Remote AcuFieldView Operation

AcuFieldView can be run remotely, thereby avoiding the need to move data from your remote system to your local desktop system.

It is strongly recommended that you run AcuFieldView using a client-server configuration. This mode of operation will deliver the highest performance, taking full advantage of the capacity of your graphics resources on your desktop.


Figure 1.
With releases prior to AcuFieldView 13, it was possible to use an -x mode to run AcuFieldView on a remote display. A requirement for this mode of operation is that the user desktop needed to have an X server is running. Also, only software rendering was used at the source or remote desktop. The table below describes the different interactive configurations supported for AcuFieldView versions prior to AcuFieldView 13, using -x mode.
Table 1.
User Desktop Transport Source Machine (s)
X Server

(software rendering at source)

 X Windows Single AcuFieldView Process

run in -X mode

AcuFieldView Client

run in -X mode + Server (handles big data)

AcuFieldView Client **

run in -X mode, Controller and AcuFieldView Worker Servers

(Parallel Operation)
Head Node
Cluster
AcuFieldView Client
run in -X mode
AcuFieldView Controller Server
AcuFieldView Worker Servers
(Parallel Operation)
With AcuFieldView 13, permitting X Windows transport of the graphics window is no longer possible, and as a result the remote desktop operation feature based on -x operation is unavailable. The high performance rendering changes delivered with AcuFieldView 13 require a robust, GL context for the modeling window. Notably however, AcuFieldView does run well with screen scraper applications such as HP RGS, as illustrated in the image below.


Figure 2.
With AcuFieldView 13.1, a mode of operation equivalent to -x mode has been provided. This restores the ability to run AcuFieldView from a remote desktop, displaying to a user desktop. The table below describes the current interactive configurations for running AcuFieldView on a remote system.
Table 2.
User Desktop Transport Source Machine (s)
AcuFieldView Client ** (Local OpenGL) RPC/Sockets AcuFieldView Server (handles big data)

AcuFieldView Controller Server and AcuFieldView Worker Servers

(Parallel Operation)
Head Node Cluster
AcuFieldView Controller

Server

 AcuFieldView Worker Servers

(Parallel Operation)
Screen Scraper Applications

HP RGS, VNC for Windows, and so on

 Scraper Application Single AcuFieldView Process

AcuFieldView Client

(Plus any configuration in the tables above)
X protocols are still needed to run AcuFieldView in this way. There are two implementations for remote operation. One is based on hardware rendering being performed on the remote system, the other is based on software rendering.


Figure 3.
Start AcuFieldView using -hrg (hardware remote graphics)


Figure 4.

Start AcuFieldView using -srg (software remote graphics)

Note that the hardware-based implementation delivers higher performance than the software option.

When starting AcuFieldView on a remote system, it is likely that you will need to set a command line argument. In the case that you cannot get a display which AcuFieldView can use, you may see the following message in the console window: Unable to run AcuFieldView on your remote system Starting AcuFieldView with the -hrg switch may resolve this problem.

To run AcuFieldView remotely using hardware remote graphics, use acuFv -hrg.

Note that you may need to set a display other than the default of :0.0. To do this, you can add an argument as follows, to run on a display setting of :1.0: acuFv -hrg :1.0.

It is possible that you will be unable to run using the hardware remote graphics mode on your remote system. This is most likely due to the fact that you do not have an X session running on your remote system. In this case, you will see the following message in your console window: Unable to allocate pbuffer for rendering Starting AcuFieldView with the -srg switch may resolve this problem.

Running multiple AcuFieldView client processes with the command line option -hrg on a system with a single graphics board can run out of resources on that device, yielding black frames or small images. Small images seem to result when X server tools such as VNC are used. This problem is caused by running out of memory resources on the graphics board. Running fewer concurrent jobs or adding memory to the graphics board are the known workarounds.

To run AcuFieldView remotely using software remote graphics, use acuFv -srg.

Note that the following command line switches are no longer supported: -ogl, -gl, -sb, -xgl, -pseudo, -x, -x8, -X8. If you try to run AcuFieldView with one of these switches, AcuFieldView will not start, and you will see the following message in the console window: This rendering option (<switch name>) is no longer supported.