HP sv6 User Manual

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installation and user’s guide

hp visualization center sv6

Manufacturing Part Number: A6062-90005

Edition: E0302

Printed in U.S.A

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The information in this document is subject to change without notice.

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printing history

The manual printing date and part number indicate its current edition. The printing date will change when a new edition is printed. Minor changes may be made at reprint without changing the printing date. The manual part number will change when extensive changes are made.

Manual updates may be issued between editions to correct errors or document product changes. To ensure that you receive the updated or new editions, you should subscribe to the appropriate product support service. See your HP sales representative for details.

First Edition: March 2002 Printing Division:

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hp product warranty statement

NOTE This warranty statement supersedes any and all previous HP-UX

workstation warranty statements for the Hewlett-Packard workstations speciﬁed herein. The Parts-Only Base Warranty is offered only in the U.S.; for country-speciﬁc warranties, contact your HP Country Sales Representative. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. For warranty information on the other components of the hp visualization center sv6 system, see the warranty documentation that accompanies those components.

HP PRODUCT: DURATION OF WARRANTY:

hp workstations j6000, j6700 and b2600 1 Year

1. HP warrants HP hardware, accessories and supplies against defects in

materials and workmanship for the period speciﬁed above. If HP receives notice of such defects during the warranty period, HP will, at its option, either repair or replace products which prove to be defective. Replacement products may be either new or like-new.

2. HP warrants that HP software will not fail to execute its programming

instructions, for the period speciﬁed above, due to defects in material and workmanship when properly installed and used. If HP receives notice of such defects during the warranty period, HP will replace the software medium which does not execute its programming instructions due to such defects.

3. HP doesnotwarrant that the operation of HP products will be uninterrupted

or error free. If HP is unable, within a reasonable time, to repair or replace any product to a condition as warranted, the customer will be entitled to a refund of the purchase price upon prompt return of the product.

4. HP products may contain remanufactured parts equivalent to new in

performance or may have been subject to incidental use.

5. The warranty period begins on the date of delivery or on the date of

installation if installed by HP. If customer schedules installation or causes installation by HP to be delayed more than 30 days after delivery, warranty begins on the 31st day from delivery.

6. Warranty does not apply to defects resulting from (a) improper or inadequate

maintenance or calibration, (b) software, interfacing, parts or supplies not supplied by HP, (c) unauthorized modiﬁcation or misuse, (d) operation outside of the published environmental speciﬁcations for the product, or (e) improper site preparation or maintenance.

7. TO THE EXTENT ALLOWED BY LOCAL LAW, THE ABOVE

WARRANTIES ARE EXCLUSIVE AND NO OTHER WARRANTY OR CONDITION, WHETHER WRITTEN OR ORAL, IS EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED AND HP SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, SATISFACTORY QUALITY, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

8. HP will be liable for damage to tangible property per incident up to the

greater of $300,000 or the actual amount paid for the product that is the subject of the claim, and for damages for bodily injury or death, to the extent that all such damages are determined by a court of competent jurisdiction to have been directly caused by a defective HP product.

9. TO THE EXTENT ALLOWED BY LOCAL LAW, THE REMEDIES IN THIS

WARRANTY STATEMENT ARE CUSTOMERS’ SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDIES. EXCEPT AS INDICATED ABOVE, IN NO EVENT WILL HP OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR LOSS OF DATA OR FOR DIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL (INCLUDING LOST PROFIT OR DATA), OR OTHER DAMAGE, WHETHER BASED IN CONTRACT, TORT, OR OTHERWISE.

FOR CONSUMER TRANSACTIONS IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND: THE WARRANTY TERMS CONTAINED IN THIS STATEMENT, EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT LAWFULLY PERMITTED, DO NOT EXCLUDE, RESTRICT OR MODIFY AND ARE IN ADDITION TO THE MANDATORY STATUTORY RIGHTS APPLICABLE TO THE SALE OF THIS PRODUCT TO YOU.

for additional information

There are several sources of hp visualization center sv6 documentation that were either shipped with your system or are available at various Web sites:

• hp visualization center sv6 Site Preparation Guide (HP Part No. A6062-90006)

• hp visualization center sv6 Troubleshooting Guide (available on http://www.hp.com/go/workstationsupport Web site)

• hp visualization center sv6 Recovery Instructions CD Booklet (HP Part No. A6062-90010 included in the Recovery CD jewel case)

• hp ProCurve Switch User’s Guide — hp 10/100 ProCurve (J4813A)

— hp ProCurve Switch 4108gl (J4865A)

• Digi EtherLite-32 terminal Server documentation (CD instructions or http://www.digi.com).

For further information, refer to these Web pages:

• HP immersive environments page:

http://www.hp.com/go/immersive/index.html

• User Guides for hp workstations:

http://www.hp.com/go/workstationsupport/documentation/manuals /user_guides

NOTE Every effort was made to make sure this information was complete at the

time it was printed. However, additional information and troubleshooting tips may have become available after this guide was printed. For the very latest information, please visit the http://www.hp.com/go/workstationsupport Web site.

viewing documentation on the recovery CD

All hp visualization center sv6 documentation is also included on the hp visualization center sv6 Installation/Recovery CD that is shipped with

your system.To view these documents:

1. Mount the CD by executing:

mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0 /cdrom

2. Make sure the directory for your Adobe Acrobat Reader is in your PATH:

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/Acrobat4/bin

3. The following hp visualization center sv6 documentation is available:

sv6SitePrepGuide.pdf sv6InstUsersGuide.pdf sv6TroubleShootGuide.pdf

4. To view the ﬁles:

acroread /cdrom/<filename.pdf>

Contents

1. safety and support information

how to obtain support for your sv6 system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

safety warnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

rack stability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

power distribution units (PDUs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

metallic particulate contamination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

2. installation and user information

document purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

section descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

product overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

hp visualization center sv6 components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

hp visualization center sv6 architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

supported conﬁgurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

software conﬁgurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

installation process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

preparation for wide ﬁeld displays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

hp visualization center sv6 installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

software setup speciﬁcations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

updating software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

maintain current graphics patches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Installation Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .48

uninstallation steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

installing to all sv6 systems using HP Software Distributor . . . . . . .50

step 1: preparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

step 2: copy and register locally. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

step3: install . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

step 4: veriﬁcation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54

Contents

advanced setup for multiple display channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

additional X server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

conﬁguring offset overlap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

backdrops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

changing resolution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

how to use hp visualization center sv6 tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

sv6 diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

stereoscopic viewing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

active stereo overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

passive stereo overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

stereo hardware installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

changing to stereo monitor mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

optimization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

pass through mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

gamma value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

HPOGL_PUSH _ENVIRONMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

3. ﬁle conﬁguration

4. projector calibration targets

how to use projector calibration targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

A. hp scalable visualization digital compositor

compositor cards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

compositor parts list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

compositor conﬁgurations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

sv6 compositor frame delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

compositor self-test sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Contents

introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105

interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105

procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105

testing output or input cards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106

testing controller cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106

LED indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106

B. hp mini-sv6 conﬁguration

mini-sv6 conﬁguration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108

C. regulatory information

FCC radio frequency interference statement

(USA only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .113

glossary

Contents

1 safety and support information

Proper site preparation and maintenance are vital to the reliability of any computer hardware component. In order for HP to provide you with quality service, please ensure that the proper computer room conditions are maintained. This allows HP to provide support services in

Chapter 1 11

safety and support information

how to obtain support for your sv6 system

accordance with your Customer Support Services Agreement. For your protection, HP products are tested for conformance to various

national and international regulations and standards. The scope of this regulatory testing includes electrical and mechanical safety, electromagnetic emissions,electromagnetic immunity, ESD (electrostatic discharge), acoustics, and hazardous materials. Where required, certiﬁcations are obtained from third-party test agencies. Certiﬁcation marks appear on the product label. In addition, various regulatory bodies require information to appear in User Manuals.

how to obtain support for your sv6 system

If you know you have a hardware problem:

1. Retrieve the model number and serial number of the failed hardware.

2. Call the HP Customer Care Center for your region, country or province. These numbers can be found at: http://www.hp.com under Technical Support. For example, use 1-800-633-3600 for North America.

3. When you reach the appropriate Customer Care Center, you will have several options. Press 1 for Hardware Support.

4. For warranty veriﬁcation and to help track your call, you will be asked to provide the model number and serial number for the failed hardware (see Step 1 above).

5. If the HP Call Agent cannot resolve your problem, then tell the Call Agent that the failed or problematic hardware is part of an hp sv6 scalable visualization system. Your call will be re-directed to an hp sv6 expert who is trained to provide solution-level assistance.

If you have a software problem or don't know the source of the problem:

1. Retrieve the software “handle” (a unique support identiﬁer) that was provided with the hp sv6 system at installation.

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safety and support information

how to obtain support for your sv6 system

2. Call the HP Customer Care Center for your region, country or province. These numbers can be found at: http://www.hp.com under Technical Support. For example, use 1-800-633-3600 for North America.

3. When you reach the appropriate Customer Care Center, you will have several options. Press 2 for Software Support.

4. For call tracking purposes, you will be asked to provide the HP Call Agent with your software “handle” (see Step 1 above).

5. Tell the Call Agent that you have an hp sv6 scalable visualization system. The Call Agent will re-direct your call to an hp sv6 expert who is trained to provide assistance with your system

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safety and support information

safety warnings

WARNING An hp visualization sv6 product rack can weigh 1500 lbs. (681 kg)

when fully loaded with hardware components. Heed all of the conditions in the WARNING statement under the RACK STABILITY subsection below when moving and servicing an HP product rack and its rack-mounted hardware components.

WARNING Your hp visualization center sv6 product may not have been

evaluated for connection to an IT power system (an AC distribution system having a high impedance connection to earth according to IEC 950).

rack stability

WARNING To reduce the risk of rack instability:

• Install the heavier hardware components at the bottom of the

rack, below the center of gravity for the rack. Never install heavier components in the top or upper portion of the rack.

• Make sure that the anti-tip plate is installed on the rack. Do

not remove the anti-tip foot from the rack.

• Always extend the anti-tip plate before extending a

rack-mounted component for servicing.

• Extend only one rack-mounted component at a time.

• Do not stand or sit on any extended component.

• Have all non-operator servicing done by qualiﬁed HP service

personnel.

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safety and support information

safety warnings

power distribution units (PDUs)

A Power Distribution Unit (PDU) is equipment located in or near a computer room which breaks down electric power from a high-voltage source to appropriate levels of distribution to the central processing unit and peripheral devices of a computer system. Figure 1-1 shows an example PDU that is used with the HP product racks. This example is the HP E7674A 16 Amp 100-240VAC PDU (part number A5137AZ).

CAUTION Some components have been designed to be used with speciﬁc electrical

accessories such as PDUs. The use of any accessory other than those speciﬁed is neither recommended nor supported.

Figure 1-1 A Sample Power Distribution Unit (PDU)

Qty=7

IEC320-C13

IEC320-C19

Modular PDU C20 Inlet

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safety and support information

safety warnings

Figure 1-2 Cable and Plugs Between the PDU and the Wall Receptacle

IEC309

L6-20P

L6-30P

IEC-320-C19

CEE7/7

Unterminated

PDU leakage current

WARNING Due to the number of components that can be installed on one

Power Distribution Unit (PDU), there may be a risk of high leakage current (>3.5mA). Reliable ground circuit continuity is vital for safe operation of such components. To reduce the risk of electric shock, connect each component to a grounded outlet only. Never operate any component with its ground pin disconnected from the socket of a grounded outlet.

