Render brokering for volume visualization

Volumetric data rendering is CPU- and memory-intensive. Technological innovations in data acquisition and data generation will probably continue to grow at a rate such that the data produced are orders of magnitude too large to be handled, analyzed, or projected (rendered) on an affordable desktop computer. In addressing these demands, the San Diego Supercomputer Center Networked Volume Renderer efficiently manages and provides access to several direct volume rendering algorithms running on advanced computing rendering engines. SDSC-NetV´s most innovative aspects are its easy to use graphical interface, which hides all notion of a network, and the server manager, which assigns advanced computing servers based on the user´s rendering request and on the set of currently available resources. The server manager, acting as a render broker for big rendering jobs, works in unison with the graphical interface to give the user several of the most effective features from turnkey, application builder, and advanced architecture volume rendering systems