[lug] BLUG administration in 2001

[D. Stimits]

"J. Wayde Allen" wrote:
> 
> 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.

An interesting corollary to this is the question of "When do you find
the right engines and when not, to create a pure linux visualization
app? What needs to be developed to bring linux to the same ability level
as some other platform that does the job now?"

> 
> > > 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)
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Web Page:  http://lug.boulder.co.us
> Mailing List: http://lists.lug.boulder.co.us/mailman/listinfo/lug