PFFT - Massively Parallel FFT based on FFTW3
Overview
PFFT is a software library for computing massively parallel, fast Fourier transformations on distributed memory architectures. PFFT can be understood as a generalization of FFTW-MPI to multidimensional data decomposition. The library is written in C and MPI. A Fortran interface is also available. Support for hybrid parallelization based on OpenMP and MPI is under development.
Install
At first, you need an install of FFTW-3.3 with enabled MPI support. We highly recommend to install the latest release of FFTW since the MPI code got several bugfixes in the last releases. Since some fixes are still pending until release FFTW-3.3.5. we offer some helpful scripts for installing FFTW-3.3.4 together with two patches (one bugfix and one performance improvement) at our sofware page
https://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~potts/workgroup/pippig/software.php#scripts
The install of PFFT follows the typical steps:
./bootstrap.sh ./configure make make install
Optionally, a bunch of test programs can be built with:
make check
The bootstrap step can be skipped if you delivered a PFFT tarball, i.e., the file configure was already generated. Make sure that configure can find a working install of FFTW-3.3 with MPI support, i.e., set:
CPPFLAGS=$PATHTOFFTW/include
and:
LDFLAGS=$PATHTOFFTW/lib64 or LDFLAGS=$PATHTOFFTW/lib
depending on your system architecture.
Documentation
PFFT tarballs include a detailed user guide at:
doc/manual.pdf
If you have cloned the PFFT repository, the user manual is automatically built during make. Of course this requires a working LaTeX enviroment. Alternatively, you can download a recent version of the user manual at
http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~potts/workgroup/pippig/software.php.en
Note that using PFFT is very similar to FFTW. The interface is as close to the fftw_mpi interface as possible. Therefore, it is a good start to read FFTW manual:
http://www.fftw.org/fftw3_doc
At least you should understand how FFTW deals with distributed memory FFTs:
http://www.fftw.org/fftw3_doc/Distributed_002dmemory-FFTW-with-MPI.html#Distributed_002dmemory-FFTW-with-MPI
Next, you can have a look at the test programs in directory 'tests' to learn the details of the PFFT interface.
For installation instructions, you can also refer to the file INSTALL in this directory.
For an theoretical introduction, please read the paper
''PFFT - An Extension of FFTW to Massively Parallel Architectures''
available at
http://www.tu-chemnitz.de/~potts/workgroup/pippig/publikationen.php.en
This is the most current general paper, and the one that we recommend if you wish to cite PFFT.
Python interface
A python interface is available at a distinct repository
https://github.com/rainwoodman/pfft-python
Many thanks to Yu Feng for his great work.
Directory structure
| aclocal.m4 | Macros for configure script |
| api (dir) | Source code for user interface |
| AUTHORS | Information about the authors of PFFT |
| bootstrap.sh | Bootstrap shell script that call Autoconf and friends in order to generate configure |
| build-aux (dir) | Used by configure script |
| ChangeLog | A short version history |
| config.h.in | Used by configure script |
| configure | Configure script build from configure.ac by bootstrap.sh |
| configure.in | Autoconf configure script template |
| CONVENTIONS | Makro naming conventions for developers |
| COPYING | Information about redistributing PFFT |
| doc (dir) | User and developer documentation |
| fconfig.h.in | Used by configure script (Fortran definitions) |
| gcell (dir) | Source code for ghost cell support |
| include (dir) | Header files |
| INSTALL | Installation instructions |
| kernel (dir) | Source code for core library routines |
| m4 (dir) | Contains macros for configure script |
| Makefile.am | Automake Makefile template |
| Makefile.in | Makefile template generated from Makefile.am, processed by configure script |
| NEWS | New and noteworthy |
| pfft.pc.in | Template for PFFT package information |
| README | This file |
| scripts (dir) | A collection of useful script files |
| tests (dir) | Simples examples for using PFFT routines |
| TODO | Current work to be done |
| util (dir) | Source code for auxilliary routines |
Feedback
Your comments are welcome! This is the first version of the library and may not be as robust or well documented as it should be. Please keep track of bugs or missing/confusing instructions and report them to
Michael Pippig <michael.pippig.tuc@gmail.com>
If you find PFFT useful, we would be delighted to hear about what application you are using PFFT for!