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safety and support information

safety warnings

PDU power limitations

To reduce the risk of overload, do not exceed the rated load of any single PDU. In addition, do not load a single NEMA 5-15 (see Fig. 1-3) receptacle with more than 15 Amperes and any single IEC 320-1/C13 receptacle with more than 10 Amperes. In general, make sure that the power source circuits are able to safely provide the current that will be required by all components drawing power from them. This document assumes that 220V and 240V cables are used.

NEMA 5-15 Receptacle

Do not load this connector with more than 15 Amps

metallic particulate contamination

Metallic particulates can be especially harmful around electronic equipment. This type of contamination may enter the data center environment from a variety of sources, including, but not limited to, raised ﬂoor tiles, worn air conditioning parts, heating ducts, rotor brushes in vacuum cleaners or printer component wear. Because metallic particulates conduct electricity, they have an increased potential for creating short circuits in electronic equipment. This problem is exaggerated by the increasingly dense circuitry of electronic equipment.

Over time, very ﬁne whiskers of pure metal can form on electroplated zinc, cadmium, or tin surfaces. If these whiskers are disturbed, they may break off and become airborne, possibly causing failures or operational interruptions. Forover 50 years, the electronics industry has been aware of the relatively rare, but possible, threat posed by metallic particulate contamination. During recent years, a growing concern has developed in computer rooms where these conductive contaminants are formed on the bottom of some raised ﬂoor tiles.

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safety and support information

safety warnings

Although this problem is relatively rare, it may be an issue within your computer room. Since metallic contamination can cause permanent or intermittent failures on your electronic equipment, Hewlett-Packard strongly recommends that your site be evaluated for metallic particulate contamination before installation of electronic equipment.

Chapter 118

2 installation and user information

Chapter 2 19

installation and user information

document purpose

The purpose of this document is to provide information on installing, customizing and using hp visualization center sv6 systems. Because the workstations will arrive racked, pre-cabled and pre-conﬁgured, minimal information about hardware setup is included in this document. Sections of this document provide steps for setting up and conﬁguring systems. There are also sections that provide instructions on how to use hp visualization center sv6-speciﬁc tools. Refer to the Glossary for deﬁnitions of terms used in this document.

See the following documents for additional information:

• hp visualization center sv6 Site Prep Guide for cooling, space and

• hp visualization center sv6 Troubleshooting Guide - see

power requirements, etc.

http://www.hp.com/go/workstationsupportfor tips on how to resolve problems you may encounter during the initial setup and customization.

• hp disk system ds2100 - see

http://www.hp.com/products1/storage/disk_arrays/disksystems/ds 2100/supplies/index.html

• /etc/X11/X0screens for X server conﬁguration details or /usr/lib/X11/Xserver/misc/slsd/templates/ for hp

visualization center sv6 X0screens templates.

• /usr/lib/X11/Xserver/info/screens/hp for non- hp visualization center sv6 X server conﬁguration details.

•/opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/doc/README.* for details about hp visualization center sv6 tools.

section descriptions

• Product Overview - Provides a general hardware and software architecture overview.

• Installation - Steps that the hp visualization center sv6 installer will help you accomplish.

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installation and user information

document purpose

• Software Set-Up Speciﬁcations - Reference for the software that was pre-loaded on your system.

• Updating Software - Explains how and when to do software and ﬁrmware updates. Keeping your graphics patches updated is essential for taking full advantage of this new technology.

• Advanced Set-Up for Multiple Channels - Gives an overview of how to use multiple hp visualization center sv6 clusters to output across multiple display devices. This is a reference for anyone who wants to upgrade to multiple channels.

• Usage - General instructions on how to do typical tasks. Although you can run applications on the hp visualization center sv6 the same way you would on any HP-UX workstation, there are a few hp visualization center sv6-speciﬁc tasks that can be performed.

• How To Use hp visualization center sv6 Tools - Reference for hp visualization center sv6-speciﬁc tools.

• Stereoscopic Viewing - Describes both active and passive stereo options and how to enable them.

• Optimization - Suggests methods for optimizing both rendering performance and image quality for your application or data sets.

Chapter 2 21

installation and user information

product overview

The hp visualization center sv6 solution is a system developed to meet your visualization performance and image quality needs. The key attributes that make this system unique from existing scalable solutions include:

• scalable rendering performance, image quality and resolution,

• resources can be dynamically switched between performance and

• use of standard SPU and graphics components.

The hp visualization center sv6 provides the following beneﬁts:

• Applications that currently run on standalone hp visualization

• The use of standard components with the ability to add, re-deploy or

image quality,

center systems today can also run unmodiﬁed on hp visualization center sv6 systems and immediately take advantage of the scaling and image quality improvements.

upgrade these components provides signiﬁcant investment protection.

• The individual workstations of the scalable system can be used as computational resources when not being used for visualization.

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installation and user information

product overview

Figure 2-1 hp visualization centers sv6 (j6700) and mini-sv6 (b2600)

The hp visualization center sv6 is:

• A scalable solution for OpenGL display list-based applications that provides geometry acceleration of aliased rendering that is greater than stand-alone hp workstation performance.

• A solution that offers increased visual quality via anti-aliasing at stand-alone hp workstation performance rates, or better.

• A solution that is scalable in any combination of performance, visual quality or screen resolution; limited only by supported conﬁgurations.

• A solution that is transparent to the application.

• A solution that involves multiple standard graphics pipelines rendering a common model with a single view frustum.

• An OpenGL HP-UX 11.0 based solution only.

hp visualization center sv6 employs a parallel rendering architecture. It uses dedicated accelerators for rendering portions of a given screen. The resulting renderings (called “screen rectangles”) are synchronized and displayed as a single image through additional hardware.

hp visualization center sv6 is based on a client/server architecture called Distributed Single LogicalScreen (SLS/d). This technology transparently manages multiple clients that render portions of a given screen. Each hp

Chapter 2 23

installation and user information

product overview

visualization center hp visualization center sv6 cluster is made up of one 2D master node and a supported number of 3D slave nodes. The 2D node is responsible for rendering the GUI and X11 rendering primitives. The 3D slave nodes, also called “pipes,” are responsible for rendering all or some part of the 3D scene. The video output from each node is then combined, or composited, to a single monitor.

To obtain multiple channels of output, multiple clusters can be used. A “channel” refers to one output device, typically a monitor. This allows for more screen “real estate” (two or three displays) by using multiple hp visualization center sv6 clusters.

hp visualization center sv6 components

• A cluster of racked, graphics-enabled hp workstations j6000

• Scalable Visualization Digital Compositor (A6061A).

• Private, High-Speed Gigabit Network - hp ProCurve switch 4108gl

(A5990A), j6700 (A7278B) or b2600 (A6070A).

(J41865A).

• hp ProCurve 10/100 Base-T 2524 switch (J4813A) for LAN connection.

• Digi EtherLite-32 Terminal Server (DGZ1469C).

• EasySetup HP-UX 11.0 operating system (B5532A).

• Scalable Visualization-enabled software (X Server, OpenGL, 3DCommon, etc.).

• Customized Conﬁguration Files (see Chapter 3).

Figure 2-2 is an example of a 16-pipe system that shows the hardware components.

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Figure 2-2 16-pipe system conﬁguration

installation and user information

product overview

NOTE Arrangement of the hardware in the racks may vary.

The 2D master system controls the rendering that happens on the 3D pipes. The output of each pipe is then fed into hardware called the Digital Compositor. The Compositor combines the inputs into a single output stream to the display. A local high-speed Gigabit Ethernet switch (hp ProCurve Switch) which connects the systems.

The Digi EtherLite-32 terminal server (D GZ1469C) is a low-cost option for consolidating consoles. Each Digi switch provides remote access for up to 32 systems. The Digi EtherLite driver runs on the master system.

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This driver communicates with the EtherLite-32 and makes the Digi switch’s serial connections appear as though they were direct serial connections to the master system. Thus, the master node communicates with the slave node via a serial port communications program, such as cu on HP-UX or the dinc program supplied with the Digi switch.

Examples for accessing save node #2:

cu -l/dev/ttyn01 -s 9600 /usr/local/bin/dinc /dev/digi/sv2

The Digi EtherLite-32 has its own IP address and is connected to the 10/100 hub. RJ45 ports are connected to serial port 1 of each slave node via an RS-232 adapter.

Figure 2-3 Single Display Channel

Each workstation has one graphics card. The master workstation does 2D rendering and the rest of the workstations do 3D rendering. Each hp visualization center sv6 cluster outputs to a single display. Each graphics device is connected to the compositor through a digital video connection. Each workstation is connected to the hp ProCurve 10/100 BaseT switch (J4813A) which provides a connection to the site’s LAN.

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Figure 2-4 Multiple Display Channels

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For multiple displays (up to three displays) additional hp visualization center sv6 clusters can be added to increase screen real-estate. “Screen real estate” describes the expanded workspace created by spreading one continuous screen across several display devices.

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hp visualization center sv6 architecture

This section discusses a general overview of how the hardware is used by the hp visualization center sv6 architecture, using a 16-pipe system as an example:

Figure 2-5 16-pipe System Architecture

The 16-pipe system contains 16 hp workstations j6000 (A5990A) or j6700 (A7278A) which perform the 3D rendering. Each of these machines

contain the hp fx10 Graphics Accelerator Card (A1299B). Each fx10 DVI (Digital Video Interface) output connects to an input of the digital compositor (A6061A).

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The 17th hp workstation fulﬁlls three roles:

1. Application Server: This is the machine on which the application runs. Graphics protocol based on OpenGL is sent to the 16 3D systems via high-speed Gigabit networking.

2. Xserver: In addition to running the application, this machine also renders the 2D X window system and responds to the keyboard and mouse.

3. Compositor Controller: This machine controls operation of the Compositor via an RS-232 serial connection.

The Compositor processes the DVI video from each hp fx10 card and generates the output video. The Compositor can be programmed to process the video input signals in a number of ways.

hp visualization center sv6 operating modes

The key to understanding the hp visualization center sv6 conﬁgurations is to understand its three operating modes - Accelerate, Accumulate and Mixed. These modes can be changed using the /opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/bin/setpipes command. In the descriptions below, a “pipe” refers to a workstation that does 3D rendering. A “channel” is the output sent to one output device.

• Accelerate Mode: Enhances rendering performance Each pipe renders a fraction of the screen, thus speeding up

performance.

Figure 2-6 Accelerate Mode - Vertical slice, Horizonal slice and Grid

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NOTE Each fraction of the screen is called a “screen rectangle.”

Example: In a conﬁguration with ﬁve workstations (one doing 2D rendering and four doing 3D rendering), each 3D workstation would output one of the four screen rectangle areas on the display.

You can specify how the screen is dissected. The basic options are grid, vertical slice, horizontal slice and pane. See the /opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/doc/README.setpipes ﬁle for more details.

• Accumulate Mode: Improves Image Quality Each pipe generates the complete screen, “jittered” by sub-pixel

values. These jittered images are averaged together to achieve a better quality image. This mode is sometimes referred to as the anti-aliasing mode. The more workstations you add, the more samples can be taken, and the better the resulting image quality.

Figure 2-7 Accumulate Mode

• Mixed Mode: Combination of both Accelerate and Accumulate Modes

Each screen rectangle is generated (jittered and averaged) by the number of samples designated. There is improved image quality (anti-aliasing), and also improved performance (acceleration) since each area is generated by multiple workstations.

