Visual Parallel Computing Using Python-Based VISION/HPC

The chief impediment to widespread usage of parallel computing is the difficulty in programming high performance computers (HPCs). Furthermore, most users work from a Windows PC, so that learning UNIX as a prerequisite to parallel programming is a further obstruction. What is needed is a smooth workflow that simplifies both the programming task and the remote execution management. VISION/HPC is a Python-based, drag-and-drop visual-programming environment that reduces sophisticated programming tasks to dropping and connecting icons in a graphical user interface (GUI) flowchart. This is important for productivity, which is dominated by the time spent studying results versus the time spent writing maintainable code to generate those results. As a Python-based open-source package, it encapsulates scientific and parallel programming Python modules that are accessed through the visual interface. VISION/HPC runs on a local Windows PC and manages jobs on a remote backend. This means that the graphic intensive graphical user interface (GUI) runs on the local workstation and does not push individual pixels through a busy network connection.