Dr. James Kress
Staff Scientist, KAUST Visualization Core Lab
Thomas Theußl
Founder, Consivi KG
Abstract
Modern simulations produce data far too large to copy to a laptop, so the visualization has to move to the data instead. This tutorial shows researchers how to do that on KAUST's supercomputers: connecting a local ParaView session to parallel rendering on Shaheen III and Ibex, turning an interactive exploration into a batch job that renders every timestep, and sizing that job sensibly. The work centers on a high-resolution Red Sea ocean simulation, explored live, and finishes with the result displayed at full resolution on the KAUST Visualization Core Lab's 40 megapixel display wall. Because most attendees will not have KAUST HPC accounts, every step can also be followed on a laptop using a small subset of the same data, or simply watched on the wall. All materials, including tested job scripts, are released publicly afterwards.
Biographies
James Kress is a staff scientist in the KAUST Visualization Core Lab, where he leads high-performance scientific visualization for researchers using Shaheen III and Ibex. His work focuses on in situ visualization, visualization at scale, and integrating simulation with interactive visual analysis. He created and maintains Visualization Vignettes, an open resource of ready-to-run ParaView and VisIt examples for KAUST's supercomputers, together with an HPC mini-app and examples for in situ analysis. His recent work with KAUST's CLIMATics group on multiscale ocean flow received a Best Paper Honorable Mention at IEEE VIS 2026. He holds a BS in computer science from Boise State University and an MS and PhD in computer science from the University of Oregon
Thomas Theußl is the founder of Consivi KG in Deutschlandsberg, Austria, which offers consulting, support and software development in scientific visualization, with a focus on ParaView and Avizo. He brings more than 20 years of experience in the field, including many years as a visualization scientist with the KAUST Visualization Core Lab, with which he continues to collaborate. His research spans flow visualization and vortex analysis, and he serves on the steering committee of the International Workshop on In Situ Visualization (WOIV) and on program committees for ISAV, EGPGV and LDAV. He holds a master's degree in computer science from the Vienna University of Technology
Seats are limited
Tutorials run on Monday, 26 October 2026 at KAUST. Attendance is free, but registration is required.