TeraGrid and scientific visualization using ParaView
The TeraGrid is an NSF-supported, national distributed computing environment for open scientific research. It includes 20 teraflops of computing power distributed across
eight sites with facilities capable of managing and storing nearly 1 petabyte of data, high-resolution visualization environments, and toolkits for grid computing. All
the sites are tightly integrated and connected through a network that operates 40 gigabits per second.
ParaView is an extensible, open source multi-platform application for visualizing large data sets. ParaView operates on a wide range of data formats including
structured, unstructured grids, and adaptive mesh refinement data sets. ParaView includes suit of visualization algorithms, including contouring, clipping, streamlines,
stream ribbons, glyphing, and animations. In addition to these features, ParaView offers an advantage of running visualization processes in distributed and parallel
fashion for processing large data sets. It runs parallel on distributed and shared memory systems using Message Passing Interface (MPI). ParaView uses the data parallel
model. In this model, data is broken into the pieces to be processed by different processors which allows to visualize large data sets. This capability makes Paraview
suitable visualization application for TeraGrid environment.
TeraGrid access was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the following programs: Partnerships for Advanced Computational Infrastructure, Distributed
Terascale Facility (DTF) and Terascale Extensions: Enhancements to the Extensible Terascale Facility, with Grant Number: TG-CTS050003T.
For more information on ParaView, visit http://www.paraview.org. For more information about the Computational Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), contact Resat Umit Payli (rpayli@iupui.edu) or see http://www.engr.iupui.edu/me/newmerl/cfdl_mission.htm.
For more information on the TeraGrid, visit http://www.teragrid.org