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Figure 2-8 Mixed Mode

For example, with a 16-pipe hp visualization center sv6, each of the quadrants pictured above could be accumulated by N graphics-enabled workstations (N is equal to the number of samples to be jittered). If N=4, then you get four samples for accumulation on each section and since the screen has been split into four sections, you also get improved acceleration.

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To increase the rendering performance, use the Accelerate Mode. To increase image quality, use Accumulate Mode. To improve both, experiment with Mixed Mode to achieve the desired balance of both.

Figure 2-9 shows the hardware arrangement needed to produce the output in Figure 2-8.

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Figure 2-9 Mixed Mode 16-Pipe Example

supported conﬁgurations

Each channel is driven by a set of workstations assigned to do 3D rendering (3D pipes) plus one to do 2D rendering (2D pipe). This table shows the hardware combinations that are supported.

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Table 2-1 Hardware Conﬁgurations

Number of Display Channels

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3D pipes /channel

3** 4

7 ** 8

16 17 workstations 34 workstations 51 workstations

** Mini-sv6 conﬁgurations have slightly lower performance because their second master node doubles as a 3D render node using its 2D HP fx10 graphics card.

1 channel 2 channel 3 channel

4 workstations 5 workstationsNA10 workstations

8 workstations 9 workstationsNA18 workstations

Given enough 3D pipelines, both acceleration and image quality can be achieved. With 16 systems, the screen can be split into four screen rectangles. Four workstations can be assigned for each quadrant to produce four samples per pixel from full scenes jittered by sub-pixel values. The digital compositor can both average these values into a single value and recombine the four quadrants into a single image. The possible conﬁgurations include:

Table 2-2 Three or Four 3D Pipes Per Channel

Screen Rectangles Pixel Samples* Mode

1 4 Accumulate (fastest)

NA 15 workstations

NA 27 workstations

4 1 Accelerate (best image)

Table 2-3 Seven or Eight 3D Pipes Per Channel

Screen rectangles Pixel Samples* Mode

1 8 Accumulate (fastest) 2 4 Mixed 8 1 Accelerate (best image)

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Table 2-4 Sixteen 3D Pipes Per Channel

Screen rectangles Pixel Samples* Mode

1 16 Accumulate (fastest) 2 8 Mixed 4 4 Mixed 8 2 Mixed 16 1 Accelerate (best image quality)

* Default shown is one pixel sample per graphics card. Each workstation’s fx10 graphics card can take four samples of each pixel when hardware anti-aliasing is enabled. See Optimization on page 69

software conﬁgurations

The following software is installed on your systems and is included on the CDs in the Installation/Recovery Kit.

• Easy Setup HP-UX 11.0

• Gigabit Ethernet Driver

• Digi EtherLite Terminal Server Driver

• Latest graphics patches (X server, OpenGL, etc.)

• hp visualization center sv6 software (additional tools, patches, etc.)

• Additional ﬁle conﬁguration (See Chapter 3 for details.)

software NOT supported

• HP-UX 10.20 and HP-UX 11.11 are not supported at this time.

• Graphics Patches — Pre-hp visualization center sv6 graphics patches -- To get hp

visualization center sv6 functionality, you MUST have June2001 graphics patches or later.

— Old graphics patches -- Keeping your graphics patches updated

to the latest versions is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

— Mismatched versions -- All workstations in your hp visualization

center sv6 conﬁgurations must have the same version of patches installed.

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• Drivers or other software not compatible with HP-UX 11.0 (64-bit) MUST NOT be installed on hp visualization center sv6 workstations.

• The hp visualization center sv6 is not equivalent to an HP compute farm mp6 and should not be expected to support tools (LSF, monitoring tools, etc.) that are specially customized for HP compute farms. However, hp visualization center sv6 workstations, like HP compute farms, when not being used for visualization can be used as separate compute nodes.

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installation process

NOTE Before attempting to install your hp visualization center sv6 system,

please read the Safety Information in Chapter 1 of this document.

This installation process assumes the following steps:

Table 2-5

Assessment Thoroughly review the hp visualization center sv6 Site Prep

Guide.

Register an IP address and hostname for each workstation and Digi switch in the system. Take future upgrades into consideration. Conﬁrm all system and display requirements with the vendor of your display(s)

Preparation for Wide Field Displays

Workstation Installation

Order appropriate equipment and services Prepare site as recommended in the hp visualization center

sv6 Site Prep Guide

Locate and setup:

• rack(s) of workstations

• console monitors, keyboard, peripherals

• cabling including power, network, etc.

Conﬁguration Conﬁgure workstations including passwords, networking, etc.

Conﬁgure and calibrate any display options

Veriﬁcation Locate and run veriﬁcation test and demos

assessment

The assessment phase ensures that your computing needs are appropriately addressed. Options or future opportunities are considered at this stage so that system upgrade requirements are anticipated.

1. Review the hp visualization center sv6 Site Prep Guide to ensure that all space, power, cooling equipment handling requirements, etc. are understood. Take any future upgrades into consideration. For

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example, if you plan to add more hp visualization center sv6 systems or large display devices later, take those requirements into consideration.

2. Verify that you will have an ergonomically correct place to set up a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Optional: projector screens or other advanced displays.

3. Verify that delivery and moving arrangements have been made:

• size and weight restrictions are understood,

• safety precautions are understood,

• if anything other than a standard monitor will be used as an

output display device, schedule an installer from your display vendor to be on-site the same day that your hp visualization center sv6 installer is there.

4. Have a hostname and IP address registered at your site for each workstation.You’ll also need an additional IP address for the Digi EtherLite-32 Terminal Server (DGZ1469C). For example, you would need 18 hostnames and IP addresses for a 16-pipe system.

5. Have a network connection available.

preparation for wide ﬁeld displays

The preparation phase ensures that system speciﬁc requirements are addressed. hp visualization center sv6 systems minimally require one HP monitor. If wide ﬁeld display options are ordered for projection systems, passive stereo or for multiple channel support, appropriate installation consulting should occur with the display vendor ahead of time.

This guide does not cover how to integrate hp visualization center sv6 with wide ﬁeld displays, nor does HP’s installation service provide this.

TIP Have your display installer on-site at the same time as the hp

visualization center sv6 installer is there. The display installer has the ultimate responsibility to make sure the displays are properly aligned and functioning.

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hp visualization center sv6 installation

Here are the steps for hp visualization center sv6 system installation that will be completed by your hp installer:

• Position racks

• Position console monitors

• Connect power & I/O devices

• Conﬁguration

• Boot Up

• Veriﬁcation

• Run Your Application

Figure 2-10 Anti-Tip Plate

Installed Anti-tip Plate

WARNING Pull out or attach the anti-tip plate located at the bottom of each

rack (see Figure 2-10) when systems are being set up and conﬁgured. Failure to do so could cause the entire rack to tip over. The anti-tip plate should remain deployed. See the hp visualization center sv6 Site Prep Guide for further precautions.

1. Position rack(s) Some hp visualization center sv6 solutions require racks of machines

to be located next to each other. Several cabling options between the racks are necessary to realize full functionality and performance.

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Adequate ventilation and cable pathways should be provided between all machines. Refer to the hp visualization center sv6 Site Prep Guide for the speciﬁcations for your conﬁguration.

2. Position console monitors Set up console monitor(s) according to their respective installation

instructions. Pay close attention to both ergonomic positioning recommendations and the monitor’s relationship to a wide ﬁeld display option if it is used.

See the “Working In Comfort” documentation at http://www.hp.com/ergo for complete information on safely preparing your work environment and other ergonomic issues.

3. Connect Power, I/O Devices If you have multiple racks, connect them as indicated by the labels

on the disconnected cables. Use the diagram below as a general cable reference:

Figure 2-11 Workstation Cabling

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• See power, space, and cooling requirements in the hp

visualization center sv6 Site Prep Guide.

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Figure 2-12 Connecting Compositor to Monitor or Other Display Device

• Verify that the switches on all workstations, Compositors, and

any additional equipment are plugged into the PDU, or directly into an outlet that meets the requirements of the hp

visualization center sv6 Site Prep Guide.

• Attach keyboard and mouse to the system labeled master.

• Plug in any ‘dangling’ cables that are needed to connect the racks

together. All cables will be labeled for where they need to be plugged in.

• Attach your display device to the output card of the compositor.

Use a standard analog monitor cable. Note that two output cards will be connected to the output device(s) if you are using passive stereo as pictured in Figure 2-12. The left output card corresponds to the left eye and the right card corresponds to the right eye.

• Connect hp ProCurve 10/100 (J4813A) to site’s Local Area

Network.

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Figure 2-13 Connecting HP ProCurve Hub to LAN

• Connect one standard CAT5 cable (RJ45 connector) to an empty

port on the hub to connect the hp visualization center sv6 to your site’s network.

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Figure 2-14 Power I/O Devices

• Plug in power from the Power Distribution Units (PDUs) on each

rack. Be sure to heed all warnings and suggestions outlined in the hp visualization center sv6 Site Prep Guide.

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4. Conﬁguration

Table 2-6

Boot up BOOT AND CONFIGURE THE MASTER

Specify Compositor serial port If possible, leave the Compositor connected to the

For hp visualization center sv6 conﬁgurations, follow these procedures:

SYSTEM BEFORE BOOTING THE SLAVE SYSTEMS. Have a list of hostnames and IP addresses to assign to the systems so they will be visible on your site’s network. Run

set_parms addl_netwrk

to set the master’s network information. Optional: Set up networking and root passwords

on slave nodes using:

/var/opt/ignite/sps/sv6files/sv_config

See the “How to Use hp visualization center sv6 Tools” section for more information on sv_conﬁg.

default port on the master workstation (serial port 2, /dev/tty1p0). If you wish to move the Compositor to a different port, this change must be speciﬁed in the /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle.

Conﬁgure system software When each computer comes up, it can be

customized for the local environment (networking info,user accounts,passwords, etc.) Ensure that all systems are compatible with your working environment before moving to the next step.

5. Boot Up

NOTE BOOT AND CONFIGURE THE MASTER SYSTEM BEFORE

BOOTING THE SLAVE SYSTEMS.

• The boot console on the master will prompt you for a hostname, an IP address and other system and network settings.

• After you have answered all of the startup questions, power on all of the other workstations and network switchboxes.

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• Set up network information on the slave nodes.

At boot up, all installed graphics devices will be set to default mode - 1280x1024, 75Hz. See the “Changing Resolutions” section for details.

a. Specify Compositor Serial Port (Optional)

By default, the compositor is connected and conﬁgured on serial port2 of the master 2D workstation(s). If you wish to move it to port1, specify the serial port address in the

/etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle under the 'ScreenOptions' section: ScreenOptions

SlsdCompositorSerialport /dev/ttyp0

b. Conﬁgure System Software

• To alter any network settings not done during the initial boot, log in to one system at a time and use set_parms

addl_netwrk

• Set the root password — log in as root

— Type passwd — Type in and verify new password

• Run HP’s System Administration Manager (SAM) to create new logical volumes

• Add user accounts, passwords and other desktop customizations settings.

If the conﬁguration was successful, running your master system at init level 3 or 4 (/etc/init 4) will bring up a Common Desktop Environment (CDE) session across all of your screens.

TIP If a wide ﬁeld display option is being installed with your

system, now is the time for conﬁguration and calibration to occur. Your chosen vendor may have additional software and ﬁles required to set up these display systems. Consult the display vendor for details.

