---

title: Artificial Solver Testing Environment (ASTE) permalink: tooling-aste.html keywords: tooling, aste

summary: "ASTE is a lightweight wrapper around the preCICE API, which allows emulating participants to investigate simulation setups."

Motivation

ASTE is a collection of tools that can be used to reproduce and evaluate particular setups without using actual solver codes. There are two common use-cases, where this is particularly useful:

1. Reproducing a specific mapping setup of a coupled case, e.g., a case crashes since the mapping fails or the mapping seems to behave unexpected. ASTE allows to rerun such a case (in parallel if needed) and investigate the mapping in terms of accuracy as well as runtime.

2. Replay mode, where we replace a participant in a coupled setup with ASTE resulting in a uni-directional coupling. This is useful for debugging, for developing new adapters, but also for efficiency reasons (explicit instead of implicit coupling, no computationally demanding solver needs to be executed).

Citing

If you use this software, please cite our article in the Journal of Open Source Software:

DOI: 10.21105/joss.07127

Installation

The core module, which interfaces with preCICE, is called precice-aste-run and written in C++. In addition, ASTE offers several tools for pre- and post-processing purposes written in python.

Dependencies

The C++ core module of ASTE depends on a C++ compiler, CMake, MPI, Boost, VTK and preCICE. Many of these dependencies are similar to dependencies of preCICE itself. In particular, the C++ compiler, CMake, MPI and Boost. Have a look at the corresponding preCICE documentation for required versions and on how to install these dependencies if needed. In addition, ASTE relies on preCICE (version >= 3.0) and the VTK library (version >= 7) to handle mesh files.

Detailed installation instructions for the preCICE library are available in the preCICE installation documentation. On Ubuntu, e.g., system packages are availble through GitHub releases and can be installed through the package manager, e.g.,

bash wget https://github.com/precice/precice/releases/download/<VERSION>/libprecice<VERSION>.deb sudo apt install ./libprecice<VERSION>.deb

The VTK library can be installed using the package manager directly (libvtk<VERSION>-dev), e.g., on Ubuntu

bash sudo apt install libvtk9-dev

{% important %} The VTK package also installs a compatible python interface to VTK, which is used in ASTE. If you already have a python VTK installation on your system (e.g. through pip), make sure that your python-vtk version is compatible with your C++ VTK version. {% endimportant %}

However, a packaged VTK version combined with the python interface is known to be rather fragile:

• For VTK 9, particularly the vtkXMLParser is broken.
• For VTK 7, the python interface is incompatible with more recent versions of numpy (messages like np.bool was a deprecated alias for the builtin bool...) and the xmlParser might not work either.

Therefore, a manual installation of VTK is the safest way to install VTK on your operating system. Once the sources are downloaded, you can use cmake to configure and build the project as follows:

bash cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="/path/to/install" -DVTK_WRAP_PYTHON="ON" -DVTK_USE_MPI="ON" -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..

This configuration installs the required python bindings along with VTK. The python bindings will be installed in your CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX/lib/<PYTHON-VERSION>/site-packages (as opposed to the pip packages, which are typically installed in the dist-packages directory). You might need to add the site-package directory to your PYTHONPATH to make it discoverable for python:

bash export PYTHONPATH="CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX/lib/<PYTHON-VERSION>/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH"

As an optional dependency for pre-processing, METIS can be installed. METIS is a graph partitioning library used for topological partitioning in the mesh partitioner and can be installed similarly via apt

bash sudo apt install libmetis-dev

The python tools require

• NumPy
• sympy (optional)
• jinja2 (optional)
• scipy (optional)
• polars (optional)

which can be installed directly using pip and the requirements.txt file in the repository

bash pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Building and installation

In order to build ASTE, download the latest release (or clone the master branch of the project repository) and use the usual CMake steps to steer the installation procedure:

bash git clone --branch master https://github.com/precice/aste.git cd aste && mkdir build && cd build cmake .. && make

{% tip %} You can use ctest in order to check that the building procedure succeeded: Run ctest. If you face failing tests, ctest --output-on-failure helps to boil down the issue. Make sure you read the notes on VTK. {% endtip %}

In order to install ASTE and the associated tools system-wide, execute

bash make install

which might require root permission.

