.. _Installing and Starting VisIt: Installing and Starting VisIt_ ------------------------------ Pre-built binaries for VisIt_ are provided on the following platforms: * |fs*nix| (fully supported) * |ps*nix| (partially supported) * macOS * Microsoft Windows For an explanation of what *fully* and *partially* supported mean, see our section on :ref:`supported platforms `. New versions are usually released every 2-3 months. Users can find releases at the `VisIt releases page `_. See our section on :ref:`managing GitHub notifications ` to get notified of new releases. Download a binary release compatible with the machine on which you want to run VisIt_. If you are installing VisIt_ on Linux, you will also need to download and use the ``visit-install`` script. Installing VisIt_ on platforms other than those listed here requires :ref:`building VisIt from sources `. .. _MacOSX Installation Instructions: Installing on macOS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ VisIt_ releases include an app-bundle for macOS packaged in a DMG image. Download and open the DMG file and copy the VisIt_ app-bundle to your applications directory or any other path. .. note:: If you have a previous version of VisIt already installed, you may be prompted by macOS to decide if you want to **Keep both** versions or **Replace** the old version with the new version. If you choose **Keep both**, macOS will automatically adjust the name of the new version to something like ``VisIt 2``. The space will cause problems and it will have to be removed by changing the name to something without spaces like ``VisIt2`` or ``VisIt-2`` or ``VisIt-x.y.z`` where ``x.y.z`` is the version number of the installation. If you do not have the necessary privileges to change the name, a system administrator's help may be needed. To run VisIt_ double click on the VisIt_ app-bundle. Alternatively, VisIt_ can be run on macOS from the ``Terminal`` using a command of the form: .. code:: bash /Applications/VisIt.app/Contents/Resources/bin/visit .. note:: Running from the ``Terminal`` may work around issues accessing some folders on local storage or code signing and notarization. The ``visit-install`` script can also be used to install tarball packaged macOS binaries. For this case follow the Linux installation instructions. .. _Linux Installation Instructions: Installing on Linux ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Installing VisIt_ on Linux (and optionally on macOS) is done using the ``visit-install`` script. Make sure that the ``visit-install`` script is executable by entering the following command at the command line prompt: .. code:: bash chmod +x visit-install The visit-install script has the following usage: .. code:: bash ./visit-install version platform directory The **version** argument is the version of VisIt_ being installed. The **platform** argument depends on the type platform VisIt_ is being installed for. The platform argument can be one of the following: linux, linux-x86_64, darwin. The **directory** argument specifies the directory to install VisIt_ into. If the specified directory does not exist then VisIt_ will create it. For example, to install an x86_64 version of VisIt_ 3.2.2, use: .. code:: bash ./visit-install 3.2.2 linux-x86_64 /usr/local/visit This command will install the 3.2.2 version of VisIt_ into the ``/usr/local/visit`` directory. Note that when you enter the above command, the file ``visit3_2_2.linux-x86_64.tar.gz`` must be present in the current working directory. The ``visit-install`` script will prompt you to choose a network configuration. A network configuration is a set of VisIt_ preferences that provide information to enable VisIt_ to identify and connect to remote computers and run VisIt_ in client/server mode. VisIt_ includes network configuration files for several computing centers with VisIt_ users. After running ``visit-install``, you can launch VisIt_ using ``bin/visit``. For example, if you installed to ``/usr/local/visit``, you can run using: .. code:: bash /usr/local/visit/bin/visit We also recommend adding ``visit`` to your shell's path. For bash users this can usually be accomplished by modifying the ``PATH`` environment variable in ``~/.bash_profile``, and for c-shell users accomplished by modifying the ``path`` environment variable in ``~/.cshrc``. The exact procedure for this varies with each shell and may be customized at each computing center, so please refer to your shell and computing center documentation. .. _Windows Installation Instructions: Installing on Windows ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ VisIt_ release binaries for Windows are packaged in an executable installer. To install on Windows run the installer and follow its prompts. The VisIt_ installation program adds a VisIt_ program group to the Windows Start menu and it adds a VisIt_ shortcut to the desktop. You can double-click on the desktop shortcut or use the Start menu's VisIt_ program group to launch VisIt_. In addition to creating shortcuts, the VisIt_ installation program creates file associations for ``.silo``, ``.visit``, and ``.session/.vses`` files so double-clicking on files with those extensions opens them with VisIt_. You can also run the installer from a command prompt, and pass it certain parameters to override defaults including running in silent mode. Available options are as follows:: -ALLUSERS Install for all users. Must be in admin-mode. Default : install for current user -SITE Specifies host profiles to be installed (eg llnl). Default: None -PB Specifies parallel bank (FOR LLNL host-profiles). Default: wbronze -DB Specifies a default database reader for VisIt. (eg Silo, FLASH, etc). Default: None -DEV Install plugin development tools. Default: no plugin dev tools -LIBSIM Install libsim tools. Default: no libsim tools -AssociatePython Associate python files with VisIt. Default: don't set up association -AssociateCurves Associate curve files with VisIt. Default: don't set up association /S Make install silent. /D Change install directory to . Default is %PROGRAM FILES% for ALL USERS and %HOMEPATH% for single user. MUST BE THE LAST PARAMETER! Installing ffmpeg ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ``ffmpeg`` is a high quality MPEG 4 encoder. The VisIt_ movie wizard uses ``ffmpeg`` if it is found in the user's search path. ``ffmpeg``'s licensing is incompatible with VisIt_'s so we do not ship and install ``ffmpeg`` with VisIt_. You can install ``ffmpeg`` as part of a VisIt_ installation so that it is available for all user's. To install ``ffmpeg`` as part of a VisIt_ installation you would do the following steps. 1) Get the ``ffmpeg`` executable for each platform of interest. 2) Copy the ``ffmpeg`` executable for each platform to the architecture specific bin directory. 3) Set the group and file permissions appropriately for each executable. 4) Create a soft link from ``ffmepg`` to ``frontendlauncher`` in the bin directory. Here we go through an example where we install ``ffmpeg`` into VisIt_ 3.3.3, which has two architectures (``linux-intel`` and ``linux-x86_64``) installed. The ``ffmpeg`` executables are named ``ffmpeg.intel`` and ``ffmpeg.x86_64``. We will set the group to ``visit`` and the file permissions to ``775``. .. code:: bash cp ffmpeg.intel visit/3.3.3/linux-intel/bin/ffmpeg chgrp visit visit/3.3.3/linux-intel/bin/ffmpeg chmod 775 visit/3.3.3/linux-intel/bin/ffmpeg cp ffmpeg.x86_64 visit/3.3.3/linux-x86_64/bin/ffmpeg chgrp visit visit/3.3.3/linux-x86_64/bin/ffmpeg chmod 775 visit/3.3.3/linux-x86_64/bin/ffmpeg ln -s frontendlaucher visit/bin/ffmpeg Startup Options ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ VisIt_ has many startup options that affect its behavior (see the :ref:`Startup Options ` for complete documentation).