New Workstation

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Mike H
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Re: New Workstation

Post by Mike H »

James Hall wrote:
smacl wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:47 pm
Mike H wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 12:45 pmWe are limited to the Dell Precision Xeon. Would a 3.7Ghz 8 Core work better? Does the 4.5Ghz Turbo work in point clouds?
The 4.5ghz versus 3.7ghz means a potential 21% speed gain across all operations if the processor can sustain this speed. Doubling the core count would potentially double the processing speed on processes that were multi-threaded, which is based entirely on how cyclone is implemented. If Precision with Xeon is what you're getting, I'd say the spec you've got seems fine. My personal choice would be higher core count but that's more to do with development work and the SCC point cloud engine.
What Shane said is spot on. I would go the other way because I do more raw point cloud possessing with just cyclone. Fewer faster cores serve my use better. Many Cyclone operations are still single core and multi-threading helps not at all with those.

James,
Does Autocad use multithreading or single?
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Re: New Workstation

Post by gsisman »

Mike H wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 6:56 pm
James Hall wrote:
smacl wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:47 pm

The 4.5ghz versus 3.7ghz means a potential 21% speed gain across all operations if the processor can sustain this speed. Doubling the core count would potentially double the processing speed on processes that were multi-threaded, which is based entirely on how cyclone is implemented. If Precision with Xeon is what you're getting, I'd say the spec you've got seems fine. My personal choice would be higher core count but that's more to do with development work and the SCC point cloud engine.
What Shane said is spot on. I would go the other way because I do more raw point cloud possessing with just cyclone. Fewer faster cores serve my use better. Many Cyclone operations are still single core and multi-threading helps not at all with those.

James,
Does Autocad use multithreading or single?
From Autodesk's page

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/ ... 0-htm.html

**********************************************************************

BlackBox_
Advisor BlackBox_ Advisor
‎01-22-2019 10:34 AM

Perhaps it would be prudent to better understand Speedup.

Multi-threading isn't a magic wand and doesn't actually apply to everything inside CAD... It can and *should* be used for some very specific tasks that are 'Delightfully Parallel', but Autodesk has elected to just not, which is the bigger issue... Converting 30+ year old AutoCAD code to now work with parallelism wouldn't exactly be easy to do either.


CAD is primarily single-threaded because there is an inherent 'cost' to parallelism - the dividing up of work, doing the work simultaneously using multiple CPU cores/threads, and finally re-combining that work (in or not in original sequence's order) - that often makes for no increase, if not a decrease in productivity as compared to simply evaluating the same work in series (one-at-a-time). That is why most multi-threaded apps work with very large data sets (like Point Clouds, rendering 33+ Frames Per Second of video, etc), as that is typically the only time Speedup is advantageous.



Most of the tasks that are 'Delightfully Parallel' can be done in parallel now, using Core Console which was introduced back in 2014 (2015 version)... Autodesk just didn't really integrate that into the main application for such tasks, which demonstrates how much they care about their customer's efficiency & productivity (spoilers: look at their decisions; they don't).

As example:

The PUBLISH Command (even when Publishing in the background) takes an egregious +/- 16 seconds per drawing to processes those drawings in series (one-at-a-time), but I can roll my own Windows Shell menu to leverage Core Console for printing them in parallel and yield +/- 4 seconds per drawing.

Here are some numbers from over a year ago, before some minor workstation upgrades (that helped me get those per drawing times down even lower):
2018-12-12_13-55-00.png
2018-02-13_10-56-52.png
2018-12-12_13-55-00.png2018-02-13_10-56-52.png
#Autodeskruption
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Re: New Workstation

Post by dhirota »

Skeer wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:06 pm Agree'd on all points.

> Lastly, as scanners get faster I wonder whether more data is always better.

This. This is something that I just cannot gauge right now.

But I am still interested to hear about the platforms you other guys are using.
I believe that more data is better, since decimation is generally easier than acquisition (see below).

Most of the people on this thread know about our platforms from the Threadripper thread on this forum.
https://www.laserscanningforum.com/foru ... 9&start=20

Our latest DIY build
i9-9980XE 36-thread OC at 4.2GHz
Dual fan water cooled
8X16GB DDR4=128GB RAM
2-2TB Samsung NVMe boot disks, UBUNTU 18.04, W10Pro
2-8TB Seagate raid 1 for backup/storage
NVIDIA RTX2080Ti 11GB GDDR6
43 inch Samsung 4K TV/monitor
Dual Intel 10GbE ports

This platform is used primarily for processing mobile lidar scans, stitching RGB color images into panorama images, processing panorama images to HDR and ray tracing, coloring lidar scans. We are using UBUNTU 18.04 to process some of our mobile scans and to test point cloud processing software.

It is interesting to watch a 43 inch, 4K display running a NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti at 50% GPU in 3D mode.

