Updated 2021-05-17
Run POV-Ray on the Cluster¶
Overview¶
- This guide will cover how to load and run
povray/3.7
Povray
has one dependent program,boost
that must be loaded- POV-Ray on the cluster is used as a batch program, meaning you have a
.pov
or.ini
input file that you execute through aPBS
script. POV-Ray will compute the raytracing and return a.png
image.
Summary¶
- To load povray:
module load boost/1.51.0
module load povray/3.7
- To run povray:
povray <.ini or .pov filename>
Walkthrough: Run POV-Ray on the Cluster¶
- This walkthrough will produce a simple image of a cube embedded with a circle.
- The example code is from the POV-Ray wiki
- Input file: example.pov
- PBS Script: povRay.pbs
- To follow along, manually copy these files into the same directory in your account on the cluster, or transfer them to your account.
Part 1: The PBS Script¶
#PBS -N povrayTest
#PBS -A [Account]
#PBS -l nodes=1:ppn=2
#PBS -l pmem=2gb
#PBS -l walltime=1:00
#PBS -q inferno
#PBS -j oe
#PBS -o pov.out
cd $PBS_O_WORKDIR
module load boost/1.51.0
module load povray/3.7
povray example.pov
- The
#PBS
directives are standard, requesting just 1 minute of walltime and 1 node with 2 cores. More on#PBS
directives can be found in the PBS guide $PBS_O_WORKDIR
is simply a variable that represents the directory you submit the PBS script from.
Warning
Make sure the .pov
file you want to run is in the same directory you put the PBS script.
- Output Files, such as the resulting image, will also show up in the same directory as the
PBS
script module load
lines load the dependent programs as well as POV-Raypovray example.pov
executes POV-Ray
Part 2: Submit Job and Check Status¶
- Make sure you're in the directory that contains the
PBS
script and the.pov
file - Submit as normal, with
qsub <pbs script name>
. In this caseqsub povRay.pbs
- Check job status with
qstat -u username3 -n
, replacing "username3" with your gtusername - You can delete the job with
qdel 22182721
, replacing the number with the jobid returned after running qsub
Part 3: Collecting Results¶
- In the directory where you submitted the
PBS
script, you should see a couple of newly generated files, includingexample.png
andpov.out
- Open
example.png
using any image viewer. On the cluster, typenautilus
orgthumb
. Either one works, and will open a gui with your files. Navigate to the folder where you submitted thePBS
script, and click on the imageexample.png
to open. example.png
should look like this:
- After the result files are produced, you can move the image file as well as any other files off the cluster. Refer to the file transfer guide for help.
- Congratulations! You successfully ran a POV-Ray program on the cluster.