Computational Steering
One of the main themes of VBM is the tight coupling
of visualization tools and interactive computations. To this end
an API has been developed which characterizes those computational
engines which can be linked to the graphics front-end of VBM.
Current computation modules include:
- AUTO (Psudeo Arclength) Software for Continuation and Bifurcation Problems in
Ordinary Differential Equations (by Doedel, et. al.)
- Serial Version
- Threads based parallel version (utilizing SUNs Parallelizing Fortran compiler)
- PVM based parallel version (PVM port by Randy Paffenroth of an Intel
Delta implementation of AUTO by Xianjun Wang)
- Rheinbolt Moving Frame multi-parameter algorithm implemented in Matlab (by Randy Paffenroth)
In addition, since these types of computations can be very intensive, VBM
also provides tools for running any of its computation engines on
remote computers, as well as multiple independant
compute engines simultaneously, so that
many parts of a diagram can be being computed at once.
Below is a schematic of the various pieces of VBM and how they fit together.
Computational Steering interface diagram
Randy Paffenroth redrod@masg1.epfl.ch
