Start Cavepainting manually in the Cave

Cavepainting in the Cave involves coordination among a bunch of different machines. This article shows you HOWTO get everything running by issuing commands from the command line.

VRPN Tracking on serial

1. ssh cavedemo@serial
2. cd /share/gfx/bin
   Note that you don't want to go to $G!
3. ./vrpn_start.current
4. Leave this program running and open up a new terminal to do the following steps.

Event Handling on the Windows Machine

1. Make sure that grexecd is running on the Windows machine in the corner to the right of the Cave and that there are no error messages or other weird things going on there. If it's not running, look for the icon on the desktop and double-click it.

Display Control on the clusters

If running from the CCV cluster

1. ssh -Y front
2. /usr/bin/nvidia-settings --ctrl-display=front:0.0
3. In the Nvidia config GUI program that pops up:
   1. Go to "Frame Lock" in the left-hand pane
      • If no computer names are displayed in the main pane, click the "Add Devices..." button and one-by-one add front:0.0, left:0.0, right:0.0, and floor:0.0.
   2. Make sure that front has the "server" box checked and all others are "client"
   3. Hit the "Enable Frame Lock" button in the lower-right
   4. Once all the red "Timing" and "Stereo" lights along the right turn green, you can hit "Quit"

If running from the CS cluster

1. ssh -Y cs-nodes
2. cd /vol/projects/cave-powerwall
3. ./setup_cave.sh
4. ./myframelock.sh
   • Note that this script might whine. Give it a long time to throw up errors; it eventually shows.
   • If it stalls after displaying "cs-front", hit ctrl-C and see if it continues through the other machines and works.
   • If it is taking especially long, hit ctrl-C a few times until you return to the prompt and try again. I'm not sure why this program is so nondeterministic.
5. In the Nvidia config GUI program that pops up:
   1. Go to "Frame Lock" in the left-hand pane
      • If no computer names are displayed in the main pane, click the "Add Devices..." button and one-by-one add cs-front:0.0, cs-left:0.0, cs-right:0.0, and cs-floor:0.0.
   2. Make sure that cs-front has the "server" box checked and all others are "client"
   3. Hit the "Enable Frame Lock" button in the lower-right
   4. Once all the red "Timing" and "Stereo" lights along the right turn green, you can hit "Quit"

CavePainting Itself on wallconsole

You have three options, listed in increasing order of hassle and debuggability:

1. Press the button on the kiosk webpage corresponding to your project.
2. Run your personalized Cavepainting script directly:
   1. ssh cavedemo@wallconsole
   2. This step differs depending on what cluster you want to run CavePainting:
      • If running from the CCV cluster: kiosk/<your tab on the kiosk>/<your script name>
      • If running from the CS cluster: $G/bin/cave.cscluster.<some other junk that includes your username>
3. Run the commands typically included in such a script manually:
   1. ssh -Y cavedemo@wallconsole
   2. $G/bin/cave_display_cscluster
   3. ssh -Y demo@cs-nodes
   4. setenv GROOT /ccvdisk2/dollar-g-cs137; source $GROOT/tools/gfxtools-startup-csh
   5. $G/bin/cavepainting-cave -c SaveBasePath=$G/data/cavepaintings/<user> -c LoadBasePath=$G/data/cavepaintings/<user> -c UserDataDir=$G/data/cavepaintings/<user>

You should now see activity in a new terminal window on the Windows machine, then a big grey window on the Windows machine, and then Cavepainting should start in the Cave.

If there are problems with the display, check out HOWTO Troubleshoot Cavepainting.

Be sure to follow the Cavepainting user's guide, and especially to shut down properly by using the ESC key on the Windows machine.