In-situ Visualization Course

Motivation

Scientific visualization and analysis are key ingredients in HPC simulation workflows. For decades, the dominant paradigm has been post-hoc visualization; simulation codes iterate and save files to disk, giving the domain scientists the opportunity to read the data back at a later time for analysis. In recent years though, this paradigm has been stressed by an ever-diverging rate of growth between I/O and compute speeds. In-situ processing helps mitigate these I/O bottlenecks, enabling simulation and visualization calculations to run in-memory, at higher spatial and temporal resolution, avoiding the transfer of raw data to disks.

Objectives

This full-day course introduces the in-situ visualization paradigm and ParaView Catalyst, an open-source in-situ library closely related to the ParaView application. ParaView Catalyst is based on Conduit, which provides an intuitive model for describing hierarchical scientific data in C++, C, Fortran, and Python. Attendees will gain hands-on experience learning how to describe simulation data with Conduit and how to use ParaView Catalyst to transform data, render images, and export results.

Target Audience

Scientific Code Developers

Prerequisites

• Basic C or C++: reading and compiling simple programs, understanding pointers and arrays.
• Basic Python: reading and running scripts, using dictionaries/lists.
• MPI fundamentals: know what MPI_Init , MPI_Comm_rank , and MPI_Comm_size  do; understand domain decomposition at a high level.

Helpful but not required:

• ParaView basics: know how to open a dataset, apply filters, and save a screenshot.
• HPC concepts: batch schedulers, compute vs. login nodes, node/core/GPU terminology.

Schedule

The course will begin at 09:30 and conclude at 16:30 (Central European Time, CET) and will include a one-hour lunch break, as well as a 15-minute break in both the morning and afternoon sessions.

09:30-09:45    Welcome, Agenda, Tech Details    
09:45-10:00    Motivation: Why InSitu?    
10:00-10:30    Conduit    
10:30–10:45    Break   
10:45–11:45    HandsOn Conduit: Types, ZeroCopy, GPU    
11:45-12:00    Catalyst API   
12:00-12:30    HandsOn Catalyst API    
12:30–13:30    Lunch    
13:30–14:00    ParaView Catalyst    
14:00–15:30    HandsOn ParaView Catalyst    
15:30–15:45    Break    
15:45-16:15    Catalyst Live, Steering, ...    
16:15–16:30    InSitu -> InTransit & WrapUp    

16:30 End of Workshop 

Instructor

Jean M. Favre, Senior Visualisation Software Engineer (CSCS)

Alberto Invernizzi, Research Software Engineer (CSCS)

Participation Fee and Registration

All participants must register for the course. The registration fee includes lunch and coffee breaks.

Course Fee: CHF 80.00

Deadline for registration: Friday, November 13, 2026.

Kindly note that the course can take place only if there are sufficient confirmed registrations received by the deadline. The minimum number of participants is eight. Should the minimum number of participants not be reached by the deadline, registered attendees will be informed about the course cancellation. No communication will be sent to confirm the event. Registration for the course will automatically close when we reach the maximum number of participants (25).

How to get there

• By train

From Oerlikon railway station, you can reach the Andreasturm on foot (see route on map).

More information

Please contact jean.favre[at]cscs.ch for questions related to the program content, or helen.biehler[at]cscs.ch for questions related to the event logistics.

We look forward to welcoming you at CSCS!