Re: [idvusers] ISL script examples please? (and dreams)

Hi Brian,

If you could please email me offline the contact info for the Yellowstone folks 
who installed IDV and TurboVNC, that would be great.  While I've successfully 
built and installed TurboVNC and VirtualGL, I've not been able to get the GLX 
extensions to load in the virtual X servers, only in the primary one.

However, I've been able to run an ISL script using a headless setup, simply by 
running an X server configured for "headless" mode.  This entails placing an 
option in the Screen stanza in your Xorg.conf:

Option  "UseDisplayDevice" "none"

This works with an Nvidia graphics card, using the proprietary Nvidia drivers.  
I will see if it also works with the AMD/Radeon cards.

In practice, one logs into the headless server, sets DISPLAY to :0, and runs 
the script.  I've successfully run a simple GOES-East image-displaying ISL 
script both interactively, via a shell script, and via a cron job.

Maybe this eliminates the need for virtual X servers when generating graphics 
with IDV scripts??

Comments welcome.

Thanks,

--Kevin

_____________________________________________
Kevin Tyle, Systems Administrator 
Dept. of Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences   
University at Albany
Earth Science 235, 1400 Washington Avenue                        
Albany, NY 12222
Email: ktyle@xxxxxxxxxx
Phone: 518-442-4578                             
_____________________________________________

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Mapes [mailto:bmapes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 4:58 PM
To: Tyle, Kevin R
Cc: idvusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [idvusers] ISL script examples please? (and dreams)

I got the NCAR Yellowstone/ geyser analysis machine people to install IDV 
there. That uses turboVNC if I recall. But they didnt teach me the howto 
issues, they just made it work. 

In case anyone wants use details just ask. 

Brian Mapes
This message was typed on a cell phone, please forgive its terseness and any 
errors. 

On Aug 28, 2013, at 4:07 PM, "Tyle, Kevin R" <ktyle@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi Don, Brendon, et al.:
> 
> Re: virtual X server and IDV:
> 
> I've been investigating the TurboVNC/VirtualGL packages to see if I can get 
> IDV to work properly on a server that does not run a real X server ... still 
> in the preliminary stages.  If anyone else has tried, though, do let us know!
> 
> --Kevin
> 
> _____________________________________________
> Kevin Tyle, Systems Administrator 
> Dept. of Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences   
> University at Albany
> Earth Science 235, 1400 Washington Avenue                        
> Albany, NY 12222
> Email: ktyle@xxxxxxxxxx
> Phone: 518-442-4578                             
> _____________________________________________
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: idvusers-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:idvusers-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Don Murray
> Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 3:46 PM
> To: idvusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [idvusers] ISL script examples please? (and dreams)
> 
> Thanks for the clarifications, Brendon!  Nice work!
> 
> Don
> 
> On 8/28/13 1:44 PM, Brendon Hoch wrote:
>> Don Murray wrote:
>>> Hi Brendon-
>>> 
>>> Thanks for this information.  Hopefully it will help others along.  
>>> A couple of questions/comments:
>>> 
>>> - did you have to install the old Java 3D library to get this to 
>>> work with Xvfb?  Kevin Tyle has been looking at this for supporting 
>>> the IDV image generation in RAMADDA, so if you've found a solution 
>>> without that, we should chat offline.
>> 
>> I believe I used the "legacy" Java 3D library during the IDV install 
>> process as recommended by previous users.  Nothing else special...
>> 
>>> - You could do the annotation in ISL as well - it supports image and 
>>> text overlays with the <overlay> tag.  You can control the font and 
>>> background color of the text.  Is there a reason you are using 
>>> convert instead?
>> 
>> We use convert to caption much of our other image generation from 
>> Gempak, so it was easier to recycle existing code.
>> 
>>> - you can also create animated gifs with convert using the -loop option .
>> 
>> Generating gifs (or animated gifs) didn't work with idv + Xvfb, only png .
>> 
>> Another issue was a limitation based on our mapwall configuration.
>> Previously, we used Imagemagick's "display" command for showing 
>> imagery on a screen with the "-window root" option (clean, full 
>> screen image without window borders).  This works fine with older 
>> flavors of Linux that treat a quad-head graphics card with multiple 
>> monitors as separate screens (0.0, 0.1, 0.2, etc).  Newer versions of 
>> Linux treat multiple monitors as one big screen, so an alternative was 
>> needed.
>> I'm now using "feh" to display individual images in a multi-screen 
>> environment.  It allows you to set exactly on your "screen" where you 
>> want the image by specifying a size & offset using the -g option.
>> Based on our setup, feh worked better with individual gifs than animated 
>> gifs.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Brendon
>>> 
>>> As Jeff McWhirter used to say - ISL is the most fully documented 
>>> code in IDV. Glad you found it worked for you.
>>> 
>>> Don
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 8/28/13 6:31 AM, Brendon Hoch wrote:
>>>> Brian,
>>>> 
>>>> I've attached an isl script, shell script, and bundle that I've 
>>>> been using for the past few months to generate a real time 
>>>> satellite imagery loop for our mapwall display.  Some notes:
>>>> 
>>>> - We're using Centos 5.8 64 bit with plans to move to CentOS 6.x in 
>>>> the near future.
>>>> - Script is scheduled for generation every 30 minutes at :14 & :44 
>>>> to give enough time for satellite images to populate on ADDE servers.
>>>> - We're using stock Xvfb for a display buffer.  Xvfb runs all the 
>>>> time, you might need to create a startup script, which you should 
>>>> be able to find examples of by searching the web based on your linux 
>>>> flavor.
>>>> - Historically, 64 bit IDV has had issues generating gifs with Xvfb.
>>>> But, it seemed to work ok for generating png files.  So, I convert 
>>>> from png to gif using Imagemagick's convert command.  I also use 
>>>> Imagemagick to add nice labels to the image.  I use gifsicle to 
>>>> generate an animated gif.
>>>> - I haven't tried generating .mov files because our mapwall display 
>>>> doesn't use them, but the process should be similar.  The ISL 
>>>> documentation is actually quite good (the hardest part is finding
>>>> it!)
>>>> 
>>>> Hope this helps,
>>>> Brendon
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> idvusers mailing list
>>>> idvusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> For list information, to unsubscribe, visit:
>>>> http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/mailing_lists/
> 
> --
> Don Murray
> NOAA/ESRL/PSD and CIRES
> 303-497-3596
> http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/people/don.murray/
> 
> _______________________________________________
> idvusers mailing list
> idvusers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> For list information, to unsubscribe, visit: 
> http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/mailing_lists/
> 
> 
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