The QuickView Family ¶
The QuickView family is a collection of tools for interactive visualization and analysis of Earth system simulation data. Compared to standardized and formalized diagnostic packages that produce hundreds of static figures for comprehensive and in-depth analysis for model evaluation, the focus of the QuickView family is on interactive explorations that often happen during the initial stage of an investigation or code debugging, using simulation output on the model's native grid.
Each tool in the family focuses on a small set of actions that we believe are frequently taken by Earth system model developers and users. The focused attention allows the graphical user interface to stay simple and intuitive. On the other hand, we are continually summarizing typical analysis workflows and assessing new needs to add members to the family.
The first two members of the family are
- QuickView for simultaneously presenting 2D contour plots of multiple physical quantities (variables) on global or regional maps, and
- QuickCompare for contrasting two or more simulations, also using 2D contour plots.
As for the computational mesh over the globe, the tools currently support only the E3SM Atmosphere Model's cubed-sphere ne*pg2 grids, but extensions to other grids are planned.
Key Reminders ¶
Two modes of use
QuickView can be used in two modes: a new-vis mode (for starting a new visualization) or a resume mode (for resuming an analysis). Further details can be found on, e.g., this page.
Connectivity files
Since E3SM's cubed-sphere horizontal grids are unstructured meshes from ParaView's perspective, the so-called connectivity files are needed in addition to the simulation data files for the visualization. Further information about connectivity files can be found on this page.
Consistency between connecitivity and simulation files
One of the often encountered causes of error when loading files in the QuickView family is that the grid described by the connecitivity file does not match the grid in the simulation data file. In such a case, after the user specified the two files and clicked Load files (see more detailed description here), the file loading dialogue window will remain open and appear nonresponsive. When this happens, please double check the paths and names of the two files.
The Load ... Variables button
Most buttons, sliders, and selection boxes in the graphical User Interfaces (UIs) apply their effects immediately upon user interaction. An important exception is variable selection: After variables are chosen for the first time following file loading or after the selection is changed, the user must click the Load ... Variables button at the top of the variable selection control panel in order for the new selection to take effect, i.e., for the selected variables to be loaded into memory and shown as images in the viewport.
Show/hide control panels
Each tool in the QuickView family contains multiple control panels for setting proverties of the visualization. These control panels can be shown/expanded for easy access or be hidden/folded to maximize the screenspace for visualization The UIs provide both keyboard shortcuts and toggles in the toolbar to show or hide these control panels.
Viewport layout
All tools in the QuickView family are designed to simultaneously present multiple images and charts etc. to help the user identify relationships and distinctions. The sizes and the layout of the different images etc. can be easily adjusted. See, e.g., this page.
Furthermore, if a user saves a state file after these adjustments, they can later resume their analysis with the customized arrangement. For example, the use of state files in QuickView can be found in this section.