Use Environment Variables

Introduction
There are a number of environment variables that can be set to control and modify aspects of EnSight.
These are generally described in sections of the documentation where they apply. However, for conveni-
ence, a summary of them is indicated below. All, except those indicated otherwise, are optional.

Note:

None of the environment variables associated with specific user defined readers and writers
are included here. See the appropriate README files or other documentation for each read-
er/writer.

Basic Usage
List sorted by Category:

Name Location - Description

Category
CEI_FONT_GLYPHCACHESIZE Client - Font Number of font characters to keep in
memory at a given time (default 500).
Increasing this number will use more
memory but may increase rendering
speed if many different characters are
in use.
CEI_FONT_NOSYSTEMFONTS Client - Font Disable the loading of fonts from the
system directories, and use only the
fonts provided by ANSYS.
CEI_FONTPATH Client - Font A list of ":" separated directories (";" on
Windows) where EnSight looks for
.TTF and .TTC font files.
ENSIGHT_FONT_DEFAULT_ANNOT Client - Font Specify family to be used for
annotation defaults
ENSIGHT_FONT_DEFAULT_ANNOT_STYLE Client - Font Specify style to be used for annotation
defaults
ENSIGHT_FONT_DEFAULT_OUTLINE Client - Font Specify family to be used for ID and
axis defaults
ENSIGHT_FONT_DEFAULT_OUTLINE_SCALE Client - Font Specify the relative scale for the
outline font. (The value 100.0 is the
default, 200.0 is 2x larger, 50.0 is 1/2
size).

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Use Environment Variables

Name Location - Description

Category
ENSIGHT_FONT_DEFAULT_OUTLINE_STYLE Client - Font Specify style to be used for ID and axis
defaults
ENSIGHT_FONT_DEFAULT_SYMBOL Client - Font Specify family to be used instead of
the symbol font
ENSIGHT_FONT_DEFAULT_SYMBOL_STYLE Client - Font Specify style to be used with the
symbol font
ENSIGHT10_FIXED_FONT_SIZE Client - Font Defines font size - expecting range
between 10 and 100 (old)
CEI_ENABLE_PBUF Client - Enable/disable the use of pbuffers for
Graphics off-screen rendering
CEI_ENABLE_PMAP Client - Enable/disable the use of pixmaps for
Graphics off-screen rendering
CEI_PIXELFORMAT Client - Specify pixel format for mono
Graphics rendering
CEI_PIXELFORMAT_ST Client - Specify pixel format for stereo
Graphics rendering
CVF_NO_WM_OVERRIDE Client - Change the behavior of detached
Graphics displays so that the 'OverrideRedirect'
attribute is not used on the window.
ENSIGHT_PICK_SCALE Client - If > 1, modifies the scaling of the GL
Graphics viewport
CEI_RSH Client/SoS - Alternative to default ssh command
Networking
CVF_COMM2_NAGLE Client/Server - Enable Nagle (RFC896) network feature
Networking (on by default).
ENSIGHT10_SOCKBUF Client/SoS/Server Sets socket buffer size (can be different
- Networking between client and server)
DISPLAY Client - Other Do not remote the display from a
different machine as this is inefficient
and prone to problems. Run the client
on your local machine and the server
remotely and connect them as EnSight
is optimized for this configuration.
set ENSIGHT_ANSYS_VERSION Client - Other Set to 20.1 to enable the custom
ANSYS environment, unset or set to 0
to use the traditional CEI environment.
ENSIGHT10_MAX_CTHREADS Client - Parallel The maximum number of threads to
use for each EnSight client. Threads in
the client are used to accelerate
sorting of transparent surfaces. If not
defined, then the EnSight client
chooses the number of threads based
on the number of processors available
and license limitations.

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 Basic Usage

Name Location - Description

Category
ENSIGHT10_MAX_SOSTHREADS SoS - Parallel The maximum number of threads to
use on the server of server in order to
start up server processes in parallel
rather than serially. If not defined, then
EnSight chooses the number of
threads based on the number of
processors available and license
limitations.
ENSIGHT10_MAX_THREADS Server - Parallel The maximum number of threads to
use for each EnSight server. Threads
are used to accelerate the computation
of streamlines, clips, isosurfaces, and
other compute-intensive operations.
If not defined, then the EnSight server
chooses the number of threads based
on the number of processors available
and license limitations.
ENSIGHT10_RES Client/SoS/ Specify a resource file name that the
Collab - client reads
Resources
ENSIGHT10_SERVER_HOSTS Client/ SoS - Specify quoted strings of space
Resources delimited host names (e.g. "host1
host2 host1 host3") to be used for
EnSight servers. The host names are
used in the order they occur. A host
name may occur multiple times
LSB_MCPU_HOSTS Client/ SoS If either the '
Resources
-use_lsf_for_servers

' or '

