slandath
commented
1 week ago @kmorel Are you available to present this proposal at the TAC meeting on November 14th?
Open kmorel opened 4 weeks ago
slandath
commented
1 week ago @kmorel Are you available to present this proposal at the TAC meeting on November 14th?
kmorel
commented
1 week ago Yes, I will be available.
Project Proposal
Note: Viskores is transitioning from a previous name: VTK-m. Some of the answers in this form refer to features of VTK-m that will be moved to the new name/repo Viskores.
1. Name of Project
Viskores
2. Project Description
Viskores is a toolkit of scientific visualization algorithms for computer processor architectures that require running many concurrent threads to maintain high computational throughput such as a GPU. Viskores supports the fine-grained concurrency for data analysis and visualization algorithms required to drive extreme scale computing by providing abstract models for data and execution that can be applied to a variety of algorithms across many different processor architectures. Viskores also comes with many classic and modern scientific visualization algorithms.
3. Statement on Alignment with High Performance Software Foundation's Mission
GPUs and other processors that support many threads are an important component of modern HPC systems. Such accelerator processors are installed on about 1/3 of all machines listed in the TOP500 list. As such, efficient visualization and analysis algorithms are critical for in situ and large-scale analysis.
Viskores provides the scientific visualization algorithms needed on modern HPC systems. Viskores is designed to be integrated into other software and currently integrates with Ascent, ParaView, VisIt, and ADIOS. As such, Viskores plays an important role in the HPC software ecosystem.
4. Project Website (please provide a link)
5. Code of Conduct (please provide a link)
https://github.com/Viskores/viskores/pull/1
6. Governance Practices (please provide a link)
7. Two Sponsors from the High Performance Software Foundation's Technical Advisory Committee
Todd Gamblin and Damien Lebrun-Grandie
8. What is the project's solution for source control?
GitHub
9. What is the project's solution for issue tracking?
GitHub Issues
10. Please list all external dependencies and their license
Requirements for compiling:
The Viskores source contains snapshots of the following:
Optional dependencies are:
Viskores has been tested on the following configurations:c
11. Please describe your release methodology and mechanics
Viskores is released on a roughly 6-month cadence although this is often adjusted as needed by customers. We create a branch for each release, and each release is preceded by one or more release candidates. Each release candidate gets tagged and packaged like any other release. These release candidates are open for community testing, and when no problems are found for a particular release candidate, the same code is provided as the next release. Branches to several past releases are maintained to allow patching multiple releases that are in active use. The full release process is documented in the Release Process guide.
12. Please describe Software Quality efforts (CI, security, auditing)
All contributions to Viskores must be submitted as a pull request through GitHub. Before any pull request can be merged into the development or any release branch, it must be reviewed by an independent developer and it must pass regression testing.
Code reviews are performed via the GitHub PR interface. Reviewers help check for correctness as well as verify the code satisfies Viskores testing, documentation, and style guidelines. Code reviews also help ensure against bad-faith contributions.
Regression testing is built into the CI infrastructure of pull requests. The pull request automatically launches jobs that in turn execute build and/or run phases in container images. Regression tests are automatically run on a variety of architectures including Windows, Mac OS, and multiple distributions of Linux. Builds include multiple compiler versions including GCC and Clang versions. Viskores is also tested specifically on Cuda and HIP architectures. In addition to the standard set of regression tests, a special job runs a select set of benchmarks to help ensure major performance regressions do not happen.
Note: In the transition from VTK-m, the Viskores CI infrastructure is being rebuilt, in part to take advantage of the gitlab.spack.io testing services.
13. Please list the project's leadership team
Viskores Technical Steering Committee comprises the following members (with their GitHub user ID):
14. Please list the project members with access to commit to the mainline of the project
15. Please describe the project's decision-making process
We aim for consensus-driven decision making, and we will resort to votes of the TSC when we are unable to reach consensus.
Reviews of pull requests must be approved and merged by a committer with appropriate access although the review itself may be delegated to another contributor.
16. What is the maturity level of your project?
We aim to join the HPSF as a Sandbox stage project while in the transition from VTK-m to Viskores. Although we have a mature process for continuous integration, software contributions, and release management, we will revisit these processes as part of the transition.
We hope to transition to a Established stage project shortly after the transition to the new name. Viskores has over 70 contributors spread across 20 organizations.
17. Please list the project's official communication channels
18. Please list the project's social media accounts
N/A
19. Please describe any existing financial sponsorships
Contributors are primarily paid by their own institution to work on Viskores. Most of the support funding comes from DOE/SC Software Sustainability funds informally known as OASIS. This and other application-facing support comes from the RAPIDS2 SciDAC project.
Here is a rough breakdown of the expected funding for Viskores. The top entry is funds dedicated to Viskores stewardship. The remaining funds represent the pay-as-you-go work as projects contribute to Viskores for their specific needs. These funds are more speculative.
20. Please describe the project's infrastructure needs or requests
Viskores is interested in support for its CI system, particularly with regard to testing on various compute devices. (Much of this support will likely come from the University of Oregon testing platform currently used for Spack. Thus, this might not be an expense on HPSF directly, but would unlikely be made available without the HPSF.) We would also ask for support if Viskores outgrows GitHub free plans.
Viskores is also interested in HPSF support for communication materials such as the maintenance of web pages and videoconferencing accounts. We are also interested in regular hackathon meetings for code sprints.
Criteria for Sandbox Stage