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G4DAE and G4DAEVIEW Development History

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G4DAEView Chroma

g4daeview.py

Usage Tips

  1. Exit other apps that make heavy use of GPU acceleration whilst running g4daeview.py (and especially when launching Chroma raycasts)
    • Google Chrome snags GPU resources far more that Safari,
    • Uncheck Use hardware acceleration when available in Chrome > Settings > Advanced Settings [System]
    • and restart Chrome for it to take effect

Usage text

On pressing “U” usage text describing the actions of each key are written to stdout. (TODO: display to screen)

Event Loading/slicing tips

Create/update bookmarks with smaller sample size (update bookmarked viewpoints with “space” ) by using high slice scaledowns like –slice ::100. Then when presenting more photons with eg –slice ::10 can just jump to the prepared bookmarks.

g4daeview.sh --load 1 --type opcerenkovgen --slice ::100
g4daeview.sh --load 1 --type opscintillationgen --slice ::100

# NB types without the gen like "opcerenkov" are propagated already

g4daeview.sh --load 1 --type cerenkov

Receive ChromaPhotonList from Remote Geant4

ChromaPhotonList instances are transported using ZMQRoot

ZMQRoot package uses ROOT TMessage (de)serialization and ZeroMQ messaging to implement a simple API:

class ZMQRoot {
public:
      ZMQRoot(const char* envvar);
      void SendObject(TObject* obj);
      TObject* ReceiveObject();

A three node network topology is currently used:

client
nuwa.py/Geant4 process
worker
g4daeview.py/Chroma process
broker
zmq_broker.sh process

Usage steps:

  • check if the ZMQ broker is running on belle7, if not launch it:

    delta:~ blyth$ ssh N
    [blyth@belle7 ~]$ pgrep zmq_broker
    [blyth@belle7 ~]$ zmq_broker.sh
  • launch the worker, envvar defaults configure connection to broker on belle7:

    delta:~ blyth$ g4daeview.sh
  • launch the client on belle7:

    [blyth@belle7 ~]$ which csa.sh   # CSA for ChromaStackAction
    ~/env/bin/csa.sh
    [blyth@belle7 ~]$ csa.sh

The csa.sh job within its ChromaStackAction collects photons into a ChromaPhotonList and ready for transport with ZMQRoot.

Load/Save ChromaPhotonList

Once a CPL has arrived via ZMQ, it can be saved to file with:

delta:~ blyth$ udp.py --save /usr/local/env/tmp/1.root

Subsequently can load the root file at launch with:

delta:g4daeview blyth$ g4daeview.sh --load /usr/local/env/tmp/1.root

Or loading can be done interactively with udp.py to change or set the loaded event:

delta:~ blyth$ udp.py --load /usr/local/env/tmp/1.root

The objects loaded or saved from root files can also have an associated key using option –key WHATEVER the default key is CPL.

Launch arguments only support a single –load, but interactive arguments support multiple loads allowing multiple objects to be loaded.

  • TODO: dont replace but concatenate drawing of multiple loaded objects

Screen Captures and apache publishing

Save any screencaptures directly into apache htdocs using:

g4(){
    apache-
    g4daeview.sh --outdir=$(apache-htdocs)/env/geant4/geometry/collada/g4daeview --load 1 $*
}

(chroma_env)delta:~ blyth$ apache-cd
(chroma_env)delta:Documents blyth$ l env
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  42 Aug 27 15:28 env -> /Users/blyth/simoncblyth.bitbucket.org/env

NB apache-htdocs env is a symbolic link into simoncblyth.bitbucket.org (a bitbucket repository for statics with size limit of 1GB) see bitbucketstatic-

Captures can be remotely invoked using:

udp.py --screencapture

Grab Screen Captures including GLUT menus

The above screencapture techniqies exclude any GLUT menus that are appearing. To include those use:

  • Grab.app > Capture > Timed Screen screen is captured 10s after starting timer, allowing to prepare menus
  • the image is opened in Grab.app and can be saved in a .tiff

Subsequently propagate to remote apache with:

env-htdocs-rsync C2

TODO: adopt config file for settings like outdir (maybe ~/.g4daeview/config.cfg)

Partial geometry

Partial geometry can be specified listwise or treewise, for example:

# listwise
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 3153:      # skips Universe, rock and RPC, but includes everything in the pool
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 6473:      # skips the ADs
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 4:3146     # RPC

# treewise shortform
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 3147+      #
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 3152+      # without radslabs
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 3154-      # includes only SST and nodes beneath that in the tree, ie the contents of SST
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 4536+ -n2  # children of a volume (calibration dome) excluding the volume itself, near is specified to avoid near clipping

# treewise longform
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 3154_1.5   # specify min/max recursion depth from the basenode
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 2_0.0        # just volume 2
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 2_1.1        # just immediate children of volume 2

# combination form
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 3153+,4813+
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 3153_1.2,4813_1.2
g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 3153_0.2,4813_0.2,6473: --with-chroma    # smoke and mirrors, looks like default "3153:" but with much fewer volumes

g4daeview.py -p dyb -g 3153_0.2,4813_0.2,6473: --with-chroma --size 640,480 --launch 1,1,1

TIP: to determine node tree indices click on the solids in the viewer and use daeserver urls like the below to list the tree:

http://belle7.nuu.edu.tw/dae/tree/4813___2.txt?ancestors=1

The partial geometry specified is also used for Chroma raycasting, which is a simple way to make raycast rendering faster.

