Ctadel: Code-generation Tool for Applications based on Differential Equations using high-level Language specifications

Project Team

Research Objectives

The Ctadel Code-generation Tool for Applications based on Differential Equations using high-level Language specifications is an environment developed for the automatic generation of efficient programs for PDE-based problems. Ctadel is able to produce efficient code for sequential, vector, shared virtual and distributed memory parallel architectures. This has been demontrated for a compute intensive kernel of HIRLAM. HIRLAM is a numerical weather forecast system, which is in operational use at several European meteorological institutes. The automatic generated programs by Ctadel outperformed in most cases the handwritten codes for the different architectures. Not only the generation of efficient code is an advantage, but Ctadel also alleviates the task of maintaining a production code as HIRLAM for a wide range of different computer architectures. Currently Ctadel is extended to handle the complete so-called `dynamics' of HIRLAM. Furthermore, also the inclusion of the HIRLAM `physics' is investigated.

Collaboration

Collaboration exists with the HIRLAM project-group. Ctadel is also used in the project Automatic Program Generation for Hydrodynamical Engineering.

Support

By the Foundation of Computer Science (SION) of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) under Project No. 612-17-120.

Demos

We have made available some results obtained by Ctadel for the HIRLAM dynamics. Furthermore, a very simple (e.g., without code generation) interactive demo can be tried out. Both demos are still under construction, but hopefully give an indication on the power of Ctadel.

Publications

Robert van Engelen, Ctadel: A Generator of Efficient Codes, Ph.D. Thesis, LIACS, Leiden University, October 1998.
Robert van Engelen and Lex Wolters, A High-Level Language and Interpreter for the Use of Mathematical Vector Notation in PDE-Problem Specifications, Technical Report 97-05, Department of Computer Science, Leiden University, October 1997.
Robert A. van Engelen, Lex Wolters, and Gerard Cats, Tomorrows's Weather Forecast: Automatic Code Generation for Atmospheric Modeling, IEEE Computational Science & Engineering, Vol. 4, No. 3, 1997, pp. 22-31.
Robert A. van Engelen, Lex Wolters, and Gerard Cats, The Ctadel Application Driver for Numerical Weather Forecast Systems, in Achim Sydow (ed.) proceedings of the 15th IMACS World Congress on Scientific Computation, Modelling and Applied Mathematics, August 1997, Berlin, Germany, Wissenschaft & Technik Verlag, Volume 4, pp. 571-576.
Robert A. van Engelen, Ilja Heitlager, Lex Wolters, and Gerard Cats, Incorporating Application Dependent Information in an Automatic Code Generating Environment, in proceedings of the 11th ACM International Conference on Supercomputing, July 1997, Vienna, Austria, ACM Press, pp. 180-187.
Robert A. van Engelen, Lex Wolters, and Gerard Cats, PDE-Oriented Language Compilation and Optimization with Ctadel for Parallel Computing, in proceedings of the Second International Workshop on High-Level Parallel Programming Models and Supportive Environments (HIPS'97), April 1997, Geneva, Switzerland, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 105-109.
Robert A. van Engelen, Lex Wolters, and Gerard Cats, Automatic Code Generating for High Performance Computing in Environmental Modeling, in proceedings of the International Eurosim Conference, June 1996, Delft, The Netherlands, pp. 421-428.
Robert A. van Engelen, Lex Wolters, and Gerard Cats, The Ctadel Code Generation Tool for PDE-based Scientific Applications, in proceedings of the Second Annual Conference of the Advanced School for Computing and Imaging (ASCI), June 1996, Lommel, Belgium, pp. 120-125.
Robert A. van Engelen, Lex Wolters, and Gerard Cats, Ctadel: A Generator of Multi-Platfom High Performance Codes for PDE-based Scientific Applications, in proceedings of the 10th ACM International Conference on Supercomputing, May 1996, Philadelphia, USA, ACM Press, pp. 86-93.
Lex Wolters, Robert A. van Engelen, and Gerard Cats, Automatic Code Generation: Ctadel, in proceedings of the 17th EWGLAM and SRNWP meeting, LAM Newsletter, Number 25, May 1996, pp. 137-143.
Robert A. van Engelen, Lex Wolters, and Gerard Cats, Multi-Platform Code Generation for the HIRLAM Dyn Routine with Ctadel, in proceedings of the HIRLAM workshop on Variational Data Assimilation, February 1996, De Bilt, The Netherlands, pp. 115-122.
Robert A. van Engelen, Lex Wolters, and Gerard Cats, Ctadel: A Generator of Efficient Code for PDE-based Scientific Applications, Technical Report 95-26, Department of Computer Science, Leiden University, September 1995.
Robert A. van Engelen and Lex Wolters, A Comparison of Parallel Programming Paradigms and Data Distributions for a Limited Area Numerical Weather Forecast Routine, in proceedings of the 9th ACM International Conference on Supercomputing, July 1995, Barcelona, Spain, ACM Press, pp. 357-364.
Robert A. van Engelen and Lex Wolters, Parallelization of a Finite Difference Application: a Comparison of Parallel Programming Paradigms and Data Distributions, in proceedings of the First Annual Conference of the Advanced School for Computing and Imaging (ASCI), May 1995, Heijen, The Netherlands, pp. 28-36.

Last modified on May 10, 1999 by Lex Wolters.