Visualizaton Tools and the Tutorial #3: A Remote Setting up the Local

Running interactively.

Select the Remote Connection widget and enter the (1) internet address of the remote server (i.e. Host), (2) 'cd Celia_server; pexec us3d -sz 4' in the Application text field, (3) user name and (4) password. Selecting Start initiates the remote commands on the server. (See Figure 16) In the text window, the direct output is displayed. Once registration of variables (Tracking) and Parameters (Steering) is complete, select the Connection button to register the corresponding variables on your client workstation.

Figure 16: Connection Interface Widget

Select the Remote Variables widget which lists all registered tracking variables. You may enter any time step in the Time Index text field for variables that have been computed. An option for 3D data compression may be selected for transfer of large data sets. The value of -1 selects data for the current time step. You may select either variables `pressure' or `concentration', remembering that the Min-Max values of the color map need to be adjusted accordingly. Additional data from individual processors are also available for debugging and observing solver behavior.
First set the color map text fields in the Main Window to Min=-30 and Max=70 and select the current pressure data by entering -1 into the Remote Variables widgets Time Index text field and selecting pressure. In the Main Window, advance the time control to view the current pressure field.
Next change the color map text field to Min=0. and Max=.01. Select the current concentration data by entering -1 into the Remote Variables widgets Time Index text field and selecting concentration. Previous time-indexed concentration data sets may be retrieved and viewed at any time. Requesting them will automatically load them into G3D and overwrite previous data with that time index. You may use the Delete button in the Main Window to delete unwanted data with the current Time Index.
The results of using a 3D data compression option (using Remote Compression) are illustrated in Figure 17 for a refined version (129x137x11) of the Celia data set which was used in Tutorial 1. Figure 17.a shows the results of rendering the original data set while Figure 17.d is a rendering of the data file reconstructed after lossy compression by a factor of 1200. 3D Data Compression is not included in all distributions. Please contact Bob Sharpley (sharpley@math.sc.edu) for more information.
To illustrate the capability of steering, select the Start button of the Connection widget. After variables and parameters are registered (observe the direct output text window in the widget), select Connect. Select Remote Parameters to bring up the widget of all registered parameters. In this tutorial, only the concentration level of a specific cell is registered. Change its value to 1 and enter Return. Select an additional slice of y=2 in the Tools Slice widget to observe the effect of introducing an additional contaminant at that location.

Figure 17:

Comparison of Compressed Data to original Scalar Field: a) Original data and Compression Rates of b) 172, c) 493, and d) 1200 times compression.

See the Frequently Asked Questions file (`FAQ'), which is included in the Interactive Controller library distribution, if there are problems with communication or security issues at a particular site. Several workarounds for facilties with firewalls are described.

Visualizaton Tools and the Tutorial #3: A Remote Setting up the Local