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6. Veriﬁcation Run the veriﬁcation test to verify that the cabling and network

information are correct:

• log in to the master system as root

• init 3

• Log in at the CDE screen.

• Open a terminal window and run:

/opt/graphics/OpenGL/bin/setpipes -test

WARNING Do not use any other options with -test

• If you see:

— Solid red, green or blue triangles rotating in each rectangle

(at varying speeds). — Black background. — Numbers are in order, left to right, top to bottom. — PASS: System is Ready

• If you see: — Speckles.

— Strange color changes. — Missing triangles. — Unexpected patterns (e.g. checkerboard pattern, completely

black or red rectangle).

— FAIL: See the hp visualization center sv6 Troubleshooting

Guide at http://www.hp.comgo/workstationsupport to correct the cabling or networking problem. Check the verify.log ﬁle created in the current directory.

• Touch any key on the keyboard or press a mouse button to exit the animation

• Use CTRL+SHIFT+BREAK to get back to the log in prompt.

7. Conﬁgure ds2100

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If you ordered and HP SureStore Disk System ds2100 (A5675AZ), it will be installed and conﬁgured with default settings. See the following documentation for usage and conﬁguration information: ds2100 User’s Guide:

http://www.hp.com/cposupport/manual_set/lpg28796.pdf

Product Web Site:

http://www.hp.com/products1/storage/disk_arrays/disksystems/ds 2100/supplies/index.html

8. Run Your Application

• log in to the master system

• init 3

• This will bring up the default window manager, CDE

• Run your application the same way you would run it on any hp workstation running HP-UX 11.0

• Refer to the “How To Use hp visualization center sv6 Conﬁguration Tools” or “Usage” sections for details about how to customize your hp visualization center sv6 system.

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software setup speciﬁcations

Your systems will arrive fully loaded with all of the appropriate software and specially conﬁgured ﬁles. This includes, in some cases, new versions of commands and patches that have not yet been released on media. This section is meant to be used as a reference for what is on the systems when they are shipped. Consider customizing your system and then creating your own ‘golden image’ for use in restoring systems in the event that the systems need to be rebuilt. A Recovery CD that automatically loads this software has also been provided for your convenience.

• Each workstation was ignited with EasySetup HP-UX 11.0

• Additional Software — Latest graphics patches (June 2001 or later)

— hp visualization center sv6 software (additional tools, patches,

etc.)

— Gigabit Ethernet and Digi EtherLite driver

• Default Gigabit Ethernet hostnames, IP addresses and other network settings were applied.

• The default monitor resolution mode for fx visualization center sv6 systems is 1280x1024 at 75 Hz. Different video timing settings can be speciﬁed in the /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle. See the Changing Resolution section for more details.

• File conﬁgurations based on the descriptions in Chapter 3 were done on your workstations.

NOTE If you have problems with any of the workstations, use the Recovery CDs

instructions to get the system back to a clean state.

10c

graphics cards in hp

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maintain current graphics patches

To fully take advantage of your hp visualization center sv6 systems, be sure to update them with the latest graphics software enhancements available. New sv6 software can be downloaded from http://h20000.www2.hp.com. Click on the following links: download drivers & software workstations hp scalable computing - UNIX hp visualization center sv6

This software package contains graphics software updates speciﬁcally designed for hp scalable visualization sv6 workstations. It will update your current X server and OpenGL software.

how to determine your current version

As root, enter these commands:

swlist | grep ‘SV6 Core Update’ what /opt/graphics/OpenGL/lib/libGL.1

The output will look like this:

# swlist |grep 'SV6 Core Update' Sv6_Enhancements B.11.00.05 HP Visualization Center SV6 Core Update

# what /opt/graphics/OpenGL/lib/libGL.1 /opt/graphics/OpenGL/lib/libGL.1: OpenGL 1.1 Revision 1.26.1 (ov 0201) on HP-UX 11.00 $Date:09-Jan-02.13:38:48 $ $Revision: 20020109.28119 $ libGL.1

If you have installed sv6 enhancements software on your system before, skip to step 3 (below).

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Installation Steps

1 Find out current version

2 Verify prerequisites.

1. Verify that you have previous sv6_enhancements

software on your master system.

2. If you do not have a previous version of this sv6 software

and/or June 2001 or later X server and OpenGL on your system, do not install the sv6_enhancements bundle. Contact HP Support.

1. Must be able to login as root on master node, which is

connected to an HP sv6 compositor.

2. Verify that /var/opt/sps/sv6ﬁles/sv6_targets contains

gigabit hostnames for all systems in the conﬁguration. (i.e. svm sv1 …sv16)

3. Must be a rack of HPUX 11.0 workstations conﬁgured

according to sv6 standards which includes these critical ones:

• A recent version of the Quality Pack is highly

recommended. It contains graphics patches and other standard HP patches.

• Must have June 2001 or newer X server and OpenGL

(PHSS_23546, PHSS_23544,5) and/or an SV6 Core Update patch installed. Check date by running:

what /opt/graphics/OpenGL/lib/libGL.1

• SD tools must be conﬁgured for swinstall to multiple

targets (touch /var/adm/sw/.sdkey) and allow root access from the master node to all slave nodes (swacl).

• Master has root permissions assigned in /.rhosts on

all slave nodes.

• Gigabit network must be functional:

(remsh sv1 echo hello)

• See other details in the scalable visualization guides

at:

http://www.hp.com/workstations/support/document ation/hpux_manuals.html#scalablevis

3 Download software and

install script

1. Download and save the sv6_enhancements and

install_sv6_enhancements ﬁles on the master system.

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4 Run install script

1. init 2 to stop the X server

2. rlogin to the master system as root

3. Execute the install_sv6_enhancements script

5 Re-start X server

1. When complete, look for errors or warnings.

2. init 3 or /tmp/startx0 to restart the X server

6 Check log ﬁles

1. Check /tmp/sps/enhancements.log and

/var/adm/sw/swinstall.log for errors.

2. A common error when installing with out the

install_sv6_enhancements script is ‘cannot install from tape device’.

To ﬁx this, use:

swcopy –s /tmp/tapedepot \ –x enforce_dependencies=false\ \* @ /tmp/diskdepot

This will copy the software into a more accessible format.

WARNING Uninstalling sv6_enhancements completely removes all X server and

OpenGL software and may not roll back to the previous version. Reinstalling a new sv6_enhancements package or new X server and OpenGL patches is required.

uninstallation steps

1 swremove As root, run: swremove

Add target group: /var/opt/ignite/sps/sv6files/sv6_targets Select: Actions, Show Software and Mark sv6_enhancements for removal Select: Remove from the Actions menu Reboot as requested

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2 Install another

version of graphics software

Re-install sv6_enhancements on all systems . . .or for stand-alone sv6 systems, download and install the latest X server and OpenGL patches from http://itrc.hp.com.

installing to all sv6 systems using HP Software Distributor

There are many ways to utilize HP’s Software Distributor (SD) tools to install software. The previous section uses scripts with command line SD calls to make it easy to update the sv6_enhancements package.

This section describes one way to use the SD GUI tools to install depots or patches onto all systems in your sv6 conﬁguration at the same time. See the man page for ‘swinstall’ or http://managementsoftware.hp.com/products/swdist/ for details on HP Software Distributor usage.

WARNING When installing patches that require a reboot, switch to a

stand-alone workstation X server instantiation. If you wish to use the SD GUI tools instead of the command line or terminal versions, either login remotely to perform the install, or conﬁgure the X server to run as it would on a stand-alone workstation. (Example: Temporarilymove the /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle to X0screens.save then restart the X server.) Failure to do this could result in an incomplete installation. On sv6, when the ﬁrst slave node reboots, it kills the X server on the master node, which kills the remaining swinstall GUI windows.

NOTE The examples below assume a single-channel system with a master

gigabit hostname of svm and an example patch number of PHSS_25612, which is in tape depot format. Make appropriate substitutions as needed.

Here is a summary of the following installation steps:

• Download and unpack software.

• If the software requires a reboot, change to a stand-alone workstation X server.

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• Add /var/opt/ignite/sps/sv6_files to path.

• Verify sv6_targets list.

• all touch /var/adm/sw/.sdkey

• all /usr/sbin/swacl -l root -M user:root@svm:crwit

• swcopy

• swinstall

step 1: preparation

1. Back up your system before installing a patch.

2. Login as root.

3. Add the sv6ﬁles directory to your path to access helpful scripts. Example:

export PATH=$PATH:/var/opt/ignite/sps/sv6files

4. Download software to a temporary directory on the master node. Example: Save As /tmp/PHSS_25612 Before installing, observe any special instructions or patch

dependencies. Individual HP-UX patches are available at http://itrc.hp.com

5. Unpack compressed packages if necessary. Example:

cd /tmp sh PHSS_25612

6. Set root access permissions for SD (Software Distributor) tools. Verify that you have a recent version (PHCO_23966, PHCO_25875,

or newer) of the software distributor tools, which have the ability to install to multiple targets.

swlist |grep SD

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Use the default target list which is generated during the initial installation of sv6 systems, /var/opt/sps/sv6ﬁles/sv6_targets, or create a new ﬁle containing the gigabit hostnames of all systems in your sv6 conﬁguration. The ﬁrst name in the list must be the gigabit hostname of the master system. For single-channel conﬁgurations, the default master hostname is svm, and for multi-channel the default is svm_c1. For this example, our sv6_targets ﬁle contains:

svm sv1 sv2 sv3 sv4

Touch the .sdkey ﬁle on each system to allow for the SD “install to multiple targets” functionality. Use the /var/opt/ignite/sps/sv6ﬁles/all script to automatically run this command on all systems in the targets list.

all touch /var/adm/sw/.sdkey

Enable SD root permissions from the master system to all systems in the target list.

master=$(head –1 /var/opt/ignite/sps/sv6files/sv6_targets) all /usr/sbin/swacl -l root -M user:root@$master:crwit

step 2: copy and register locally

This step meets the requirement of the SD “install to multiple targets” functionality. The patch or depot being applied must be registered on the local (not network mounted) hard drive of the master system. Tapedepot format is not supported. The swcopy command converts tape depots into an acceptable format.

Key to steps below Example

Menu Selections (xxx) (Actions) Buttons [xxx] [OK] Text or commands to be

entered

7. Start the SD copy GUI: swcopy

8. In the target selection window:

Plain, bold svm

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(Actions)

(Add Targets)

Hostname: svm [Add] Target Depot Path: /var/opt/sps/depots [OK] [OK]

(Actions)

(Show Software For Selection)

Source Host Name: svm Source Depot Path: /tmp/PHNE_25612.depot

9. In the software selection window:

Left click to select PHNE_25612 Right click on PHNE_25612

(Mark for copy)

(Actions)

(Copy)

Assign an optional job title for monitoring and reference purposes.

Example: march gb

[OK]

Watch for warning or error messages that need to be resolved.

(File)

(Exit)

updating software

step3: install

WARNING When installing patches that require a reboot, switch to a

10. Start install GUI: swinstall

11. In the target selection screen:

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updating software

12. In the software selection window:

Left click to select PHNE_25612 Right click on PHNE_25612

(Mark For Install)

(Actions)

(Add Target Group) name: /var/opt/ignite/sps/sv6ﬁles/sv6_targets [OK]

(Actions)

(Show Software For Selection)

Source Host Name: svm Source Depot Path: /var/opt/sps/depots

[OK]

(Actions)

(Install)

Assign an optional job title for monitoring and reference purposes.

Example: march gb patch

[OK] [OK]

Watch the Job Browser and Job Results window for conﬁrmation, warning, or error messages, which may need your response.