Command line interface

After the installation procedure, the following executables are available

• precice-aste-run: core module interfacing with preCICE
• precice-aste-evaluate: python tool to compute and store data on mesh files
• precice-aste-partition: python tool to partition a single mesh file into several ones for parallel runs
• precice-aste-join: python tool to join several mesh files into a single mesh file for parallel runs.

All ASTE tools are executed from the command line and running a particular executable with --help prints a complete list of available command line arguments and their meaning. There is also an ASTE tutorial in the preCICE tutorials.

The following subsections explain each part of ASTE in more detail. All ASTE modules have the following three command line arguments in common

| Flag | Explanation | | ---------- | -------------------- | | --mesh | The mesh filename/prefix used as input | | --data | Name of data array (input or output depending on the module) | | --output | The mesh filename used to store the output mesh |

precice-aste-run

precice-aste-run calls the preCICE API and can be executed in serial as well as in parallel (using MPI). As stated in the introduction, there are two different use-cases, one for investigating mappings and one for replacing participants in a coupled scenario (replay mode). Configuring the replay mode in ASTE relies on a json configuration file (see further below). Therefore, the replay mode takes usually only the --aste-config <FILE.json> option as a command line argument. All other command line arguments are mostly used for reproducing mappings.

| Flag | Explanation | | --------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | | --aste-config | ASTE configuration file (only used for replay mode) | | -v | Enables verbose logging output from preCICE | | -a | Enables additional logging from all secondary ranks | | -c | To specify preCICE configuration file (default="precice-config.xml") | | -p | Participant name, which can take the arguments A or B | | --vector | A bool switch to specify vector data (default=False) |

{% note %} The input mesh filename passed with the --mesh option does not need to coincide with the mesh names defined in the preCICE configuration file. {% endnote %}

For example, mapping the data "dummyData" from a mesh named fine_mesh.vtk to an output mesh coarse_mesh.vtk and saving the resulting mesh into the variable "mappedData" on the mesh mappedMesh would read as follows:

bash precice-aste-run -p A --mesh fine_mesh --data "dummyData" precice-aste-run -p B --mesh coarse_mesh --data "mappedData" --output mappedMesh

Exporting output mesh on participant B is optional and can be disabled by omitting the --output and --data flags from the command line. This is useful for repeatedly running the appication to collect multiple runtime measurements as it speeds up the process and avoids wear of the storage.

bash precice-aste-run -p A --mesh fine_mesh --data "dummyData" precice-aste-run -p B --mesh coarse_mesh # no output mesh

While the examples above execute the mapping in serial, precice-aste-run can be executed in parallel (using MPI). However, this requires a partitioned mesh (one per parallel rank). In order to decompose a single mesh appropriately, the tools precice-aste-partition and precice-aste-join can be used.

{% tip %} If you want to reproduce a specific setup of your solvers, you can use the export functionality of preCICE and use the generated meshes directly in precice-aste-run. If you run your solver in parallel, preCICE exports the decomposed meshes directly, so that no further partitioning is required. {% endtip %}

precice-aste-partition

Reads a single mesh file (either .vtk or .vtu extension) and partitions it into several mesh files. The resulting mesh files are are stored as output_1.vtu, output_2.vtu, .... There are three algorithms available in order to execute the partitioning. The meshfree and uniform algorithm are rather simple algorithms, which don't require any mesh topology information. The topological algorithm relies on the optional dependency METIS and is more powerful, but needs topology information.

| Flag | Explanation | | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | --directory | Output directory (optional) | | --numparts | The number of parts to split the mesh into | | --algorithm | Algorithm used for determining the partitioning (options="meshfree", "topology", "uniform") |

