TRANSP to ElVis: elvislib

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TRANSP to ElVis elvislib
By Ben BariteauMentor Doug McCune
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Scientific Graphics
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Data Monitoring Integrated with Job Monitoring
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Web Services
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ElVis Software Package

• Display program
• 45,000 lines of Java code
• 300 classes
• Summer 08 Over 200 updates to the code
• Application Programming Interface (API)
• Fortran
• C/C
• Java

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TRANSP and elvislib

• elvislib was created primarily for TRANSP so that
  the Fortran and C programs within TRANSP could
  take advantage of the Java visualization tool
  ElVis
• elvislib is primarily used with programs like
  rplot, cstate, and sigtab for displaying graphs
  and tables with a GUI that allows for intuitive
  manipulation and management tools
• ElVis was created with these programs in mind,
  which led to the creation of elvislib for these
  programs to send data to ElVis

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elvislib EML Transfer

• elvislib stores information in memory about
  different types of graphs, including normal two
  dimensional graphs, surface plots, indexed
  graphs, and tables
• This information is translated into EML when
  ef_graphwindowdisplay() is called

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Sending EML files

• ef_sendfile() was created to send files to ElVis
  after they have been generated.
• elvis_send_file uses ef_sendfile() to send files
  through the CLI
• Changes in code
• ef_sendfile() was created in graphwindow.c, which
  sends files to the destinations in the ElVis
  environment variable
• Challenges
• elvis_send_file had to remove all filenames from
  the ElVis environment variable, so that files
  could not be written to and read from
  simultaneously
• ef_sendfile() had to be able to send concatenated
  EML, so that ElVis did not throw exceptions.

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ElVis Markup Language (EML)?

• EML is an XML-based language
• Designed by Steve Krenzel
• Tags contain information that is sent from
  elvislib to ElVis
• elvislib creates these tags and ElVis translates
  these into graphs

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EML DTD
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Hierarchical EML Structure

• All EML is contained within a tag
• A graphwindow is contained within a
  tag
• Graphs are contained within a tag

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Tables

• Tables can now be sent to ElVis
• Changes in code
• Column structure added
• Column structure allows for an
• array of strings
• Columns have their own background
• and font colors, as well as font style
• (Italic, Bold) and a font (Serif,
  Monospaced, etc.)?
• Column has a header that is the title of the
  column.

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Tables, contd.

• Changes in code
• columnList added to Graph structure
• A list of Columns contained in a Table graph.
• topTextList and bottomTextList added to Graph
  structure
• Lists of Labels that appear at the top and bottom
  of the Table, respectively.
• Each label has it's own color, background color,
  font, and style attributes
• Added EML output for Tables

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Table Functions

• Functions added to the API
• concerning Tables
• ef_tablecreate()?
• ef_columncreate()?
• ef_tableaddcolumn()?
• ef_graphwindowaddtable()?
• ef_columnsetrowlabels()?

• ef_columnsetbgcolor()?
• ef_columnsetheader()?
• ef_columnsetfontname()?
• ef_columnsetfontstyle()?
• ef_columnsetfontsize()?
• ef_columnsetfontcolor()?
• ef_tableaddtoptext()?
• ef_tableaddbottomtext()?

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Tables and EML

• Tables use multiple tags
• Within each tag there can be a number of
  s
• Each contains a value attribute
• A can contain any of the attributes
  listed on the right
• Tables can also have multiple and
  tags
• These can contain the attributes listed on the
  right

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Tables - Challenges

• Creating a structure that could hold all the data
• necessary and adding it to the current
  structures
• Getting arrays of strings from Fortran to C
• Defining the color mechanism (next section)?

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Colors

• Colors were used in
• ef_graphaddlabel()
• ef_tableaddtoptext()
• ef_tableaddbottomtext()
• ef_columnsetbgcolor()
• ef_columnsetfontcolor()?
• Previously, the API used 3 floating-point numbers
  from
• 0.0 to 1.0 to represent colors
• This made compatibility easy, but it was not
  intuitive
• Now, the API takes a string with either a color
  value
• (i.e. rgb 0.2 0.5 0.1) or color name
  (i.e. name blue)?
• Future colorspaces like HSV can be added

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Logarithmic Z Axis in Surface Plots

• The index (Z) axis of this surface plot can now
• be set to be logarithmic, unlike before,
  where
• it could only be linear
• Default linear on left, logarithmic on right
• Used through ef_graphsetzaxis()?

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Log Z-axis and EML

• The z-axis logarithmic/linear scale control is
  sent through the tags
• tags have a numberstyle attribute which
  controls the scale of a graph
• This is interpreted through an with
  direction of z and a numberstyle of 4

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Short Title

• shortTitle in the tag
• i.e.,
• This allows for the a smaller title to be shown
  when the graph becomes too small to display the
  normal title
• The top graph is large enough to show the entire
  title, while the bottom one is small enough to
  show a shortened smaller title

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Short Title and EML

• Short title was added to the EML through an
  attribute in the tag
• now has an attribute called shortTitle,
  which specifies the short title
• This is generated by elvislib when a shortTitle
  is specified

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Gridlines

• It is now possible to add gridlines to normal
• graphs using ef_setxgrid and ef_setygrid
• Examples of their effect can be seen above
• (no gridlines on left, gridlines on right)?

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Gridlines and EML

• Gridlines are shown through the showGridlines
  attribute on the axis tag
• This can be true or false, and is generated
  by elvislib accordingly

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Multiple ElVis Displays

• More than one server and/or filename
• A filename beginning with '/' or '.'
• A hostname or IP
• localhost
• (uses the current computer as the host)?
• stderr or stdout
• filegen automatically generates a
• filename with PID, application name,
• and username

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Multiple ElVis Displays, contd.

• Changes in code
• In graphwindow.c
• ef_initialize() now handles ElVis output
  environment variable exclusively
• initialize() was changed to use an index to find
  a certain output an index to
• find a certain output
• ef_GraphWindowSendEML() now loops through all
  outputs, sends EML to each
• In binio.c
• binio_set_gwFile() added to set gwfile in binio.c
• Challenges
• The mechanism for sending output to a file had to
  be circumvented
• with binio_set_gwFile()?
• All other uses of environment variables removed
  or changed

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Acknowledgments

• Doug McCune, TRANSP developer, my mentor
• Eliot Feibush ElVis creator and developer, my
  mentor
• Andrew Zwicker, Christine Ritter, James Morgan
  PPPL Science Education Program
• Eric Zatz ElVis Display-side EML Developer

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Questions?
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Eric Zatz -CPPG summer undergrad
ElVis Mark-Up Language
Eliot - Mentor
Ben API, EML
Matt System Services
Doug Mentor CPPG Group Head
Mike Movie Making
User Enhancements Tutorials