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ParaView is an extensible, open-source visualization system designed for parallel computing environments. It is built on the open-source VTK software. It uses data streaming to process large datasets, supports parallel implementations of common algorithms, and uses parallel tree-composite rendering for a completely parallel solution.
The Origins of ParaView
ParaView is being developed as part of a three-year contract awarded to
Kitware, Inc. by a consortium of three National Labs: Los Alamos,
Sandia, and Livermore. The goal of the project is to develop scalable
parallel processing tools with an emphasis on distributed memory
implementations. The project includes parallel algorithms,
infrastructure, I/O, support, and display devices. In addition, the
turn-key application, ParaView, is being developed as part of this
contract. One significant feature of the contract is that all software
developed is to be delivered open source. Hence ParaView is available
as an open-source system.
Features
The following summarizes the important features
of ParaView:
Software Architecture
Visualization Capabilities
Parallel Processing
CMake can be obtained from http://public.kitware.com/CMake. See CMake documentation for installation instructions.
VTK can be obtained downloaded from http://public.kitware.com/VTK or can be obtained via CVS using the following procedure.
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@public.kitware.com:/cvsroot/VTK login
(respond with password vtk)
Follow this command by checking out the source code:
cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@public.kitware.com:/cvsroot/VTK co -r ParaView-0-2 VTK
(Note: CVS is a source code revision control system used by many participants in the open-source community. To use CVS, you must have it installed on your system. You may wish to use the Cygwin tools on Windows platforms, or WinCVS which provides a very nice GUI to CVS.
Install and build ParaView differently depending on the operating system. Either way, you must build and/or install CMake, VTK, and Tcl/Tk 8.2.3 prior to compiling and installing ParaView. Please note that ParaView requires Tcl/Tk 8.2.3. It will not work with any other version.
Run CMake and Compile
Once CMake and Tcl/Tk 8.2.3 are installed, you are ready to build VTK and
ParaView. We highly recommend reading the CMake documentation if you are not
familiar with CMake: http://public.kitware.com/CMake/HTML/Documentation.html.
(You can skip the Developer's Guide if you are not going to work with
CMakeLists files.)
Detailed instructions for configuring and compiling VTK can be found in VTK/README.html. In summary, the VTK (and ParaView) build consists of:
The following build options are the most important ones when building VTK for ParaView. These are taken from real VTK configurations (from both a Linux, gcc and a Windows, Visual C++ build, the values found by CMake are shown inside square brackets). A brief description of each entry is given here to help users configure and build VTK with the right settings. When a value in the following list is optional, it is cleared described as such. Otherwise, the entry must be set to a proper value. Note that some entries are marked (Unix/Linux only) or (Windows only) and are only relevant to the given operating system(s). Usually, CMake will automatically set all of the other build options to appropriate values. However, if a package which is needed by VTK is in an unusual place or if it encounters something unexpected, CMake might not be able to set an option/setting correctly and you might get errors when compiling VTK. If you are not sure about what the problem might be, you can contact the ParaView mailing list.
BUILD_SHARED_LIBS [OFF]If you are going to run ParaView in a distributed environment with MPI, we recommend keeping BUILD_SHARED_LIBS OFF. This way, your ParaView executable will not depend on many VTK and ParaView shared libraries and you will have to distribute fewer shared libraries over the nodes of your distributed environment. Other shared libraries (for example, tcl and tk libraries are usually shared) which ParaView is linked against will have to exist (and in the path) on all nodes so that ParaView can find them when running.
(Unix/Linux only) OPENGL_INCLUDE_PATH [/usr/include] OPENGL_LIBRARY [/usr/lib/libGL.so]VTK requires OpenGL. On Windows, this library is almost always found automatically by CMake. On Unix/Linux, you might need to set these values if CMake does not find them when first run. Mesa include files and library can be used instead of OpenGL ones without having to set any other options.
TCL_INCLUDE_PATH [/usr/local/include] TCL_LIBRARY [/usr/local/lib/libtcl8.2.so] TK_INCLUDE_PATH [/usr/local/include] TK_LIBRARY [/usr/local/lib/libtk8.2.so] VTK_WRAP_TCL [ON]ParaView requires that VTK is built with Tcl/Tk bindings (VTK_WRAP_TCL has to be on). Furthermore, it requires that Tcl/Tk 8.2.3 is used. Any other version of Tcl/Tk will not work. The cache values for the Tcl/Tk include paths and libraries have to be set appropriately. On Windows, we recommend that you install Tcl/Tk 8.2.3 binaries using the default path (C:/Program Files/Tcl/lib). In this case, CMake will automatically find all the necessary paths.
VTK_USE_HYBRID [ON] VTK_USE_PARALLEL [ON] VTK_USE_RENDERING [ON]These modules are required by ParaView and should be turned on.
VTK_USE_PATENTED [ON]The patented module is optional. Patented classes may require a license for commercial use. Check the individual header files for patent information.
VTK_USE_MPI [OFF] MPI_INCLUDE_PATH [/usr/local/mpi/include] MPI_LIBRARY [/usr/local/mpi/lib/libmpich.a]MPI is supported by VTK and ParaView but is optional. If this option is on, you will have to specify the MPI include path and the MPI library. Once VTK is built, compiling ParaView is simple. Run CMake as described before for VTK but using the ParaView source and binary directories and set the following value:
VTK_BINARY_PATH [NOTFOUND]This entry should point to the VTK binary (build directory). This is where VTK's CMakeCache.txt and vtkConfigure.h are. Once this entry is set, CMake will read VTK's cache file for all the necessary information. You do not have to set any other options. Next build ParaView like you built VTK.