Example: to divide a mesh into two parts using the topological partitioning and store it in a directory:

bash precice-aste-partition --mesh MeshA.vtk --algorithm topology --numparts 2 --output fine_mesh --directory partitioned_mesh

{% note %} METIS is written in C++ and used through a library interface called libMetisAPI. Please check your ASTE installation in case you face issues with libMetisAPI. {% endnote %}

{% note %} precice-aste-partition creates also a recovery.json file in order to store connectivity information between the individual mesh files. The recovery file is optional and allows to restore the original connectivity information. {% endnote %}

precice-aste-join

Reads a partitioned mesh from a given prefix (looking for <prefix>_<#filerank>.vtu)) and saves it to a single .vtk or .vtu file. The -r flag also recovers the connectivity information across several ranks from a mesh, partitioned using precice-aste-partition.

| Flag | Explanation | | ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | --recovery | The path to the recovery file to fully recover connectivity information across ranks. | | --numparts | The number of parts to read from the input mesh. By default, the entire mesh is read. | | --log | Logging level (default="INFO") |

For example, to join a partitioned mesh using a recovery file:

bash precice-aste-join --mesh partitoned_mesh_directory/partitioned_mesh --recovery partitioned_directory --output rejoined_mesh.vtk

precice-aste-evaluate

While the previous two tools of ASTE handled the meshes for parallel runs, precice-aste-evaluate takes care of pre- and postprocessing the actual data on the meshes. precice-aste-evaluate reads a mesh as either .vtk or .vtu, evaluates a function on the mesh given by --function on it and stores the resulting data on this particular mesh. When using the --diff flag, the tool can also compute the difference between the data values already stored on the mesh and the function values (usually applied after a mapping). The diff flag also reports common error metrics such as the l2-norm and minimum or maximum errors on the mesh

| Flag | Explanation | | ------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | --function | The function which should be evaluated on the mesh (see below for examples). | | --list-functions | Prints a list of predefined functions. | | --diff | Calculates the difference between --diffdata and the given function. | | --diffdata | The name of the data to compute the difference used in diff mode. If not given, --data is used. | | --log | Logging level (default="INFO") | | --dir | Output directory (optional) | | --stat | Store statistics of the difference calculation in a separate file called mesh.stats.json | | --gradient | Calculate and store gradient data in addition to the given input function on the mesh.|

The predefined functions are a collection of common interpolation functions, which are usually too cumbersome for the command line:

| Function | Explanation | | ---------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | franke | Franke's function has two Gaussian peaks of different heights, and a smaller dip. | | eggholder | A function with many local extrema. | | rosenbrock | A function having a global minimum in a narrow, parabolic valley. |

All function provided have 3D and 2D variants (which should be applied depending on your mesh topology). Example: calculate and store the Eggholder function on given mesh

bash precice-aste-evaluate --mesh 3DMesh.vtk --function "eggholder3d" --data "EggHolder" precice-aste-evaluate --mesh 2DMeshonXY.vtk --function "eggholder2d(xy)" --data "EggHolder" precice-aste-evaluate --mesh 2DMeshonXZ.vtk --function "eggholder2d(xz)" --data "EggHolder" precice-aste-evaluate --mesh 2DMeshonYZ.vtk --function "eggholder2d(yz)" --data "EggHolder"

Example: calculating the function "sin(x)+exp(y)" on mesh MeshA and store the result in "MyFunc"

bash precice-aste-evaluate --mesh MeshA.vtk --function "sin(x)+exp(y)" --data "MyFunc"

Example: calculating the difference between MappedData and the analytic function "sin(x)" and storing the resulting difference data in the variable "Error":

bash precice-aste-evaluate --mesh Mapped.vtk --function "sin(x)" --diff --diffdata "MappedData" --data "Error"