Target Mode

Target mode presents many volumes but targets one by orienting the initial viewpoint with respect to the target using units based on the extent of the target and axis directions

Identify target via relative to node list (starting with + or -) or absolute addressing:

g4daeview.py -g 3153:12230 -t -300
g4daeview.py -g 3153:12230 -t +10

   # target relative to the node list

g4daeview.py -g 3153:12230 -t +0       # relative
g4daeview.py -g 3153:12230 -t 3153     # absolute equivalent

g4daeview.py -t +0

   # when using a sensible default node list, this is convenient

g4daeview.py -g 3153:12230 -t 5000 --eye="-2,-2,-2"

   # control the starting eyepoint relative to the target

interactive target selection

Switching target to a volume adjusts the viewpoint to be close to the volume and looking towards it and also modifies the center of virtual trackball rotation. Simply drag around on the trackpad to adjust viewpoint relative to the target.

To switch target:

  1. hold the Q key whilst clicking on a directly visible volume, beware of selecting transparent volumes that are infront of the volume you intended
  2. this may result in being closer than intended and near clipping might make the target invisible
    • press N whilst dragging up/down to adjust the near point
    • press Z whilst dragging down to back off the viewpoint position
  3. optionally to create a bookmark for the viewpoint:
    • click again on the target volume whilst pressing a number key not yet used for a bookmark

TODO:

  1. avoid target selection changing viewpoint direction

near/far clipping controls

When you approach too closely to some geometry it will disappear due to near clipping. Similarly distant geometry can disappear from far clipping. To control the near/far clipping planes:

  • press “N” while dragging up/down to change “near” distance
  • press “F” while dragging up/down to change “far” distance

To illustrate the viewing frustum (square pyramid chopped at near/far planes with “eye” at the apex) and near/far planes press “K” to switch on markers and trackball away from the view into order to look back at its frustum. Also change “near” and “far” to see how that changes the depth planes.

ISSUES

Somehow changing “near” sometimes acts to change “far” clipping. Possibly this is due to limited depth buffering, the issue seems less prevalent with less extreme “near” and “far” values.

solid picking

  1. Clicking pixels with mouse/trackpad, yields an (x,y,z) screen position the z value comes from the depth buffer representing the position of nearest surface.
  2. An unprojection transforms the screen space coordinate into world space.
  3. This coordinate is then used to determine the list of solids which contain the point within their bounding box. The solid indices, names and extents in mm are written to the screen.
  4. The smallest solid is regarded as “picked”. Key “O” toggles high-lighting of picked solids with wireframe spheres.

TODO

Make more use of this, eg to display material/surface properties, position in heirarchy

placemarks

The commandline to return to a viewpoint and camera configuration is written to stdout on exiting or on pressing “W”.

markers

Switch on markers with “K”, the look point is illustrated with a wireframe cube with wireframe sphere inside. Also the frustum of the current view excluding any offset trackball rotation + translation and raycast direction/origin are illustrated.

Viewpoint Bookmarks

Number keys are used to create and visit bookmarks. While pressing a number key 1-9 click on a solid to create a bookmark, the view adopts the coordinate frame corresponding to the solid clicked. Subsequently pressing number keys 0-9 visit the bookmarks created, and pressing SPACE updates the current bookmark (last one created/visited) to bake any offsets made from the view into the view. Bookmark 0 is created at startup for the initial viewpoint.

A bookmark comprises:

  • a solid (or the entiremesh), which defines the view coordinate system. Unit of length is the extent of the solid
  • “eye” position, eg -2,-2,0
  • “look” position, eg 0,0,0 : about which trackball rotations are applied
  • “up” direction, eg 0,0,1

Note that trackball translations/rotations do not update the “view”, although they do of course update what you see. To solidify trackballing offsets into the current view press SPACE.

  • drag around to rotate about the “look” point using a virtual trackball, XY positions are projected onto virtual sphere trackball, which allow offset rotations to be obtained via some Quaternion math
  • press “X” while dragging around to translate in screen XY direction
  • press “Z” while dragging up/down to tranlate in screen Z direction (in/out)

All bookmarks other than bookmark zero which corresponds to the launch viewpoint are persisted at exit into a “bookmarks_%(path)s.cfg” file in the working directory, where the path is filled in with in launch path argument. This allows separate bookmarks to be maintained per site. A subsequent session from the same directory re-loads the bookmarks.

ISSUES

  1. when viewing partial geometry bookmarks which refer to volumes that are not present are not loaded, so bookmarks set when using more complete geometry will be lost. Workaround is to launch from a different directories for different geometries or use –bookmarks path option. Solution of incorporating geometry spec into the bookmarks name, seems clumsy.
  2. perhaps persist the exiting viewpoint into bookmark-0 ?