An example of three level pump station
1368 images
228 panoramas=equivalent to tripod setups
82.3 Mpts
raw=5.0GB
filter to 5mm grid=2.5GB


2.KAPOLEI-PS-2019-10-20 00-53-13.jpg

3.KAPOLEI-PS-2019-10-20 01-00-42.jpg
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Re: New Workstation

Post by James Hall »

gsisman wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 6:37 pm
James Hall wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 3:50 pm
smacl wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 1:47 pm

The 4.5ghz versus 3.7ghz means a potential 21% speed gain across all operations if the processor can sustain this speed. Doubling the core count would potentially double the processing speed on processes that were multi-threaded, which is based entirely on how cyclone is implemented. If Precision with Xeon is what you're getting, I'd say the spec you've got seems fine. My personal choice would be higher core count but that's more to do with development work and the SCC point cloud engine.
What Shane said is spot on. I would go the other way because I do more raw point cloud possessing with just cyclone. Fewer faster cores serve my use better. Many Cyclone operations are still single core and multi-threading helps not at all with those.

James,
James/Shane or anyone,

We are doing most of our processing in Reg360 which I thought used multi-threaded processing. And then Civil 3D 2019 with Cloudworks using Jetstream and LGS files
Would more cores be better. We have Lenovo Think Station C30 with 48GB & 72GB RAM & 16 & 20 Cores respectively on a Single processor but have another processor Slot available on the motherboard and 4 ram slots open. Nvidia K4200 Graphics cards.
1TB SSD for OS and Apps,2TB HDD for Temp
Using 1GB network connection to Synology NAS 48TB-8drive RAID 5 for import, Project storage, and Jetstream & LGS Projects
Have 10TB (of the 48TB total) iSCI drive partition on Synology connected through the Jetstream Enterprise server for Archiving



STEVE'S_WORKSTATION_SPECS_2019-10-30_1424.png

Looking to beef these up more.
Suggestions?
I have only limited experience with Reg360 "took some classes with it at Hexagon" and consider it an inferior tool compared to Cyclone Core for registrations. You can test to see how may cores are being used for your operations in Reg360 by looking at Task Manager with the operation running. If you have eight cores and one cores is being used for an operation it should read around 12% processor usage. The same operation with four cores would read 25% usage. If more then one core is in use you would see approximate multiples of that percentage.

Jet stream is awesome once you get it configured and working. You do not need as much Ram, Possessor and GPU for your workstations when using Cloudworxs with Jetstream. Point clouds will load fast but, Autocad crashing eight times a day will still be an issue.

Bang for you money, with Cyclone. Reg360 may be different depending on testing and benchmarking.
1. Fast I/O -Hard drive and I/O Controller
2. Ram. 32GB ok, 64GB recommenced by spec, 265GB expensive but would help in certain situations like fast import of RCP360 data.
3. Possessor Single core speed is what matters the most. 2, 4, 8, 12 dose not matter so much.
4. Video card, as long as there on no conflicts, You see the least gain from adding better video cards.

For your setup you need to see where your bottlenecks are with Reg360. Then upgrade to eliminate them as best as possible.

James,
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Re: New Workstation

Post by landmeterbeuckx »

dhirota wrote: Wed Oct 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Skeer wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:06 pm Agree'd on all points.

> Lastly, as scanners get faster I wonder whether more data is always better.

This. This is something that I just cannot gauge right now.

But I am still interested to hear about the platforms you other guys are using.
I believe that more data is better, since decimation is generally easier than acquisition (see below).

Most of the people on this thread know about our platforms from the Threadripper thread on this forum.
https://www.laserscanningforum.com/foru ... 9&start=20

Our latest DIY build
i9-9980XE 36-thread OC at 4.2GHz
Dual fan water cooled
8X16GB DDR4=128GB RAM
2-2TB Samsung NVMe boot disks, UBUNTU 18.04, W10Pro
2-8TB Seagate raid 1 for backup/storage
NVIDIA RTX2080Ti 11GB GDDR6
43 inch Samsung 4K TV/monitor
Dual Intel 10GbE ports

This platform is used primarily for processing mobile lidar scans, stitching RGB color images into panorama images, processing panorama images to HDR and ray tracing, coloring lidar scans. We are using UBUNTU 18.04 to process some of our mobile scans and to test point cloud processing software.

It is interesting to watch a 43 inch, 4K display running a NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti at 50% GPU in 3D mode.

