[gmx-developers] Python interface for Gromacs

[Florian Dommert]

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On 09/09/2010 12:22 AM, Shirts, Michael (mrs5pt) wrote:
> Hi, Sébastien:
>   
> My personal thinking is that the obvious place to start is with the analysis
> tools.  The main gromacs distribution is so optimized, and speed and
> parallelization has cause different code components to be so intertwined,
> that even if some parts were pythonified, it would not necessarily make
> extending gromacs functionality any easier.  Even if it would make it easier
> to write new python parts, there is so much interdependence you would still
> have to rewrite the non-Python parts!  Maybe post version 5 this will make
> more sense, but I don't see it as something that will make the community
> more productive for the near or midrange future -- and would likely cause
> result in many grey hairs for whoever tries to do it.
> 
> However, I think there are some potential places Python might be useful:
> 
> 1) Python integration the analysis tools is a much more realistic and
> potentially useful goal.  Analysis tools are mostly independent, and there
> are a lot of numpy routines that would make certain analysis routines much
> more portable and easy to write.  Also, analysis is usually not
> time-critical, nor usually parallelize, so it's much easier to work with --
> I haven't had good luck with Python parallelization, anyway.  Additionally,
> the experience with Gromacs data structures gained with working on the
> easier analysis tools would be extremely valuable for further integration.
> I personally would consider using any pythonized analysis tools and am
> willing to provide feedback and help!

Hello,

 as David mentioned it is really a nasty thing to compile numpy. I have
started to write a framework for Force field optmization, that uses
numpy. However now I cannot run it independently on a large cluster,
because numpy is not available. Now the sysadmins of the cluster to get
it compiled but unsucessful so far.

> 
> 2) After some work on analysis tools is done, a python version of grompp and
> other setup tools may be useful as well, since the parsing (especially of
> the topolgies) is a bit messy.  With this, then all the routines to
> manipulate the python datafiles and data structures would be in place.

And I think this is here is the most interesting part. Since my tools
has to modify topology files, it is capable of parsing and modifying
topfile. Not all options are included, but I tried to write it as
modular as possible to make it easily extensible. So as soon as a
release version is available we can perhaps discuss how to include this
in gromacs.

Do you know the MD package ESpResSO ? Enabling a interaction of python
and gromacs like in this model would be very interesting and in my
opinion useful.

/Flo
> 
> AFTER this, I could see a decade down the road a version of Gromacs that was
> 80% python and then 20% C/assembly/CUDA for the speed bottlenecks; and I
> think that could very well be a good thing.  But I think that would require
> a large number of intermediate steps along the way (such as those discussed
> above) and those steps would have to be chosen very carefully.
> 
> Best,
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Michael Shirts
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Chemical Engineering
> University of Virginia
> michael.shirts at virginia.edu
> (434)-243-1821
> 
> 
>> From: Sébastien Buchoux <sebastien.buchoux at u-picardie.fr>
>> Reply-To: Discussion list for GROMACS development <gmx-developers at gromacs.org>
>> Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2010 15:51:47 -0400
>> To: "gmx-developers at gromacs.org" <gmx-developers at gromacs.org>
>> Subject: [gmx-developers] Python interface for Gromacs
>>
>> Dear Gromacs developers,
>>
>> Interfacing Gromacs with Python have been discussed on this
>> list last year (mainly here:
>> http://lists.gromacs.org/pipermail/gmx-developers/2009-March/003177.html) but,
>> according to the Gromacs roadmap
>> (http://www.gromacs.org/Developer_Zone/Roadmap), things are still to be done.
>> Sorry if decisions were made in the meantime making this email out of scope.
>>
>> I have been using Gromacs for a few years now and lately I have been
>> playing with Gromacs source code. More precisely, I wanted to interface
>> some of the Gromacs core stuff (pbc, neighbour searching...) with Python.
>> To do so, I used pure C extensions (no C types nor SWIG) to handle calls
>> to the C libs and to define new Python types to store gromacs-friendly C
>> objects while allowing a more "pythonic" way to access them. (This
>> approach is actually close to what the Numpy/Scipy guys did.)
>> This is still at pretty early stage but it could be extended to
>> interface all the Gromacs libraries with Python.
>>
>> Where is my point? While I don't think inserting Python-related stuff
>> directly into Gromacs source code would be a good idea, a kind of
>> "official Python interface for Gromacs" developed at the same time as
>> Gromacs would great because:
>> - This would be a way to reflect Gromacs API changes into the interface
>> more or less seamlessly.
>> - "Modularizing the analysis tools" and "making the analysis library a
>> true callable library" (cf. roadmap) could also be done.
>> - One project would be more visible than a few ones.
>> - Python is cool!
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> Sébastien
>>
>> --
>>
>> Sébastien Buchoux, MC
>> UMR 6022 - Génie Enzymatique et Cellulaire / Enzyme and Cell
>> Engineering Université Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV)
>> 33, rue Saint Leu, 80000 Amiens, France
>> tel: +33(0)3 22 82 74 73 - email: sebastien.buchoux[at]u-picardie.fr
>>
>>
>> -- 
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> 


- -- 
Florian Dommert
Dipl.-Phys.

Institute for Computational Physics

University Stuttgart

Pfaffenwaldring 27
70569 Stuttgart

Phone: +49(0)711/685-6-3613
Fax:   +49-(0)711/685-6-3658

EMail: dommert at icp.uni-stuttgart.de
Home: http://www.icp.uni-stuttgart.de/~icp/Florian_Dommert
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