[lug] BLUG administration in 2001

[J. Wayde Allen]

On Fri, 3 Nov 2000, D. Stimits wrote:

> I'd be interested in the program design, the kind of graphics display
> library used (OpenGL, VTK, so on), and what it took to get the
> performance you wanted from a linux box.

The problem is that people doing scientific simulation don't really care
what the graphic engine is.  We just want a result that is meaningful to
the project at hand.  What you are looking for sounds more like a
discussion of graphical programing tools and methods.

> > running under Linux.  I used ran the ANSYS system on one of the NIST
> > servers.  I only used Linux to give me the X-windows interface so I could
> > work from my desk.  My most recent "simulation" was of the time dependent
> 
> Did it use OpenGL? libVTK? How hard was it to get what you wanted out of
> it?

I used the generic XFree86 server to display the graphics from the ANSYS
package on my screen.  I couldn't tell you anything about the underlying
graphic engine libraries.

> > heat flow in the calorimeter using Al's Circuit Simulator
> > <http://www.geda.seul.org/tools/acs/> running under Linux.  If a
> > discussion of this work would be of interest I could see about giving a
> > talk on it?  There isn't a lot of Linux specific content that I could give
> > in such a presentation though.  You'd learn a lot about the RF power
> > standard though <grin>.
> 
> Experience on what part of this linux could or could not handle
> reasonably, along with ideas on what linux needs to do a better job at
> this sort of thing, is of interest to me.

Linux handled this quite neatly in oh about 1 second or less.  It is
actually a pretty simple problem once you figure out how to do it.  That
is kind of the way most simulations seem to be.  The hard part is figuring
out how to do it, and then building the model in the computer.  That
usually requires lots of work creating model files with a text editor.  
Setting up Linux or any other program to solve the math is usually pretty
trivial.

- Wayde
  (wallen at lug.boulder.co.us)