An example of three level pump station
1368 images
228 panoramas=equivalent to tripod setups
82.3 Mpts
raw=5.0GB
filter to 5mm grid=2.5GB



2.KAPOLEI-PS-2019-10-20 00-53-13.jpg



3.KAPOLEI-PS-2019-10-20 01-00-42.jpg
Nice one Dennis. I was talking to my main pc guy about assembling a new desktop just this morning. Will pass on your specs for sure.
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www.lsbbvba.be
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Re: New Workstation

Post by Scott »

Dennis wrote:
This platform is used primarily for processing mobile lidar scans, stitching RGB color images into panorama images, processing panorama images to HDR and ray tracing, coloring lidar scans. We are using UBUNTU 18.04 to process some of our mobile scans and to test point cloud processing software.

Very nice imaging, Dennis--impressive!
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Re: New Workstation

Post by dineshkimraj »

What do you guys think about this set up? I think we may be able to handle a few scans using this.

https://www.boxx.com/guru/apexx-d5-4?Gu ... &referrer=
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Re: New Workstation

Post by James Hall »

28 cores are not going to help at all on non hyper threaded operations. AutoCad and Cyclone have many non hyper threaded operations.

The 2.7Ghz core speed is good. There are older i7's putting out 3.5 GHz.

Two of the latest Intel possessors out right now are the "Intel Core i9-9980XE" and the "Intel Core i9-9900K"
They offer between 3Ghz and 5Ghz. What you have at 2.7 is definitely good enough. At $12,000 you paying a lot for branding.

Ghz is a way of tracking speed. But the only truly objective way of evaluating speed on a computer is Benchmarking. Testing common tasks and recording how fast it got them done. There is software for doing this.

Newer possessors are not necessary faster. They my just be more energy efficient.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... s-any-good

What is obsolete? a year, 6 months. There will be a faster thing coming along.
Better question, what is Good enough. The APEXX D5 will get the job done.

What can be done to optimize it for its task?
The primary hard drives are slow. SSD SATA 6Gb/s are much slower then the M.2 secondary storage drives they have as a configuration option.
A M.2 PCIE expansion card running the OS would help things.
Data storage purchased with the computer is Expensive. You can get better PCIE I/O controller cards and M.2 hard drive by buying them separate and upgrading the computer. Quad Channel PCIe to M.2 are running at 16 Gb/s would be a good choice.
Slower larger drive can also be purchased cheaper then having them included with the APEXX D5.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2899351 ... -nvme.html

I would try to balance few factors to help keep this in a business prospective.

1. Uptime- Is the Tech so new is not reliable? "Research and Testing" "Why run windows 7 and not Windows 8"
2. Wear- The Hard Drives are going to take a beating. Test the speed of you M.2 and other drives and replace when speed is less then 70% of what is was new.
3. Process- Are the programs and methodology tested, proven and optimized for the task.
4. Bang for the money- Is the time savings economically feasible. "I really want Googles Quantum Computer but it will never be economically feasible"
5. Evaluate results. Assumptions can be wrong we are not perfect and what sounded good may not have worked out as planed.

These are some of the tools of our trade. We calibrate, clean and maintenance our survey instruments. You put Oil in your car.
But why is it a waste of time to Benchmark a computer every 6 mouths to a year? To make sure that next 10 TB of LiDar files will load fast.
Sales speak is worth nothing to me until I or a trusted source has tested it.
James,
Last edited by James Hall on Fri Nov 01, 2019 1:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: New Workstation

Post by smacl »

dineshkimraj wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2019 12:48 pm What do you guys think about this set up? I think we may be able to handle a few scans using this.
$126,091 seems like a lot of money for that. The 28 cores seems underrated for the 1TB of RAM as does the 2.7ghz clock speed. GPU is nothing special for that kind of money. Maybe I'm reading something wrong here, is that $126k USD?
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SCC Point Cloud module
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Re: New Workstation

Post by dhirota »

Suggest searching LSF to check out a parts cost whether DIY or purchasing.

https://www.laserscanningforum.com/foru ... 9&start=40

From Quora, Kristoffer Johnsen
"Well the fastest, most powerful setup with parts currently on the market would probably be this:

Two AMD Epyc 7742 CPUs which each are 64 core 128 thread monsters for a total of 128 cores and 256 threads. Each costs $7,000 for a total of $14,000
.
2 TB of 2666MT/s quad rank ECC memory which would mean sixteen 128GB Crucial CT128G4YFE426S memory dimms each costing around $3,500 totalling $56,000 in memory.
.
This would probably be THE BEST and fastest combo of parts ever put together. You could probably run a small nation with this thing and play Fortnite at the same time, but it would cost you $82,130"

smacl wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2019 5:33 pm
dineshkimraj wrote: Thu Oct 31, 2019 12:48 pm What do you guys think about this set up? I think we may be able to handle a few scans using this.
$126,091 seems like a lot of money for that. The 28 cores seems underrated for the 1TB of RAM as does the 2.7ghz clock speed. GPU is nothing special for that kind of money. Maybe I'm reading something wrong here, is that $126k USD?
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[email protected]
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