Kitware and NICE Collaborate to Push Visualization to the Next Level

Partnership will expand Kitware’s expertise and ParaView’s top-of-the-line data and visualization framework to the NICE DCV community.

Kitware, the lead developer of ParaView, and NICE, whose Desktop Cloud Visualization (DCV) enables technical computing users to remotely access interactive engineering and scientific applications, are partnering to enhance ParaView’s remote accessibility from supercomputing centers and the cloud.

“We want to optimize support for ParaView users and to make the experience of using the application as easy and as uniform as possible,” said Berk Geveci, Kitware’s Senior Director of Scientific Computing.

Using ParaView to analyze computations run on supercomputers or in the cloud generally entails copying large data sets onto workstations for exploration and visualization. As the sizes of simulation outputs increase, copying data becomes impractical. Coupling ParaView with NICE DCV enables users to run ParaView on the same resources where the data was produced and access it remotely on DCV EndStations used solely for display.

“With DCV, only rendered images are sent between the computational systems and the EndStations,” said Geveci. “Large computation data such as geometry and scene information is left on the systems. This allows ParaView users to leverage the high-memory and high-performance input/output of more advanced systems, such as those at data centers, without waiting for data to load on their EndStations.”

Using ParaView in combination with NICE DCV has additional benefits. For one, users can access ParaView without the added step of downloading clients onto their EndStations. ParaView users can also benefit from enhanced collaboration through DCV’s session-sharing capabilities for multiple EndStations.

“NICE DCV was designed and built with the ParaView use case in mind,” said Andrea Rodolico, NICE’s CTO. “We aimed to help engineers and scientists to work on larger models, collaborate, and not be bound to their workstation so they can get the most from their application software. Our partnership with Kitware will expand the base of users who are able to experience NICE DCV benefits and ensure they get the top-notch performance they deserve.”

While ParaView can be run on supercomputers, as well as on desktops, laptops, and tablets, there are scenarios that are well-suited to using ParaView with DCV. For example, organizations may have multiple people who need to use ParaView remotely, in full mobility, over slow/unreliable networks, or without the possibility of installing ParaView’s software on their clients. In such cases, ParaView can be run on corporate servers and accessed through DCV.

“We are excited about this partnership, as both Kitware and NICE leverage the latest NVIDIA graphics processing unit (GPU) innovations in their flagship products for handling large data analysis and visualization challenges,” said Bhushan Desam, NVIDIA’s Senior Alliances and Marketing Manager for Visualization in HPC. “ParaView’s interactive performance on GPUs in supercomputers and high-performance computing (HPC) centers can now be seamlessly delivered to scientists and users who are visualizing large data remotely with NICE DCV.”

ParaView is an open-source, multi-platform data analysis and visualization application. It allows users to quickly build visualizations to analyze data using qualitative and quantitative techniques. ParaView’s flexibility allows developers to tailor functionality to specific problem domains. For more information on leveraging ParaView, please stop by Kitware’s booth (#2639) at SC15, or email kitware(at)Kitware(dot)com. For a demo of ParaView running with DCV, please visit NICE’s booth (#310) at the conference.