Skip to content

Professor MCP Server

The Professor MCP Server provides an interface for launching Professor visualization tools and performing data analysis tasks, including AI-powered image analysis. It exposes MCP tools for starting the Professor GUI with a given configuration and for leveraging a large language model (LLM) to analyze and describe images based on user prompts.

Requirements

This server requires:

  • The Professor visualization suite be installed and accessible on the host system
  • For LLM-based image analysis:
    • Access to the OpenAI-compatible API endpoint
    • Valid API key for authentication
  • Environment variables set for (these can be given in the configuration file or set at the CLI prior to launching the server):
    • API_KEY: Your API key for the LLM
    • API_BASE_URL: (Optional) URL for the LLM API endpoint (default: https://livai-api.llnl.gov)
    • MODEL: (Optional) LLM model name (default: gpt-4o)
    • PROF_VIS_PATH: (Optional) Path to the Professor visualization executable (default /usr/workspace/prof/bin/prof-vis)

Server Configuration

To use the Professor server, copy and paste the below configuration into your configuration file. You'll need to fill in the missing settings.

"professor": {
    "host": ,
    "port": ,
    "transport": "streamable-http",
    "env_vars": {
        "API_KEY": "${API_KEY}",
        "MODEL": "${MODEL:-gpt-4o}",
        "PROF_VIS_PATH": "${PROF_VIS_PATH:-/usr/workspace/prof/bin/prof-vis}",
        "API_BASE_URL": "${API_BASE_URL:-https://livai-api.llnl.gov}"
    }
}

"professor": {
    "transport": "stdio",
    "env_vars": {
        "API_KEY": "${API_KEY}",
        "MODEL": "${MODEL:-gpt-4o}",
        "PROF_VIS_PATH": "${PROF_VIS_PATH:-/usr/workspace/prof/bin/prof-vis}",
        "API_BASE_URL": "${API_BASE_URL:-https://livai-api.llnl.gov}"
    }
}

Available MCP Tools

Tool Name Description
launch_professor_gui Launch the Professor GUI with a specified YAML configuration file.
analyze_image_with_llm Use an LLM to analyze and describe an image according to a user-supplied prompt.

Key Features

  • Visualization Launch: Start the Professor GUI with a specified YAML configuration for interactive analysis and visualization.
  • AI-Powered Image Analysis: Use a large language model to analyze images and generate descriptions or answers to user questions.
  • Configurable Integration: Easily configure the server for your environment using environment variables.
  • Seamless Automation: Integrate Professor visualization and AI analysis into automated workflows.