[Done]

step 4: veriﬁcation

13. Check logs for errors. Highlight the system with errors or warnings,then click [Show Log]. Copies of SD logs can be found at /var/adm/sw/*.log

14. If a pop-up window requests a mandatory reboot, click [Done]. By default, auto-reboot is disabled for the master node only, so the slaves will automatically reboot.

Reboot the master system: /sbin/reboot –q

15. Verify that the new software shows up in the software list.

swlist |grep PHNE_25612

The name and description should show up as output. Example: PHNE_25612 1.0 1000Base-SX/T B.11.00.[02-11] cumul. patch

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advanced setup for multiple display channels

For multiple displays (up to 3 displays) multiple hp visualization center

sv6 clusters can be combined to increase screen real estate.

Figure 2-15 Multiple Channel View

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additional X server

An additional X server called the ‘head’ controls the other X servers. In addition to the master X server, the head X server is run on the ﬁrst master workstation listed in the /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle. This simply adds one more layer to the X server hierarchy. The head X server controls the master X servers running on each 2D node. The master X servers control the slave X servers running on each 3D slave node. Notice in the following 8-pipe, 2 channel sample X0screens ﬁle, that each hp visualization center sv6 cluster has an ID associated with its 2D master node. A row, column order for the displays is also speciﬁed. Position the displays left to right top to bottom to match the row, column order you specify in this ﬁle.

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Master

Hostname svm_c1 #master system’s hostname ID sv_c1_master #a unique label describing

sv1_c1 #3D slave nodes for this cluster sv2_c1 sv3_c1 sv4_c1 sv5_c1 sv6_c1 sv7_c1 sv8_c1

svm_c1

Mode Accelerate End Master Hostname svm_c2

ID svm_c2_master

sv1_c2 sv2_c2 sv3_c2 sv4_c2 sv5_c2 sv6_c2 sv7_c2 sv8_c2

the master system

svm_c22

Mode Accelerate End SLSd

svm_c1_master_1 svm_c2_master_2 SlaveLayout

Rows 1 Columns 2

There are template X0screens ﬁles for various types of conﬁgurations in the /usr/lib/X11/misc/slsd/config directory. A template for the conﬁguration you ordered will be put into place (/etc/X11/X0screens) before HP ships your system.

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See the comments in /etc/X11/X0screens for more information on syntax for multiple channels.

additional equipment

A separate hp visualization center sv6 cluster must be added for each additional channel of output, as desired.

A continuous chain, starting at the master system (M) which is the 2D pipe in the ﬁrst rack, connects all workstations. The chain is formed by synchronization cables between the racks. See the diagrams below.

Figure 2-16 Synchronization cable chain

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conﬁguring offset overlap

When running a conﬁguration where the output is displayed by projectors, it is often necessary to overlap the output channels to ensure proper video intensity across the entire display (see Figure 2-22). Edit the /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle to include the following ScreenOption to specify the amount of each screen to use for blending:

SlsScreenBlendOffsetPercent 25

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Figure 2-17 Edge Blending

This raises the intensity of the pixels on the edges of the physical screens so that the overall projected image is consistently bright. These blending options are only meaningful in multi-channel conﬁgurations. The default is to not enable screen blending

SlsScreenBlendOffsetPixels is similar to SlsScreenBlendOffsetPercent, except you specify the exact number of pixels to blend instead of a percentage of the screen width. Specify either pixels or a percentage. These two options are mutually exclusive.

conﬁguring offset overlap for multiple rows

The previous edge-blending example shows a simple three-channel conﬁguration with one row and blending between the three columns. For blending of multiple rows, also add one of the following ScreenOptions to specify the amount of each screen to use for blending between the rows:

SlsScreenBlendHeightPercent <percent> SlsScreenBlendHeightPixels <pixels>

Example:

SlaveLayout

ScreenOptions

Rows 2 Columns 2

SlsScreenBlendOffsetPixels 256

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SlsScreenBlendHeightPixels 256

Figure 2-18 Multi-channel Edge Blending

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Channel 1 output

Channel 3 output

Figure 2-19 Height Edge Blending

Width

Column 1

Channel 2 output

Channel 4 output

Column 2

Row 1

Height

Row 2

See also the “usage”, “changing resolution” section for details about setting a width, height, and frequency that are compatible with your projector.

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backdrops

In addition to the standard CDE patterns, your hp visualization center sv6 system comes with special high resolution CDE backgrounds for conﬁgurations with two or three display channels.

The following ﬁles are for use with the HP-UX Common Desktop Environment (or CDE). They are formatted as pix map ﬁles to be used as backdrops for a user’s account.

1. Choose the desired resolution ﬁle from /.dt/backdrops

2. Select the Backdrop option from the Style Manager

3. Itmay take some time to open the menu as CDE ﬁrst scans the large ﬁles and adds them to the ﬁle browser. Open the menu when ready.

4. Select a backdrop to display as depicted in the following page. Select the Apply button to make it the current backdrop.

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Figure 2-20 3840 x 1024 3x(1280 x 1024)

cst3840.pm

grdc3840.pm

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ﬁsh3840.pm

Figure 2-21 3072 x 768 3x(1024 x 768)

cst3072.pm

grdc3072.pm

ﬁsh3072.pm

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usage

This section covers some general tasks the hp visualization center sv6 user may do. If you are looking for descriptions of hp visualization center sv6 tools, skip to the How To Use hp visualization center sv6 Tools section.

• X Server

• X0screens Description

Tostart the X server on the master system, run X:0 or go to init 3 to start up the X server and CDE. The master’s X server will automatically start and control all slave X servers on the other systems.

Tokill the X server, press <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<Break>, then wait for the X servers to stop.

Press <Ctrl>+<Shift>+<Break> again. Press enter a couple of times to get the prompt back.

The /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle details the X server conﬁguration information for the HP X server. The X0screens ﬁle is used to conﬁgure many aspects of hp visualization center sv6 including which systems are to be involved in the hp visualization center sv6 conﬁguration, video timing data, and options to obtain diagnostic information.

The X0screens ﬁle on the hp visualization center sv6 master system is used to conﬁgure the X servers on each of the hp visualization center sv6 slave systems. This single-ﬁle conﬁguration maintains consistency between all nodes.

NOTE This ﬁle must be edited as root and must be located in

/etc/X11/X0screens

• Loading X0screens templates A template /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle is on the master system.

There are several additional X0screens template ﬁles available.Copy or link the desired (and compatible) template to X0screens. For

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usage

instance, if you have a three channel system, but you want to temporarily set the conﬁguration to use only two of the channels, you could save the current X0screens ﬁle and move a two channel template into place:

cp /etc/X11/X0screens /etc/X11/X0screens.orig cd /usr/lib/X11/Xserver/misc/slsd/templates

cp X0screens.p16c2 /etc/X11/X0screens

. . . or

ln -s /etc/X11/X0screens.16c2 /etc/X11/X0screens

NOTE Early versions of SLS/d required the /etc/X11/X0devices and

/etc/X11/X0screens ﬁles on the slavesystems to be edited. This is

no longer necessary, since the master system uses the information in its X0screens ﬁle to do automatic conﬁguration on the slaves via the X server.

changing resolution

Use one of the methods below to specify the resolution in the /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle. Each method automatically sets all graphics cards in the hp visualization center sv6 conﬁguration to the speciﬁed resolution. If no video timing information is speciﬁed, the default settings will be used.

Do not use the setmon program to change resolutions on your systems. It does not have the functionality to change all necessary settings.

• Standard Resolutions: To set a standard resolution, add the following lines to the

ScreenOptions section of the /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle. The example below is the default for fx10 graphics cards in an hp

visualization center sv6 conﬁguration (1280x1024 at 75 Hz):

ScreenOptions SlsdVideoTimingWidth 1280 SlsdVideoTimingHeight 1024 SlsdVideoTimingFrequency 75

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usage

• Customized Resolutions:

• Stereo Resolutions

If you wish to customize to a non-standard video format or specify precise timing parameters:

Select one of the video timing ﬁles from

/usr/lib/X11/Xserver/misc/slsd/videotiming Reference it in the /etc/X11/X0screens as follows: ScreenOptions

SlsdVideoTimingFile /usr/lib/X11/misc/slsd/videotiming/<timingfile>

For active stereo, add the following line under the ScreenOptions section of /etc/X11/X0screens:

SlsdCompositorStereo Active

For passive stereo:

SlsdCompositorStereo Passive

See the Stereoscopic Viewing section for details about active and passive stereo.

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See the README ﬁles at:

/opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/doc/sv/README.*

The following tools can be used to make on-the-ﬂy conﬁguration changes.

• sv_config -This script allows you to customize the site-visible host names and IP addresses for slave systems. It is not necessary to set the IP addresses on the slave systems for the system to operate properly. Use this script to set root passwords on the slave systems. This is only necessary if you want access to these systems for other uses.

First, you must know the new host names and IP addresses for all the systems, including the IP address of the Digi-Etherlite terminal server. When you have this information you can run sv_conﬁg (/var/opt/ignite/sps/sv6files/sv_config) and it will prompt you for the new information for each system.

You may also prepare a ﬁle with this information for sv_conﬁg to read. First copy the sv6_targets to a temporary ﬁle (for example:

cp /var/opt/ignite/sps/sv6files/sv6_targets /tmp/sv6_newnames). Then edit /tmp/sv6_newnames to add the

required information. It should look like the example below:

svm sv1 sv2 sv3 ...

Append after each sv name the hostname and IP address you want the system to be known as within your site network. The ﬁrst line (svm) is the master system, sv_config doesn’t change the master’s hostname or IP address, use set_parms to do that. sv6_newnames will then look like this:

svm mymastername 111.222.123.1 sv1 myname1 111.222.123.2 sv2 myname2 111.222.123.20 sv3 myname3 111.222.123.17 . Then run ./sv_config -f /tmp/sv6_newnames

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sv_config will then use that ﬁle to determine how to set each system’s hostname and IP address. It will then ask you to enter the IP address for any Digi-Etherlite Terminal servers you have. Once all the data has been collected the changes are made to the systems and sv_config asks to reboot. A reboot is needed for all the changes to take effect. If you are not able to reboot at this time you can use sv_config -rebootall

sv_config always saves the ﬁles it will be changing so that the system can be restored later. Use sv_config -restore to put the saved ﬁles back in place.

NOTE This does not change the Gigabit Ethernet hostnames or IP

addresses.

• xsetpipes GUI - The Xsetpipes GUI allows you to change and manipulate the layout and pipe arrangement while viewing 3D changes. The same functionality can be used via the command line. See the ‘setpipes Command Line Tool’ section below.

For information about how to use this tool:

/opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/bin/xsetpipes –help

or read /opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/doc/README.xsetpipes

• xadvsetpipes GUI This is an advanced version of the xsetpipes tool that allows the

screen rectangle lines to be dragged across the display. Both GUIs take advantage of the same core functionality, which is provided by the command line tool.

For information about how to use this tool, log in to CDE, then run:

/opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/bin/xadvsetpipes –help

or read /opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/doc/README.xadvsetpipes

• setpipes Command Line Tool For information about how to use this tool:

/opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/bin/setpipes –help

The following section is a copy of

/opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/doc/README.setpipes

Note: the ‘VisCenter’ sections refer to multi-channel conﬁgurations.

