold filter.
- A more complex trigger example using several functions that evaluate positons on the mesh.
- Example of adding multple ghosts with 2 topologies
- An example of using the gradient filter and plotting the magnitude.
- An example of using the gradient filter using cell gradients on a element centered field and plotting the magnitude.
- An example of using the xray extract.
- An example of using devil ray scalar rendering.
- An example of using a relay extract to save a subset of the data.
- A more complex trigger example using several functions that evaluate positons on the mesh.
- An example of using the xray extract.
- An example of rendering to a filename using format specifiers.
- An example of quiering the current cycle.
- An example of using devil ray for pseudocolor plot.
- An example of using devil ray for pseudocolor plot.
- An example of rendering amr data
- An example of using devil ray for pseudocolor plot.
- An example of using an relay extract to save the results of a pipeline to the file system.
- An example of scalar rendering
- An example of using an relay extract to save the published mesh to the file system.
- An example of using devil ray scalar rendering using a plane.
- An example of rendering amr data
- An example of quiering the maximum value of a field from the result of a pipeline.
- An example of using devil ray for pseudocolor plot.
- An example of using devil ray to reflect a data set.
- An example of quiering the maximum value of a field.
- An example of rendering amr data
- Ascent Expressions Documentation
- Data Binning
- VTK-m Color Tables
- Devil Ray Color Tables
- 3-wave-muted
- 3-wave-yellow-grey-blue
- 3w_bGrBr
- 3w_bgYr
- 3w_gby
- 4-wave-orange-green-blue-gray
- 4-wave-yellow-green-teal-gray
- 4Wmed8
- 4w_ROTB
- 4w_bgTR
- 4w_bgby
- 4wave-bgyGr
- 5-wave-orange-to-green
- 5-wave-yellow-green
- 5-wave-yellow-to-blue
- 5w_BRgpb
- 5wave-yellow-brown-blue
- Accent
- Blues
- BrBG
- BuGn
- BuPu
- ColdAndHot
- CubicL
- CubicYF
- Dark2
- GnBu
- Greens
- Greys
- HotAndCold
- IsoL
- LinLhot
- LinearL
- OrRd
- Oranges
- PRGn
- Paired
- Pastel1
- Pastel2
- PiYG
- PuBu
- PuBuGn
- PuOr
- PuRd
- Purples
- RdBu
- RdGy
- RdPu
- RdYlBu
- RdYlGn
- Reds
- Set1
- Set2
- Set3
- Spectral
- YlGn
- YlGnBu
- YlOrBr
- YlOrRd
- blue
- cool2warm
- dense
- gr-insert_0-10
- gr-insert_10-20
- gr-insert_20-30
- gr-insert_30-40
- gr-insert_40-50
- gr-insert_50-60
- gr-insert_60-70
- gr-insert_80-100
- gr-insert_80-90
- gr-insert_90-100
- grey
- levels
- orange
- rainbow
- rambo
- temperature
- thermal
- Ascent Utilities
- Ascent GPU Notes
- Developer Documentation
- Tutorial
- Tutorial Setup
- Introduction to Ascent
- CloverLeaf3D Ascent Demos
- Releases
- Publications and Presentations
- License Info