Buggy Splotch
I had trouble compiling Splotch 4.0, but I quickly discovered the problem was a small typo in the source code. Once the typo was fixed, the program compiled successfully. Upon running the program, I encountered another issue. I investigated the code further and I found what appears to be the problem: A variable is declared and then it is used before it is assigned a value.
I decided that version 4.0 is too buggy to use as I’m just starting out. I then compiled Splotch 3.1 with OpenMP support enabled. The compilation was successful on the first try. However, upon attempting to run the program with the data file and parameter file provided on the Splotch website, I encountered the error message
Cannot find the key "filegas_palette".
I explored the code for a while, but I haven’t figured out how to solve this issue yet. I need to further modify the parameter file in some way, since it was written for the new 4.0 version of the code. I’ll need to read most of code and review C++ in order to learn everything I need to know about Splotch. There are many parameters which can be set, but there appears to be no detailed documentation as is provided with GADGET.
I suppose I should focus on writing the other proposals before I focus more on reading the source code.
January 30th, 2010 at 7:22 am
Is there a particular reason for you to use SPLOTCH? OK, the good thing about this is, that it makes really very nice images, but it is also difficult to handle…and has no documentation! In fact, I had given a snapshot to Klaus Dolag and he in turn gave me an appropriate parameter file back – otherwise, maybe I wouldn’t have been able to figure out how splotch works
So, I’d recommend using SPLASH (at least for the beginning…you can come back to SPLOTCH later, and eventually compare the images obtained with each software, which is a good thing to do anyway) since it is very well documented, and can be used interactivly (e.g. zoom into you image by mouse clicks). As far as I know, it can also render dark matter particles (but I’m not sure, since my simulations are gas dynamical only and so I don’t use the other particle types in GADGET).
July 7th, 2010 at 5:54 am
Have you managed to run Splotch eventually? I was trying versions 3.1 and 4.0, but neither work for me. Splash was very easy to setup, however it lacks functionality a little bit.
Also, what about Gadget-2 “non-public” version, that you’ve been writing about the other day? Do you have it now running? How can I get it? Is it available only for researchers and academics or a single user could get it too?
I’m looking forward to your response. Regards.
July 7th, 2010 at 10:12 am
I have been busy with other things since I wrote that post. I havent’ tried to get Splotch to work since then. I don’t have the full version of GADGET-2 yet, but I now have a collaborator who has access to the code once I’m ready to use it. At the moment I’m working on my own code for my PhD qualifying exam project.