How to build VisIt with support for in-situ visualization

Building a parallel version of VisIt on your system allows you to configure VisIt that way, that it uses your MPI library and compiler to avoiding incompatibilities.

If you do not need any special configuration use the prebuild packages provided here (​link)!

QUICK HOWTO

1) download VisIt build script

• download build_visitX_Y_Z (eg. ​http://portal.nersc.gov/svn/visit/trunk/releases/2.8.1/build_visit2_8_1)
  Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

  No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

2) build 3rd party libraries

We build the 3rd party libraries in a separate step first (with "--no-visit").

a) with GCC (module load gcc):

Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

b) with Intel Compiler (module load intel):

Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

This will ...

• automatic: downloading packages ...

• automatic: configure,build packages ...
  • follow output with "tail -f build_visit2.x.x_log"

• each of the external packages get compiled and installed into a directory prefix of ./visit/PACKAGE/VERSION/ARCH/
  • the corresponding third-library-cmake-settings are created in ./hostname.cmake

3) download VisIt

• download visitx.y.z.tar.gz (eg. ​http://portal.nersc.gov/svn/visit/trunk/releases/x.y.z/visitx.y.z.tar.gz)
  Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

  No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

• extract visitx.y.z.tar.gz to previous build directory
  Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

  No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

4) configure VisIt

• copy third-library-cmake-settings to visitx.y.z
  Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

  No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

• set default compiler to GCC (module switch …)

• change director to visitx.y.z/src
  Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

  No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

• run VisIt's-'ccmake .' and generate Makefiles:
  Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

  No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

5) compile VisIt

• build will happen in visitx.y.z/src only
  (=> remove and re-extract directory visitx.y.z is a complete clean)
  Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

  No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

6) install VisIt

• create a tar.gz file
  Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

  No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

• install VisIt from that tar.gz package
  (all symlinks in libraries will be reset to the paths of the machine !!)
  Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

  No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

  • eg. visit2.8.1/src/svn_bin/visit-install 2.8.1 linux-x86_64 /home/vrsw/VisIt/2.8.1/gcc44_ompi18

7) test VisIt

• add visit path to $PATH
  Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

  No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

• add VisIt librarys to your path before you start VisIt - especially a wrong Qt leads to errors difficult to track
  (check with 'ldd' on VisIt's gui-binary)
  Error: Failed to load processor ShellExample

  No macro or processor named 'ShellExample' found

IMPORTANT COMMENTS

• VisIt should be compiled with GCC (only try Intel Compiler Suite if you really need it, in general it does not work right out of the box (​more infos).
  => make sure 'mpicc' 'mpic++' etc. use GCC before you start the build process

• IceT: may fail if "mpicc --showme:compile" does not return the path to mpi.h as first entry. Check if this is the case.
  If not you might have to set the variables PAR_COMPILER and PAR_INCLUDE before (seems to be fixed in current VisIt version):
  • export PAR_COMPILER=mpicc
  • export PAR_INCLUDE=<'mpicc --showme:compile' with path to mpi.h first>

• more details:
  • ​http://www.visitusers.org/index.php?title=Build_visit_overview
  • ​http://www.visitusers.org/index.php?title=Using_build_visit_with_intel_tools
  • ​http://www.visitusers.org/index.php?title=Building_on_Ubuntu_12.04
  • ​http://www.visitusers.org/index.php?title=ParallelPorting#Compiling_VisIt_to_run_in_parallel

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any feedback welcomed - h.zilken@…, goebbert@…