[Spice_discussion] SPICE and multi-threading?

[Ed Wright (JPL)]

To: Dr. William T. Bridgman
From: Edward Wright

On Sep 29, 2014, at 9:12 AM, Bridgman, William T. <William.T.Bridgman at nasa.gov> wrote:

> Has anyone on the list used SPICE in a multi-core, multi-thread environment?  Basically calling SPICE in multiple threads sharing the same memory on a multi-core processor(s).
> 
> I’ve tried this launching multiple instances of python-wrapped SPICE for the case where I’m retrieving position snapshots of the same set of spacecraft and planets, but at multiple times (for generating animations).  The results were inconsistent and I switched back to single thread operation.
> 
> If SPICE is thread-safe, then I’ve probably done something wrong (perhaps not completely initializing or closing SPICE for each thread?)
> 
> Are there any guidelines available?
> 
> Thanks,
> Tom
> --
> Dr. William T."Tom" Bridgman               Scientific Visualization Studio
> Global Science & Technology, Inc.          NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

SPICE (all language versions) is in no way thread safe and cannot be made so without a major redesign and recoding.

As always,
Edward Wright (JPL)
Edward.D.Wright at jpl.nasa.gov