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Hewlett-Packard Visualize Center sv6 NAME setpipes - sv6 Pipe Configuration Tool SYNOPSIS (sv6 Configuration) setpipes [options] [options]

-h - Arrange Pipes in Horizontal Bands

-v - Arrange Pipes in Vertical Stripes

-grid - Arrange Pipes in a Regular Grid

-full - Each Pipe covers the entire screen

-pane - Arrange Pipes in a “Pane”

-pr l r t b - Pane Rectangle: Specifies the inner pane

rectangle in terms of percentages from the left, right, top, and bottom of the screen

-po <mode> - Pane Orientation: Specifies the orientation

of the Pipes within the Pane. This can be either h,v or grid.

-samples [ 2 | 4 | 8 | 16 ] - Number of jitter samples per

Pipe

-jf <file> - Read jitter values from file <file>

-js <scale> - Scale the jitter values by <scale>

-show - Show Pipe Rectangle indicators on the display

-hide - Hide Pipe Rectangle indicators on the display

-xdist x1 x2 ... - X Distribution percentage of each Pipe

relative to the screen width

-ydist y1 y2 ... - Y Distribution percentage of each Pipe

relative to the screen height SYNOPSIS (sv6 VisCenter Configuration) setpipes [glob_options] -0 [Master 0 Options]

-1 [Master 1 Options]

-2 [Master 2 Options] [glob_options]

-show, -hide, -samples, -jf, -js [Master <x> Options]

-h, -v, -grid, -pane, -full, -samples, -js,

-show, -hide -pr, -po, -xdist, -ydist

DESCRIPTION

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The setpipes program modifies the location and size of the rendering area for each 3D Slave. In addition, the number of jitter samples per 3D Slave can also be specified.

NOTES:1) When experimenting with different values in xdist and ydist, it is possible that the values will not total 100% of the screen width or height. In this case, the command will be executed and the compositor will display a test pattern in the areas not covered by a pipe. The test pattern is a block grid pattern that rotates between red, green, and blue continuously.

2) When running setpipes on an sv6 VisCenter configuration, the "-" is optional between the master specifier (e.g, "-0") and the Pipe orientation (e.g., grid). In other words, on an sv6 VisCenter:

setpipes -0 grid -1 grid is identical to setpipes -0 -grid -1 -grid EXAMPLES

1) sv6 Configuration: 8-Pipe System, Horizontal Stripes setpipes -h +---------------+ |---------------| |---------------| |---------------| |---------------| |---------------| |---------------| |---------------| +---------------+

2) sv6 Configuration: 8-Pipe System, Grid setpipes -grid +---+---+---+---+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+

|||| | | | | | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+

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3) sv6 Configuration: 8-Pipe System, 2 jitter samples per

pipe setpipes -grid -samples 2 +-------+-------+ | | | | 2x | 2x | | | | +-------+-------+ | | | | 2x | 2x | | | | +-------+-------+

4) sv6 Configuration: 8-Pipe System, 4 jitter samples per

pipe setpipes -grid -samples 4 +---------------+ | | | 4x | | | +---------------+ | | | 4x | | | +---------------+

5) sv6 Configuration: 8-Pipe System, Pane Orientation Grid setpipes -pane -po grid +---+-------+---+ | | | | | +---+---+ | | | | | | | +---+---+ | | | | | | | +---+---+ | | | | | +---+-------+---+

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6) sv6 VisCenter Configuration: Show Pipe Indicators Master 0: 8-Pipe System, Grid Master 1: 8-Pipe System, Horizontal Master 2: 8-Pipe System, Vertical setpipes -show -0 grid -1 h -2 v +---+---+---+---+ +---------------+ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | | | | |---------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---------------| | | | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+ |---------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |---------------| | | | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+ +---------------+ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

7) sv6 Configuration: 4-Pipe System, Grid Left-Half Pipes take up 60% of the screen Top-Half Pipes take up 70% of the screen setpipes -grid -xdist 60 40 -ydist 70 30 +----+----------+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +----+----------+ | | |

+----+----------+

• jitter ﬁle tool The jitter tool can be used to generate a custom jitter ﬁle which can

then be loaded and used with setpipes. This tool allows you to manually select custom jitter points, thus customize/increase the quality of their output by controlling how samples are taken for Accumulate Mode.

For information about how to use this tool:

/opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/bin/jitter –help

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or see /opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/doc/README.jitter

• Other tools See the /opt/graphics/OpenGL/doc/sv/README.* ﬁles for

details about other hp visualization center sv6 tools

sv6 diagnostics

Use the diagnostic tool for troubleshooting. The executable is /usr/local/bin/sv6diag. More usage details can be found by viewing the man page for sv6diag, or running sv6diag -h. Diagnostic results are generated as a table showing the pass/fail status for each component in the system.

sv6diag runs the following sequence of tests: Back - Veriﬁes name resolution on slaves

Comp - Tests RS232 connectivity to the compositor(s) Digi - Veriﬁesconnectivity to slaves through the Digi-Etherlite terminal server Forw - Veriﬁes name resolution on master Giga - Tests connectivity on 1000 baseT network Ping - Veriﬁes connectivity to terminal server Rsh - Veriﬁes Remote Shell Capability Tnet - Tests connectivity on 10/100baseT network

Usage: To run the test suite, type: sv6diag [-abcdglnprt] Description:

Runs diagnostic tests on sv6 systems. All tests run by default without logging.

Options:

a - Run all tests b - Verify name resolution on slaves c - Test connectivity to the compositor(s) d - Verify connectivity to slaves through the terminal server g - Test connectivity on 1000baseT network l - Turn logging on n - Verify name resolution on master p - Verify connectivity to terminal server r - Verify Remote Shell Capability t - Test connectivity on 10/100baseT network

Executing sv6diag with no arguments runs all of the tests.

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sample output from running sv6diag on a standard sv6 system

Product Information graphics product: sv6

Displays: 3 Pipes/Display: 16 spu description: 9000/785

Configuration Information image planes: 48

overlay planes: 8 Resolution: 1280 x 1024 @ 75 Hz

HP OpenGL Support direct rendering (hardware): yes

receive indirect rendering (protocol): yes emit indirect rendering (protocol): yes virtual GL rendering (VGL): yes

Running pingDigi: .

Running verifyNameF: .....

Running pingJGiga: ......

Running remsh: .....

Running testCompConnect: .

Running pingJHub: .....

Running pingJDigi: .....

Running verifyNameB: .....

Test Name Key Back - Verify name resolution on slaves

Comp - Test RS232 connectivity to the compositor(s) Digi - Verify connectivity to slaves through the Digi-Etherlite terminal server Forw - Verify name resolution on master Giga - Test connectivity on 1000baseT network Ping - Verify connectivity to terminal server Rsh - Verify Remote Shell Capability Tnet - Test connectivity on 10/100baseT network

-------------

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Test Results

------------

Machine Name Forw Giga Rsh Back Tnet Comp Ping Digi

------------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- --- ----

svm_c1 ok ok ok ok ok ok sv1_c1 ok ok ok ok ok ok sv2_c1 ok ok ok ok ok ok sv3_c1 ok ok ok ok ok ok sv4_c1 ok ok ok ok ok ok

els0 ok

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stereoscopic viewing

This section covers basic installation issues for stereoscopic viewing options. Please consult your chosen provider for complete details on their products.

active stereo overview

Most output devices are only compatible with active stereo. For active stereo, only one output card per digital compositor (A6061A) is needed. Synchronized emitter and stereo eye wear are connected to the controller card on the digital compositor.

Hardware:

• One digital compositor output card for each channel.

• Monitor or other standard output device.

• Stereo Emitter(s) and eyewear synchronized to block out left or right eye at appropriate times.

See http://www.hp.com/go/workstations for an overview of immersive environment products and hp visualization center sv6 certiﬁed output devices.

passive stereo overview

Most output devices use active stereo as described above. With the passive stereo capability, no emitter is needed. It uses a combination of polarized eye wear and special output display devices (such as, specially aligned projectors or passive stereo work bench displays). Two output cards must be used for the compositor to produce the entire left-eye scene and entire right-eye scene.Both scenes are overlapped. The polarized eye wear ﬁlters out the correct image for the right and left eye.

Hardware:

• Two digital compositor output cards per channel.

• Output device that supports passive stereo.

• Polarized stereo eye wear.

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stereo hardware installation

The following steps are recommended for installing stereo hardware packages for use with a multi-channel hp visualization center sv6 solution. The same principles apply to single channel conﬁgurations.

1. Unpack and inventory components Emitters should have a stereo-sync BNC type connector and a 9-pin

D-sub connector for the separate power transformers. BNC coaxial type cables are necessary for signal transfer between the graphics card and the emitters. BNC “T” connectors are often used to split stereo signals from the controller card on the compositor to several emitters.

2. Ensure eye wear is functioning and clean Follow the manufacturer’s suggestions for cleaning the eye wear.

3. Position emitter in viewing area For hp visualization center sv6 systems that use monitors as display

devices, one emitter is usually sufﬁcient for small groups. The emitter is usually placed strategically on top of the user’s console monitor(s) in the center of the user’s direction of gaze.

If more than one emitter is needed, they are usually positioned such that the coverage angles (approximately 90 degrees horizontal arc, 40 degrees vertical arc) are sufﬁcient for audience members to “see” at least one infrared emitter when viewing a screen.

Always ensure that the sight line between an emitter and sensor on the eye wear is unobstructed from all relevant angles of view.

4. Connect emitters to the Compositor Recommended signal distribution from the graphics cards to

emitters is from a single point (the compositor controller card on the master system) to the emitters. Emitters are serially connected (daisy chained) with “T” BNC connectors using coaxial (BNC tipped) cables between emitters.

Under normal circumstances, the master system’s compositor drives one active stereo emitter. Greater numbers of emitters or longer cable lengths may require signal ampliﬁcation. Consult the stereo equipment vendor for more information

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stereo hardware installation

Connect power supply transformers to their respective emitters at this stage. As with all computer equipment, emitters should be surge-protected from hazardous power spikes wherever possible.

CAUTION It is recommended that all emitters be powered OFF when

connecting or disconnecting their cables to any other equipment. This can reduce the possibility of harmful power surges to other equipment when handling this signal source.

5. Power up the emitters The power switch for emitters is located on the back side of the

device. The switch has three positions -- high, off, and low power.It is recommended that you use the high power position to improve signal performance, especially in rooms with high ambient light or that accommodate larger audiences.

changing to stereo monitor mode

Use the following instructions to change graphics cards and compositor settings to a stereo mode.

1. Add ScreenOption log in to the master system as root

init 2

In addition to the SlsdVideo resolution settings or the videotiming ﬁle speciﬁed in /etc/X11/X0screens, add one of the following lines under the ScreenOptions section:

SlsdCompositorStereo Active SlsdCompositorStereo Passive

Save the /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle

2. Start up the new X server:

init 3

This will set all graphics cards in the conﬁguration to the new stereo setting and then bring up CDE.

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See /usr/lib/X11/Xserver/misc/slsd/videotiming/ for videotiming ﬁles.

veriﬁcation

The synchronized stereoscopic feature can be tested with the simple_stereo example OpenGL application located at:

/opt/graphics/OpenGL/demos/stereo/simple_stereo.c

To test stereoscopic output, complete the following: First compile the source code in an appropriate directory. (Executable

provided for run-time only environments.) Log in and execute application

Figure 2-22 Simple stereoscopic application

installation and user information

stereo hardware installation

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optimization

• Application suggestions

• Using NFS to mount hard drives

— Applications that primarily use display lists for rendering,

perform best on the hp visualization center sv6 systems.

