In Situ Visualization of Performance-Related Data in Parallel CFD Applications

Abstract

This paper aims at investigating the feasibility of using ParaView as visualization software for the analysis and optimization of parallel CFD codes’ performance. The currently available software tools for reading profiling data do not match the generated measurements to the simulation’s original mesh and somehow aggregate them (rather than showing them on a time-step basis). A plugin for the open-source performance tool Score-P has been developed, which intercept an arbitrary number of manually selected code regions (mostly functions) and send their respective measurements – amount of executions and cumulative time spent – to ParaView (through its in situ library, Catalyst), as if they were any other flow-related variable. Results show that (i) the impact of mesh partition algorithms on code performance and (ii) the load imbalances (and their eventual relationship to mesh size/simulation physics) become easier to investigate.