Replay mode

The replay mode is a bit different from the scenarios we have seen so far. Here, we emulate the behavior of individual participants in a coupled simulation. In order to configure such a scenario, each participant you want to replace needs a configuration file in JSON format with the following attributes:

json { "participant": "Participant-Name", "startdt": "PreCICE mesh dt number (>= 1)", "meshes": [ { "mesh": "Mesh name in preCICE config file", "meshfileprefix": "/path/to/mesh/file/with/prefix/Mesh-Participant-A", "read-data": { "vector": ["Vector dataname in preCICE config which has a read type"], "scalar": ["Scalar dataname in preCICE config which has a read type"] }, "write-data": { "vector": ["Vector dataname in preCICE config which has a write type"], "scalar": ["Scalar dataname in preCICE config which has a write type"] } } ], "precice-config": "/path/to/precice/config/file/precice-config.xml" }

The JSON configuration file is similar to an adapter configuration file. The above configuration file is an example of a participant with one mesh. The user can add as many meshes as required.

{% important %} The first entry mesh refers to the mesh name in the precice configuration file (e.g. Solid-Mesh), whereas the second argument refers to the actual filenames on your system, which are usually generated by preCICE. {% endimportant %}

Step-by-step guide for replay mode

{% note %} The replay mode only supports explicit coupling schemes. {% endnote %}

Step 1: Setup export of your original coupling

In a first step we have to generate the required mesh and data files of the participant we want to emulate with ASTE. Therefore, we use the export functionality of preCICE. After adding the export tag in the precice configuration file, start the coupled simulation and run as many time-steps as you need.

As an example, we replace the Fluid participant of the perpendicular-flap tutorial by ASTE. Therefore, we first set the export tag on the fluid participant in the configuration file (see below) and then run the simulation with one of the available fluid solvers (e.g. fluid-openfoam coupled to solid-fenics).

xml <participant name="Fluid"> ... <export:vtk directory="exported-meshes" /> </participant>

Step 2: Prepare ASTE and preCICE configuration files

Prepare an ASTE configuration for the solver you want to replace. See above for the corresponding ASTE configuration format. If your previous simulation used an implicit coupling, make sure to change the configuration to an explicit coupling.

Referring to our example: once the simulation is done, the directory exported-meshes contains all necessary coupling data in order to use ASTE for the coupled simulation. We create a new directory in the perpendicular-flap directory called fluid-aste and move the exported-meshes into the new directory in order to run ASTE from a separate directory. Since ASTE supports only explicit coupling schemes, we switch from an implicit coupling scheme to an explicit coupling scheme in the preCICE configuration file:

xml <coupling-scheme:parallel-explicit> <time-window-size value="0.01" /> <max-time value="5" /> <participants first="Fluid" second="Solid" /> <exchange data="Force" mesh="Solid-Mesh" from="Fluid" to="Solid" /> <exchange data="Displacement" mesh="Solid-Mesh" from="Solid" to="Fluid" /> </coupling-scheme:parallel-explicit>

In addition, we create and configure the aste-config.json file in the fluid-aste directory according to the data names in the precice-config.xml file:

json { "participant": "Fluid", "startdt": "1", "meshes": [ { "mesh": "Fluid-Mesh", "meshfileprefix": "./exported-meshes/Fluid-Mesh-Fluid", "read-data": { "vector": ["Displacement"] }, "write-data": { "vector": ["Force"] } } ], "precice-config": "../precice-config.xml" }

Step 3: Run your solver and ASTE

Run your solver and ASTE as usual, e.g., execute myFluidSolver in one shell and precice-aste-run in another shell:

bash ./myFluidSolver & precice-aste-run --aste-config solid-config.json

ASTE picks up the correct mesh files, extracts the data and passes the data to preCICE.

For our example above, the fluid solver emulation via ASTE can be started by executing

bash precice-aste-run --aste-config aste-config.json

in the fluid-aste directory. Simply start any solid solver alongside (e.g. solid-fenics).