ParaView - Scientific Data Analysis and Visualization Training

ParaView is an open-source, multi-platform scientific data analysis and visualization tool that enables the analysis and visualization of extremely large datasets. ParaView is both a general purpose, end-user application with a distributed architecture that can be seamlessly leveraged by your desktop or other remote parallel computing resources and an extensible framework with a collection of tools and libraries for various applications including scripting (using Python), web visualization (through trame), or in-situ analysis (with Catalyst).

This course provides an overview of ParaView, including how to visualize and process data. The examples are based on use cases from several scientific domains. Kitware, the developer of ParaView, will lead the training for NERSC, ALCF, LANL, and OLCF users. This training mixes theory and application with a set of tutorials and exercises. Users will be able to follow along using ParaView installed on their local systems or the choices of an HPC center system (NERSC/ALCF/LANL/OLCF) where they have an account on. Please notice the required prerequisites below to have installed a local client and tested connecting to a server on an HPC system of your choice. 

Objectives

• Explore ParaView's user interface
• Visualize and process data using ParaView
• Learn ParaView's Python scripting

Agenda

• User interface
• Pipeline sources and filters
• Datasets visualization and exploration 1
• Break
• Datasets visualization and exploration 2
• Datasets post-processing
• Python scripting

Prerequisites

• Required: Install a ParaView client (version 5.13.x) on your local system, complete the setup to connect to a ParaView server of the same version at either NERSC, OLCF, ALCF, or LANL (where you have an account at), and make sure you can run some basic tests as described in the corresponding docs below. Reach out to the contact persons listed for any questions. 
  
  • NERSC
    • https://docs.nersc.gov/applications/paraview/
    • Contact: Chris Harris (cjh at lbl dot gov)
  • ALCF 
    • Polaris: https://docs.alcf.anl.gov/polaris/visualization/paraview/
    • Aurora: https://docs.alcf.anl.gov/aurora/visualization/paraview
    • Contact: Silvio Rizzi (srizzi at anl dot gov), Joe Insley (insley at anl dot gov)
  • LANL
    • https://hpc.lanl.gov/software/hpc-provided-software/software-product-specific-pages/paraview.html (Must be on LANL internal network)
    • Contact: Ethan Stam (stan at lanl dot gov)
  • OLCF
    • https://docs.olcf.ornl.gov/software/viz_tools/paraview.html
    • Contact: Ken Moreland (morelandkd at ornl dot gov)
• Optional: Basic knowledge of Python