— The use of vertex arrays by the application can also be helpful in

cases where it is not possible to use display list.

— Immediate mode applications are likely to run slower because of

the excessive network trafﬁc. Use pass through mode to overcome this issue.

— All applications and models should be installed on the master

system for the best performance

— If extra disk space is needed, adding an additional hard drive to

the master system is recommended. As an alternative, the hard drives of the slave machines may be mounted using the standard NFS commands or by running HP’s System Administration Manager (SAM) as follows:

CAUTION This may slightly increase the wait time during loading and

hard drive access.

— Run SAM; choose Networking and Communications,

Networked File Systems then Export or Mount the hard drive you want to share.

— See the Help menu for more details

• Optimizing performance For each application and model type, try experimenting with some

different screen layout x and y offsets and other setpipes options. By adjusting the pipe rectangle slices to ﬁt the model’s proportions, you can maximize the rendering performance.

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— Accelerate Mode - See the README.* setpipes ﬁles for

— Panes - In this screen layout, the center of the screen is

Figure 2-23 Panes

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optimization

instructions for specifying a screen layout in accelerate mode.

/opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/doc/README.*setpipes

sub-divided into one of the basic layouts: grid, horizontal slices, or vertical slices. Four larger screen rectangles form the outside borders of the screen. Use one of the setpipes tools to select the panes layout. By putting the smaller screen rectangles over the center where rendering demands will probably be greatest, you can achieve faster performance.

At this time, this functionality only works for 8- and 16-pipe systems. For 8-pipe conﬁgurations (accelerate mode only) set samples=1, and for 16-pipe samples=2 (mixed mode only).

In this 16-pipe example, there are two 3D rendering nodes accumulated to display to each screen rectangle. More of the computing resources are focused on the center where there is more geometry to be rendered

— X and y offset adjustments - Use the xadvsetpipes tool (see

/opt/graphics/OpenGl/sv/doc/README.xadvsetpipes) to adjust the size of the screen rectangles. Place the smaller rectangles over the areas where rendering demands will be the greatest. For example, you may choose to expand the top screen rectangle to be very large if that region doesn’t have very much geometry as pictured in Fig. 2-26.

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Figure 2-24 X and Y Offset Adjustments

— Environment Variables - use the following environment

variable to measure and compare performance: HPOGL_LOG_FRAME_RATE - Is an application environment

variable, which can be used to get a display of the frame rate for bench marking and performance comparisons.

On the master system at a command line prompt:

export HPOGL_LOG_FRAME_RATE=1

From the same prompt, run the application you wish to measure Move something in the application window and watch for frame

rates in the window where the prompt is. When ﬁnished:

unset HPOGL_LOG_FRAME_RATE

Pixel Zoom - when HPOGL_DSM_DISABLE_FAST_ZOOM is enabled, the OpenGL Pixel Zoom rendering reverts to its previous slower behavior. If you want to determine the amount of this Pixel Zoom performance tuning, set this environment variable and compare with not setting it. This feature was released in software version 0201 in January 2002.

Example: To see the slower mode:

export HPOGL_DSM_DISABLE_FAST_ZOOM=1

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The default is for fast zoom to be enabled. To put it back to its original setting:

unset HPOGL_DSM_DISABLE_FAST_ZOOM

The environment variable HPOGL_OPT_CACHE_MATRICES can be used with any application, but has the most impact on applications that beneﬁt from matrix caching. Matrix caching is an optional client side optimization that detects successive glPushMatrix(), glMultMatrix(), render, render, glPopMatrix()sequences where the exact same matrix is redundantly sent.

To enable this feature, set the environment variable before running the application:

export HPOGL_OPT_CACHE_MATRICES=1

• Optimizing image quality By adjusting the number of pipes used for accumulation (using

setpipes) and turning on hardware scene anti-aliasing (described below), you can maximize the image quality.

optimization

Accumulate Mode - See the

/opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/doc/README.*setpipes ﬁles for instructions on specifying an accumulate mode screen layout. This can be done with either a GUI or via command line options.

There are two methods of turning scene anti-aliasing on and off for fx10graphics cards in your hp visualization center sv6 workstations:

Method #1:

The environment variables, HPOGL_FORCE_SCENE_AA and HPOGL_FORCE_SCENE_AA_DBL can be used by any application without any code changes. The ﬁrst one forces all 24-bit OpenGL rendering to be scene anti-aliased and the second one restricts scene anti-aliasing to only double buffered visuals.

This will turn on scene anti-aliasing for all OpenGL applications. To enable one of these, add it to the Environment section of the /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle then restart the X server.

Method #2:

An application can turn on/off scene anti-aliasing on the ﬂy by using

the OpenGL calls:

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glEnable(GL_SUPERSAMPLE_HP); glDisable(GL_SUPERSAMPLE_HP);

CAUTION Depending upon application frame rates and window size, enabling

scene anti-aliasing can impact performance signiﬁcantly. With low frame rates and/or small windows, the performance impact is minor (5% or less). Also, when scene anti-aliasing is turned on, there is much less fx10 memory available for caching texture maps, so this can also impact rendering performance.

pass through mode

Applications that run in OpenGL immediate mode rather than running in display list mode do not scale well in performance. Immediate mode applications tend to run slower when executed on the sv6 architecture due to excessive network trafﬁc.

To provide the best performance for immediate mode applications running on sv6 systems, a special mode called “pass through mode” has been implemented. When an application runs in pass through mode on an sv6 system, it bypasses the sv6 architecture and runs as if it were executing graphics on a standard workstation. This is the optimal mode for executing immediate mode OpenGL code on an sv6 conﬁguration.

To enable pass through mode, simply set this variable right before you run the application then unset it before you start any other applications from the same shell:

Example (for Korn Shell):

export HPOGL_PASS_THROUGH=1 /applications/abc/run_abc unset HPOGL_PASS_THROUGH

or (for C Shell)

setenv HPOGL_PASS_THROUGH 1 /applications/abc/run_abc unsetenv HPOGL_PASS_THROUGH

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WARNING Do not add this environment variable to /etc/X11/X0screens. That

would disable all scaling for everything rendered to the screen. By applying it only to the desired application, you can leave scaling enabled for everything else not inside the immediate mode application’s windows. In short, you should never set this variable so that it is applied to your user or system environment. It MUST be applied speciﬁcally to the invocation of applications that require it. A good way to do this is to set it in a script, which invokes the application.

gamma correction in pass through mode

The hp visualization center sv6 supports 3-channel gamma correction (i.e. red, green, and blue can all be controlled individually). However, pass through mode only allows for 1-channel gamma correction. To allow for normal sv6 mode and pass through mode to co-exist, the pass through mode simply uses the sv6's red gamma channel as the pass through gamma correction value for red, green, and blue.

pass through mode on a multi-channel sv6

A side effect of pass through mode is that an application cannot use the full area of a multi-channel display such as a power-wall.This is because the application is operating exactly as it would on a standard desktop workstation, and so it has no access to the sv6 channels, which are driving other monitors or projectors in the display. The result of this is that an application in pass through mode is constrained to the area of the display handled by the channel driven by the application master workstation. Typically, for a two- or three- channel system, this is the left-most channel. Furthermore, if the display is projected and uses edge-blending technology for a seamless image, the overlap region may prove out-of-bounds too, because the brightness of the application’s window will fall off as it approaches the edge of the channel (because its pixels are not duplicated in the channel next to it). Therefore it may be necessary to resize the window a little to ensure that it doesn’t enter the blend region.

Note that applications that do not require pass through mode can use any region of the full multi-channel display, and are not affected by pass through applications that may be running at the same time.

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gamma value

Another way to ﬁne-tune the image quality is to adjust the gamma correction. Specify the default values to be used for 3D gamma correction. using the instructions in the /opt/graphics/OpenGL/sv/doc/README.gamma ﬁle.

HPOGL_PUSH _ENVIRONMENT

To override the default environment speciﬁed in the SlaveEnvironment section of the /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle, have the application startup script set HPOGL_PUSH_ENVIRONMENT.

By setting HPOGL_PUSH_ENVIRONMENT, all HPOGL* environment variables are passed across to the slave nodes. With this mechanism, each application can have its own individual environment. In the absence of HPOGL_PUSH_ENVIRONMENT, slave environments default to X0screens settings at the time that the Xserver was started.

As an example, assume X0screens has:

SlaveEnvironment HPOGL_FORCE_SCENEAA=1 HPOGL_LIGHTING_SPACE=EC

Application abc’s startup script contains:

export HPOGL_BOUNDING_VOLUME_ENABLE=1 export HPOGL_BOUNDING_VOLUME_GLOBAL=1 export HPOGL_BVOL_MIN_VERTS=5 export HPOGL_BVOL_MAX_VERTS=10 export HPOGL_PUSH_ENVIRONMENT=1 /opt/apps/abc

For this example, application abc will run with the four variables set in its environment and WILL NOT have HPOGL_FORCE_SCENEAA or HPOGL_LIGHTING_SPACE=EC set.

Any other application that is run without HPOGL_PUSH_ENVIRONMENT will have only the X0screens values.

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3 ﬁle conﬁguration

You must be logged in as root to edit the following ﬁles. These are samples and based on an 8-pipe conﬁguration, but can be modiﬁed for any of the supported conﬁgurations. During the software installation

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process, all of the following ﬁles are automatically conﬁgured. Use these instructions to verify that all ﬁles are customized appropriately for any hardware changes, hostnames or IP addresses that were made.

• /.rhosts - Editing this ﬁle allows root access to other systems. Root permissions are required to edit many of the conﬁguration ﬁles described in this section. It is very handy to allow root access to all systems so it’s easy to use remsh to access each of them. A copy of this ﬁle is on each system.

Optionally, you may choose to remove this ﬁle from each system to disallow root access from other systems.

svm root sv1 root sv2 root sv3 root sv4 root sv5 root sv6 root sv7 root sv8 root

• /etc/X11/X0screens - Edit the X0screens ﬁle on the MASTER ONLY!

— There is a sample X0screens ﬁle template for each supported

hardware conﬁguration. Use these templates to create the /etc/X11/X0screens ﬁle to be used to conﬁgure the X server. For example, if you had an 8-pipe, two channel system (18 workstations displaying to two monitors):

To replace the existing X0screens ﬁle on the master system:

cd /usr/lib/X11/xserver/misc/slsd/templates cp X0screens.p8c2 /etc/X11/X0screens

— Edit the ﬁle to change hostname and IP addresses. Add or

remove comment delimiters (#) to enable the desired screen options or environment variables.

— See /usr/lib/X11/Xserver/info/screens/hp for general

X0screens syntax that is not hp visualization center sv6-speciﬁc.

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CAUTION For networking to function properly, hostnames used in

X0screens must match the hostnames and IP addresses in all other ﬁles described here.

############################################################## # X0screens.p8c1 # /etc/X11/X0screens

############################################################## # See the template files under the # /usr/lib/X11/Xserver/misc/slsd/templates directory # for other options and syntax. ##############################################################

# X*screens Configuration # ----------------------# Place any additional/different configuration information # below. Shown is an example sv6 configuration

SLSd sv1 sv2 sv3 sv4 sv5 sv6

sv7 sv8 svm SlaveLayout Mode Accelerate SlaveScreenOptions #DisableDma SlaveEnvironment #HPOGL_DLM_BOUNDING_VOLUME_GLOBAL=1 # This can be set for applications whose display lists do NOT

# contain any state setting commands that must persist after # the lists are called. Setting this when applicable can # increase performance significantly.