-use_lsf_for_renderers

' command line options are specified,

then the client will evaluate this
environment variable for resources.
The environment variable specifies a
quoted string such as "

host1 5 host2 4 host3 1

" which indicates 5 CPUs should be

used on host1, 4 CPUs should be used
on host2, and 1 CPU should be used
on host3. The hosts will be used in a
round-robin fashion.
CEI All - Path Location of EnSight installation
(required)

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Use Environment Variables

Name Location - Description

Category
CEI_PDFREADER Client - Path Application for reading EnSight .pdf
help files
CEI_PYTHONHOME Client - Path Point to a different Python runtime
library. Default is CEI/apex201/ma-
chines/CEI_ARCH/python271
CEI_UDILPATH Client - Path A list of ":" separated directories (";" on
Windows) where EnSight looks for
user-defined image libraries.
ENSIGHT_PATHREPLACE Client - Path Replaces the data path with the path
found in this environment variable
PATH Client - Path Must include $CEI/bin
TMPDIR Server - Path Location for temporary files. Default is
usually /tmp or /usr/tmp
CEI_CONTROLLER_KEY Client - See CEI_INPUT
Tracking
CEI_INPUT Client - To specify the tracking library. To
Tracking select trackd, use: setenv CEI_INPUT
trackd (for csh or equivalent users)
The value of CEI_INPUT can either be
a fully-qualified path and filename or
simply the name of the driver, in which
case EnSight will load the library
libuserd_input.so from directory:
$CEI/apex201/ma-
chines/$CEI_ARCH/udi/$CEI_IN-
PUT/ For the trackd interface you will
also need to set: CEI_TRACKER_KEY
<num> CEI_CONTROLLER_KEY
<num>
CEI_TRACKD_DEBUG Client - Turn on debug information from the
Tracking trackD user defined input library.
CEI_TRACKER_KEY Client - See CEI_INPUT
Tracking
ENSIGHT10_INPUT Client - Input device to use for EnSight (same
Tracking as CEI_INPUT)
ENSIGHT10_READER Server - User (legacy) Path to the location of
additional user-defined readers
ENSIGHT20_READER Server - User Path to the location of additional
user-defined readers (takes precedence
over legacy ENSIGHT10_READER)
ENSIGHT10_UDMF Server - User Sets directory location of user defined
math functions to be loaded by
EnSight at startup

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 Basic Usage

Name Location - Description

Category
ENSIGHT10_UDW Server - User Sets directory location of user defined
writers to be loaded by EnSight at
startup
UNSTRUCT_AUTODISTRIBUTE_USE_GHOSTS Server - Sets unstructured server
Auto-distribute autodistribution to use ghost
processing. (Same effect as, and takes
precedence over, using -use_ghosts
command line argument)
UNSTRUCT_AUTODISTRIBUTE_USE_METRIC Server - Sets unstructured server
Auto-distribute autodistribution to calculate the ghost
metric. (Same effect as, and takes
precedence over, using -use_metric
command line argument)
ENSIGHT_FORCE_POLYHEDRAL_CLIPCUT n Server - Part EnSight can clip or cut with the
Creation traditional algorithm that tesselates
the element faces with additional face
elements or the polyhedral algorithm
that shows the clipped/cut faces with
the exact representation of the
element face. If you always want to
see a clip or cut face without
additional tesselation, then use option
2. n = 0, 3D Zoo elements clipped or
cut with traditional algorithm. n=1,
Treat 3D Zoo elements as polyhedral
only if there are polyhedral elements
in the part when it is clipped or cut.
n=2, Treat 3D Zoo elements as
polyhedra.
SLIMD8_SERVERS Client (or Specifies the location of the legacy
Server when SLiM license server hostname(s) and
using port. setenv SLIMD8_SERVERS
server-side "huey:7790" setenv
licensing) - SLIMD8_SERVERS "huey:7790;
License dewey:8890"
ANSYSLMD_LICENSE_FILE Client - License Sets the location of the ANSYS license
server and port. On Windows, this
should be set for you during
installation. On Linux, you may have
to set this manually. setenv
ANSYSLMD_LICENSE_FILE
1055@license.yourorg.com
ENSIGHT10_LM Client - License Forces EnSight to use a specific license
manager. Normally (environment
variable unset), EnSight attempts to
automatically detect whether to
contact an ANSYS license manager or
a legacy SLiM license manager. Setting

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Use Environment Variables

Name Location - Description

Category
the environment variable to "ANSYS"
forces use of the ANSYS license
manager. Setting the environment
variable to "SLiM" forces use of the
legacy SLiM license manager. (Case
does not matter when setting the
value of this environment variable.)
setenv ENSIGHT10_LM ansys setenv
ENSIGHT10_LM slim
ENSIGHT10_LM_BULK Client - License If this environment variable is set to
the value 0, then bulk checkouts are
disabled in EnSight and serial
checkouts are used instead. The
default (variable unset) is to allow bulk
checkouts. The ANSYS license manager
is the only license manager that
currently supports bulk checkouts. If
the environment variable is set to a
value other than 0, it counts as if it
were not set. setenv
ENSIGHT10_LM_BULK 0

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6 of ANSYS, Inc. and its subsidiaries and affiliates.