Animation

interpolate between bookmarks

Press “B” to setup an animation that linearly interpolates between the bookmarked views starting at the current bookmark. Two or more bookmarks are required. To change the animation first update the bookmarks and then press “B” again.

orbiting mode

Press “V” to setup a flyaround or orbit mode for the current bookmark. The initial “look” direction is tangential, so you might need to turn inwards using the trackball controls to see the geometry.

ISSUES: rotation point not where intended, makes difficult to use

animation control

Following setup of bookmark or orbit animations, pressing “M” will toggle the animation. Speed of animation can be adjusted using the right/left arrow keys. During animation trackball translation/rotation can still be used to adjust the effective viewpoint. Also most other controls can still be used during the animation, such as near/far clipping or switching to Chroma raycast rendering.

TODO: key to reverse animation

photon propagation time control : interactive and auto scanning

  1. press control key and tap on the trackpad whilst over g4daeview window to display the contextual menu, select photons > style > movie-extra
  2. several other presentational styles also give animated propagation effects
    • movie
    • dmovie
    • confetti-1
    • dconfetti-1
  3. scrub backwards/forwards the propagation global time (in ns) by toggling time mode by holding the QUOTELEFT key (with tilde at top left of keyboard) whilst dragging up/down on trackpad. The time in nanoseconds is displayed at the top left of the window title bar.
  4. to toggle automatic scanning of global time press M whilst in time mode (holding QUOTELEFT)

remote control

A subset of the commandline launch options can be sent over the network to the running application. This allows numerical control of viewpoint and camera parameters.:

udp.py -t 7000 --eye=10,0,0 --look=0,0,0 --up=0,0,1
udp.py -t 7000_10,0,0_0,0,0_0,0,1                    # equivalent short form

The viewpoint is defined by the eye and look positions and the up direction, which are provided in the coordinate frame of the target solid. NB rotations are performed about the look position, that is often set to 0,0,0 corresponding to the center of the solid. The “K” key toggle markers indicating the eye and look position.

The options that are accepted interactively are marked with “I” in the options list:

daeview.sh --help

raycast launch control

Press “R” to toggle raycast mode.

To avoid GPU panics/system crashes

  • subsequent raycast launches are aborted when launch times exceed max-time cutoff
  • launch configuration is controlled by eg launch=3,2,1 and block=8,8,1 options which configure 2D launch
  • raycast launches tyically use 2D pixel thread blocks, some speedups achieved by moving from line of pixels to 2D regions in order for the work within a warp of 32 threads to be more uniform

interactive switch to metric pixels presentation

The chroma raycast metrics available for display must be defined at launch with eg:

g4daeview.py --metric time/tri/node

The restricted flexibility is due to needing to compile the kernel to change the metric. This is to avoid little used branching in the kernel.

Kernel flags can be controlled by remote control, eg:

udp.py --flags 15,0    # does 15 controls bit shift, here "metric >> 15"

screen capture

Pressing “E” will create a screen capture and write a timestamp dated .png to the current directory.

movie capture

Not implemented, as find that on OSX can simply use QuickTime Player.app

  • File > New Screen Recording to create a very large .mov (~1GB for ~2min)
  • File > Export ... to compress .mov to .m4v

Parallel/Orthographic projection

Press “P” to toggle between orthographic/parallel projection and the default perspective projection.

  • “Z” to translate eye point in/out

    As parallel projection corresponds to the view from infinity it is somewhat paradoxical that translating in Z has any effect, however it does so indirectly via changing where the near clipping plane falls

  • “N” to change near

  • “Y” to change yfov

  • “F” to change far

To “enter” geometry while in parallel, use small FOV (eg 5 degrees) and vary near and Z in order to clip the volumes.

TODO: Get Chroma raycast to work in parallel projection mode, need to
come up with the matrix and probably change the kernel.

Presentation

g4daeview.py -g 4998:6000

  # default includes lights, fill with transparency

g4daeview.py -g 4998:6000 --line

  # adding wireframe lines slows rendering significantly,toggle lines with "L"

g4daeview.py -g 4998 --nofill

   # without polygon fill the lighting/transparency has no effect, toggle face fill with "A"

g4daeview.py -g 4998 --nofill

   # blank white

g4daeview.py -g 4900:5000,4815 --notransparent

   # see the base of the PMTs poking out of the cylinder when transparency off

g4daeview.py -g 4900:5000,4815 --rgba .7,.7,.7,0.5

   # changing colors, especially alpha has a drastic effect on output

g4daeview.py -g 3153:6000

   # inside the pool, 2 ADs : navigation is a challenge, its dark inside

g4daeview.py -g 6070:6450

   # AD structure, shows partial radial shield

g4daeview.py -g 6480:12230

   # pool PMTs, AD support, scaffold?    when including lots of volumes switching off lines is a speedup

g4daeview.py -g 12221:12230

   # rad slabs

g4daeview.py -g 2:12230

   # full geometry, excluding only boring (and large) universe and rock

g4daeview.py -g 3153:12230

   # skipping universe, rock and RPC makes for easier inspection inside the pool