#HPOGL_FORCE_SCENEAA=1 #HPOGL_FORCE_SCENEAA_DBL=1

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# These variables turn on FX10 Scene Antialiasing. For # applications that do UI in OG (e.g. Icem Surfe) the second # should be used to limit SCENEAA to only double buffered #visuals.

#HPOGL_DISABLE_FAST_BUFFER_SWAP=1

# If image tearing is noticeable, this will force all FX10's to # wait for vertical retrace before buffer swapping. Setting # this can cause performance degradation especially in high #frame rate situations.

#HPOGL_BV_OCCLUSION_CULL=1 # By default, display-list view frustrum culling is enabled on # all VIS Center and sv6 configurations. Setting this variable # will cause a secondary occlusion cull test to be done # whenever geometry passes the view frustrum test. This # typically is only effective for applications that render # models using an outside-to-inside ordering.

#HPOGL_BV_LINE_MODE_CULL=1 # Forces a line mode occlusion cull test rather than the

# default filled quad mode test.

— /etc/inittab - Change the init level to init state 4 on the

master. Leave the other workstations at the default, init state 2. With these settings, CDE will start up after a reboot.

#/etc/inittab init:4:initdefault:

• /etc/hosts - Update this ﬁle on ALL systems if it is changed. — This ﬁle contains hostnames and IP addresses used by the

private Gigabit LAN. It also contains a second set of hostnames and IP addresses for the 10/1000 external LAN.

— The 192.168.1.* preﬁx is the static IP address. — Gigabit IP addresses are assigned in the same order as the

machines are seated in the rack. i.e. the master system, svm, is at the bottom of the rack and is plugged into the left-most card in the Gigabit Ethernet switchbox and gets assigned the IP

192.168.1.1.

— These IP addresses MUST match the IP in each system’s

/etc/rc.conf.d/netconf ﬁle.

— The standard 127.0.0.1 loopback for the Gigabit LAN Ethernet

switchbox must also be included.

#/etc/hosts # @(#)hosts $Revision: 1.9.214.1 $ $Date: 96/10/08 13:20:01 $

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# The form for each entry is: # <internet address> <official hostname> <aliases> # For example: # 192.1.2.34 hpfcrm loghost # See the hosts(4) manual page for more information. # Note: The entries cannot be preceded by a space. #DNS Server (optional)

15.6.180.221 dsnx.my.site dsnx

15.1.170.0 myvis #10/100 Ip8 hostname

127.0.0.1 localhost loopback

#sv6 10/100 LAN host information #Automatically generated, customize for your site.

15.1.170.1 sv1x sv1x

15.1.170.2 sv2x sv2x

15.1.170.3 sv3x sv3x . . .

15.1.170.8 sv8x sv8x

#sv6 Gigbit host information # Do not change

192.168.1.1 svm

192.168.1.2 sv1

192.168.1.3 sv2

192.168.1.4 sv3

192.168.1.5 sv4

192.168.1.6 sv5

192.168.1.7 sv6

192.168.1.8 sv7

192.168.1.9 sv8

• /etc/rc.config.d/netconf - On all systems, the lan1 section speciﬁes the IP address that corresponds with the HP ProCurve Gigabit Ethernet module (J4115B) that was assigned in the /etc/hosts ﬁle. The lan0 section and hostname specify the 10/100 LAN information.

#/etc/rc.config.d/netconf # netconf: configuration values for core networking subsystems

HOSTNAME=”svm” OPERATING_SYSTEM=HP-UX LOOPBACK_ADRESS=127.0.0.1

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INTERFACE_NAME[0]="lan0" IP_ADDRESS[0]="16.6.176.65" SUBNET_MASK[0]="255.255.255.0" BROADCAST_ADDRESS[0]="" INTERFACE_STATE[0]="" DHCP_ENABLE[0]=0

INTERFACE_NAME[1]="lan1" IP_ADDRESS[1]="192.168.1.9" SUBNET_MASK[1]="255.255.255.0" BROADCAST_ADDRESS[1]="192.168.1.255" INTERFACE_STATE[1]=""

DHCP_ENABLE[1]=0

• /etc/rc.config.d/slsd - This ﬁle enables the SLS/d daemon. After all reboots, the daemon will start automatically.

#************* File: /etc/rc.config.d/slsd ****************

#SLSd configuration. See /usr/lib/X11/Xserver/info/screens/hp #SLSD_DAEMON:Set to 1 to start Distributed Single Logical Screen #daemon. Set to 0 to disable Distributed Single Logical Screen #daemon

SLSD_DAEMON=1

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4 projector calibration targets

These calibration targets are for multi-channel hp visualization center sv6 systems using projectors as output devices. They are provided here as a courtesy. Contact your display vendor for instructions on how to install, conﬁgure, and calibrate projector equipment.

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how to use projector calibration targets

The following six targets at 256 x 256 resolution are provided under /.dt/backdrops on the master workstation.

• hp_circ.pm (Fig. 4-1)

• hp_line.pm (Fig. 4-2)

• hp_gray.pm (Fig. 4-3)

• hp_colr.pm (Fig. 4-4)

• hp_eye1.pm (Fig. 4-5)

• hp_eye2.pm (Fig. 4-6)

All ﬁles tile to be compatible with the following setup resolutions (or complete multiples of these dimensions):

• A) 1280 X 1024

• B) 1024 X 768

The above ﬁles are for use with the HP-UX Common Desktop Environment (CDE). They are formatted as pixmap ﬁles to be tiled as backdrops for an installer's account. To use, perform the following:

1. Extract the ﬁles from the tar format ﬁles with;

cd /.dt/backdrops

2. Copy the necessary ﬁles into local user directory:

$HOME/.dt/backdrops

3. Ensure that the current graphics mode is correct for the desired calibration (for example, 1280x1024 by 75Hz).

4. Select the Style Manager from the Front Panel .

5. Select the Color option from the Style Manager.

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6. To perform the calibration session, select More Colors for Desktop option in the Number of Colors To Use menu.

7. Conﬁrm Okay to both of the menus and return to the Style Manager.

8. Move to any part of desktop not in a window and click right mouse button - select Restart Workspace Manager... to allow color allocation increase to apply.

9. Select the Backdrop option from the Style Manager.

10. It may take some time to open the menu as CDE will scan the large ﬁles to add them to the ﬁle browser. Open when ready.

11. Select the appropriate backdrop to display as depicted in the following page. Select the Apply button to make it the current backdrop.

12. Iconify windows and menus to expose the backdrop for the projector technician.

13. Repeat process to apply other grids as necessary. Change monitor modes when necessary.

14. When ﬁnished with all calibrations,return Number of Colors to Use back to its original setting (most likely Default).

Figure 4-1 hp_circ.pm 128x128 circles (tiled example shown)

128 x 128 circles, grids, and diagonals to measure convergence and adjust projection geometry.;

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Figure 4-2 hp_line.pm 64X64 grid lines (tiled example shown)

64 x 64 grids for horizontal and vertical convergence.

Figure 4-3 hp_gray.pm gray scale (tiled example shown)

16 step gray scale on horizontal axis with 0-255 indicators to compute brightness.

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Figure 4-4 hp_color.pm color scale (tiled example shown)

White, yellow, cyan, green, magenta, red, blue, black color bars.

Figure 4-5 hp_eye1.pm eye chart #1 (tiled example shown)

projector calibration targets

Fine grain “eye-chart” style letters for ﬁne tuning and alignments.

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Figure 4-6 hp_eye2.pm eye chart #2 (tiled example shown)

Additional capital “E” letters for display alignments.

Chapter 496

A hp scalable visualization digital

compositor

The hp scalable visualization digital compositor (A6061A) is a hardware component designed specially for scalable visualization. It consists of a

Appendix A 97

hp scalable visualization digital compositor

compositor cards

rack mountable box containing a fourteen-slot backplane. Into the backplane, three types of cards can be inserted: a controller card, an input card and output cards.

compositor cards

The compositor must contain one controller card. It is responsible for initializing the system, updating ﬁrmware, and communicating with the master Workstationto update state information (mode, video rates,video stream state, etc.). This card also accepts the stereo sync signal from the graphics card on the master Workstation and produces the stereo sync needed by active stereo emitters. It also controls the power switch, fan, and status LEDs. After initialization, it only monitors the fan, power supply, and sets the LEDs.

The input card has connections for two video input streams. In a scalable visualization system, one input is used for the 2D stream while the second input on that card is used for 3D. Some number of additional input cards are used for 3D streams. The input card is responsible for taking in digital video streams, down-sampling the data (in super-sample scene anti-aliasing mode) and inserting the data into the appropriate location of an internal frame buffer (in all modes) while summing the data with the original frame buffer contents (in jitter scene anti-aliasing mode). This frame buffer is then sent to the next input card for insertion of its data. The ﬁnal stage is for the 2D channel to optionally average the data (divide by the number of 3D input streams when in jitter mode), overlay its 2D rendering stream data and mask off the non-3D data from the previous input cards.

The output card takes the composited image and produces a digital or analog output signal that is appropriate for the display on a ﬂat panel or monitor. For a given display there can be two output cards. Two are used to convert the sequential left/right image data from active stereo into a parallel left image and a right image needed for passive stereo. To support this, output card #1 has a frame buffer for holding the left image while output card #2 receives the right image. When the correct left and right images are completely received they are displayed simultaneously while new left/right images are received.

Appendix A98

Figure A-1 shows the various cards contained in a scalable visualization system with the identiﬁcation of the connectors on the boards.

Figure A-1 Compositor Cards

controller card output card input card

hp scalable visualization digital compositor

compositor cards

LEDs LEDs

Figure A-2 shows a view of the compositor backplane with one controller card, one output card, and three input cards. This conﬁguration would support a single display with four 3D rendering pipelines.

analog video outDVI video outserial connect stereo sync I/O

DVI input 1

LEDs

DVI input 2

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compositor cards

Figure A-2 Compositor Backplane

Output Card Input Cards (3)

The scalable visualization solution supports both single screen and multi-screen conﬁgurations. In a multi-screen conﬁguration multiple hp visualization center sv6 clusters, each with its own compositor, are used (as opposed to multiple output cards for a single display to support passive stereo).

Figure A-3 shows an example of a compositor backplane conﬁguration (looking at it from the back at where the cables attach), one for an 8-pipe, single display system.

Controller Card

Appendix A100

HP sv6 User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

1 safety and support information

how to obtain support for your sv6 system

safety warnings

rack stability

power distribution units (PDUs)

PDU leakage current

PDU power limitations

NEMA 5-15 Receptacle

metallic particulate contamination

2 installation and user information

document purpose

section descriptions

product overview

hp visualization center sv6 components

hp visualization center sv6 architecture

hp visualization center sv6 operating modes

software NOT supported

installation process

assessment

hp visualization center sv6 installation

updating software

maintain current graphics patches

how to determine your current version

Installation Steps

uninstallation steps

installing to all sv6 systems using HP Software Distributor

step 1: preparation

step 2: copy and register locally

step3: install

advanced setup for multiple display channels

additional X server

backdrops

usage

changing resolution

how to use hp visualization center sv6 tools

sv6 diagnostics

sample output from running sv6diag on a standard sv6 system

stereoscopic viewing

active stereo overview

passive stereo overview

stereo hardware installation

changing to stereo monitor mode

optimization

pass through mode

gamma correction in pass through mode

pass through mode on a multi-channel sv6

gamma value

HPOGL_PUSH _ENVIRONMENT

4 projector calibration targets

how to use projector calibration targets

compositor cards