3-D Visualization
ParaProf displays massive parallel profiles through the use of OpenGL hardware acceleration through the 3D Visualization window. Each window is fully configurable with rotation, translation, and zooming capabilities. Rotation is accomplished by holding the left mouse button down and dragging the mouse. Translation is done likewise with the right mouse button. Zooming is done with the mousewheel and the + and - keyboard buttons.
Triangle Mesh Plot
This visualization method shows two metrics for all functions, all threads. The height represents one chosen metric, and the color, another. These are selected from the drop-down boxes on the right.
To pinpoint a specific value in the plot, move the Function and Thread sliders to cycle through the available functions/threads. The values for the two metrics, in this case for MPI_Recv() on Node 351 , the value is 14.37 seconds.
3-D Bar Plot
This visualization method is similar to the triangle mesh plot. It simply displays the data using 3d bars instead of a mesh. The controls works the same. Note that in 3-D Mesh Plot the transparency option is selected, which changes the way in which the selection model operates.
3-D Scatter Plot
This visualization method plots the value of each thread along up to 4 axes. Each axis represents a different function and metric. This view allows you to discern clustering of values and relationships between functions across threads.
Select functions using the button for each dimension, then select a metric. A single function across 4 metrics could be used, for example.
3-D Topology Plot
In this visualization, you can either define the layout with a MESP topology definition file or you can fill a rectangular prism of user-defined volume with rank-points in order of rank. For more information, please see the etc/topology directory for additional details on MESP topology definitions.
If the loaded profile is a cube file or a profile from a BGB, then this visualizations groups the threads in two or three dimensional space using topology information supplied by the profile.
When topology metadata is available a trial-specific topological layout may be visualized by selecting Windows→gt;3D Visualization and selecting Topology Plot on the visualization pane.
The layout tab allows control of the layout and display of visualized cores/processes.
Minimum/Maximum Visible (restricts display of nodes with measured values above/below the selected levels). Lock Range causes the sliders to move in unison.
The X/Y/Z Axis sliders allow selection of planes, lines and individual points in the topology for examination of specific values in the display, listed in the Avg. Color Value field.
The topology selection dropdown box allows selection of either trial-specific topologies contained in the metadata, mapped topologies stored in an external file or a custom topology defined by the size of the prism containing the visualized cores. The … button allows selection of a custom topology mapping file while the map button allows selection of a map file (see <tau2>/etc/topology/README.cray_map for more information on generating map files).
If a Custom is selected the dimensions of the rectangular prism containing the cores are defined by the X/Y/Z axis control widgets.
The Events tab controls which events are used to define the color values and positions of cores/processes in the display. For trail-specific and Custom topologies only event3(Color) can be changed. For topologies loaded in MESP definition files all four events may be used in calculation of the topology layout. In either case, interval, atomic or metadata values may be used to color or position points in the display.
