SENSEI

SENSEI is a middleware that allows one to send data to various visualization and analysis back ends through a uniform interface. It’s data model and API enable one to chose the desired visualization and analysis back end for a given task with out limiting ones options, as the back ends can be inter-changed at run time via a text based config file.

Overview

The following tutorials are available:

Name	Description
Advection_AmrCore	This tutorial illustrates an explicit SENSEI instrumentation of a code that makes use of amrex::AmrMesh.
Advection_AmrLevel	This tutorial illustrates 3 scenarios with a code that makes use of amrex::Amr. The first, ImplcitAmr, illustrates using SENSEI with the built-in instrumentation in amrex::Amr. The second, ExplcitAmr, illustrates using SENSEI with an explicit instrumentation. The third, ExplicitParticlesAndAmr, illustrates using SENSEI from a simulation that generates both particle and meshed based data.

Note that the Advection_AmrLevel contains code for 3 different scenarios. Which of these is active/available depends on how AMReX is compiled. See below for the details on configuring the build.

Setting up the build

Compiling the AMReX SENSEI tutorials requires that SENSEI is previously installed. The options that SENSEI was built with determine the specific in situ capabilities available. Additional CMake options must also be passed when compiling AMReX to activate the SENSEI bridge and adaptors bundled with AMReX.

Build options

The options that AMReX is compiled with determine which SENSEI tutorials are available. The following table summarizes the various combinations and results.

CMake Options	What gets built
-DAMReX_SENSEI=ON -DAMReX_FORTRAN=ON -DSENSEI_DIR=<path to install>	Enables SENSEI features in AMReX. Required to compile SENSEI tutorials. Enables the AmrCore tutorial and AmrLevel implicit tutorial.
-DAMReX_SENSEI=ON -DAMReX_PARTICLES=ON -DAMReX_NO_SENSEI_AMR_INST=TRUE -DAMReX_FORTRAN=ON -DSENSEI_DIR=<path to install>	Enables the AmrCore tutorial, AmrLevel explicit tutorial, and particle based tutorials to be compiled.
-DAMReX_SENSEI=ON -DAMReX_NO_SENSEI_AMR_INST=TRUE -DAMReX_FORTRAN=ON -DSENSEI_DIR=<path to install>	Enables the AmrCore tutorial, AmrLevel explicit tutorial.

Running the tutorials

Once the tutorials are compiled they can be run from their corresponding directory. The executable is passed an AMReX parm-parse inputs file configuring the run. Options inside the inputs file configure the SENSEI instrumentation inside AMReX. Additionally SENSEI needs to configure the back-end that will process the data generated. This is done with a SENSEI XML file. Within each tutorial the sensei directory contains a number of SENSEI XML configuration files. The inputs file must be modified to point to one of these. Which one depends on how SENSEI was compiled. For instance the following snippet from an inputs file would configure SENSEI to send data to ParaView Catalyst,

sensei.enabled = 1                                 # turn SENSEI in situ on/off
sensei.config = sensei/render_iso_catalyst_3d.xml  # render simulation data with ParaView Catalyst
sensei.frequency = 1                               # number of level 0 steps between in situ processing

while the following snippet would configure SENSEI to send data to VisIt Libsim,

sensei.enabled = 1                                 # turn SENSEI in situ on/off
sensei.config = sensei/render_iso_libsim_3d.xml    # render simulation data with ParaView Catalyst
sensei.frequency = 1                               # number of level 0 steps between in situ processing

There are a number of XML files providing the configuration for a number of the available back-ends. A given SENSEI XML configuration is only valid when the SENSEI install has been compiled with the requisite back-end enabled.

Note that the Advection_AmrLevel_ExplicitParticlesAndAmr uses the file inputs.tracers while the others use the file inputs.

The tutorials are run by switching into the tutorial’s build directory and issuing the launching command. For instance the Advection_AmrLevel_ImplicitAmr tutorial is launched by a command similar to:

mpiexec -np 4 ./Advection_AmrLevel_ImplicitAmr inputs