[Yt-dev] HaloProfiler vs. enzo_anyl

Matthew Turk matthewturk at gmail.com
Thu Apr 14 08:45:09 PDT 2011


Hi all,

I had an opportunity to speak yesterday with Greg Bryan (who's not
subscribed to this list) and independent of this thread, he brought up
replacing enzo_anyl with yt.  The one thing that I think we may be
missing is the cooling time.  To get the cooling time in yt we have
three options:

1) Re-calculate from scratch, using all the items in the parameter
file that govern the cooling time.  This will also allow it to work
for non-Enzo simulation outputs.
2) Wrap the Enzo cooling time routines.  This will require utilizing
fortran/C interop, possibly with f2py.  It also has a lot of moving
parts.  (These would be solved if some day there was some agreement on
microphysical solver APIs.)  This would work with non-Enzo datasets.
3) Mandate that if you want the cooling time in your profiles, you run
with OutputCoolingTime=1 in Enzo.  This would not work with non-Enzo
datasets, unless they too had an option to output the local cooling
time in every cell.

I think #3 is the fastest time to solution, and certainly the option
that is the least error prone.  (The list above, it seems to me, is
actually in order of increasing reliability.)

The remaining items that we would need to accomplish to make
HaloProfiler a generalized replacement for enzo_anyl, I believe, are
either implementing the remaining fields (there may be a handful) and
actually coming up with a list of all the fields to profile.  Ideally
I think we should calculate 1- and 2-D profiles for every field, and
an HDF5 file with all of the profiles in it.  The final output could
then *additionally* include image plots of phase plots of
mass-distribution with the average 1D profile overplotted.  And
perhaps projections.  If we did all this, then we could not only aim
to replicate functionality, but to enhance it.

Best,

Matt

On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 1:50 PM, Britton Smith <brittonsmith at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Rick, Cameron, everyone,
>
> Cameron is correct.  I'm not suggesting any changes to Enzo.
>
> Back before yt, enzo_anyl was used to make radial profiles of halos.  My
> understanding is that it only works in serial and that it is relatively
> difficult, or at least not straightforward, to add new fields for radial
> profiles.
>
> The HaloProfiler tool in yt makes radial profiles in the same way, only it
> take user input to decide on what fields to profile.  It also can run in
> parallel and do fixed resolution projections around each halo.  Personally,
> I think this makes using the HaloProfiler a better choice moving forward.
> However, I have heard suggestions that the HaloProfiler lacks some
> functionality of enzo_anyl, preventing it from being a true replacement.  I
> don't think enzo_anyl should be gotten rid of if people are still using it.
> I just want to know what's missing so people who would like to use yt for
> their enzo_anyl needs don't feel like they are losing functionality by
> switching.
>
> Britton
>
> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 1:36 PM, Cameron Hummels
> <chummels at astro.columbia.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Rick,
>>
>> I don't think he's suggesting we change enzo.  I think he simply wants
>> to know what functionality is lacking from yt's haloprofiler that
>> enzoanyl currently has.  That said, I think when we get haloprofiler
>> working up to spec with enzoanyl's capabilities, we should announce it
>> to the enzo list, so people who use enzoanyl (there aren't many of us)
>> will know that there is a better supported alternative in yt.
>>
>> Cameron
>>
>> On 04/12/2011 12:18 PM, Rick Wagner wrote:
>> > Hi Britton,
>> >
>> > On Apr 12, 2011, at 9:04 AM, Britton Smith wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hey everyone,
>> >>
>> >> There is a fair amount of discussion about the HaloProfiler being a
>> >> replacement for enzo_anyl.  I would definitely like to see this become
>> >> official, since it seems to be keeping a number of people from making the
>> >> switch to YT.  Can somebody outline the things that enzo_anyl does that the
>> >> HaloProfiler cannot?  I have been under the impression that there wasn't
>> >> anything, but I haven't used enzo_anyl in quite a while.
>> > I think that the HaloProfiler could easily be wrapped to look at act
>> > just like enzo_anyl, which makes this an attractive choice. But, I would
>> > post this question also the enzo-dev mailing list, since you're asking about
>> > changing Enzo, not YT.
>> >
>> > --Rick
>> >
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>>
>> --
>> Cameron Hummels
>> PhD Candidate, Astronomy Department of Columbia University
>> Public Outreach Director, Astronomy Department of Columbia University
>> NASA IYA New York State Student Ambassador
>> http://outreach.astro.columbia.edu
>> PGP: 0x06F886E3
>>
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