Title :
COTS cluster-based sort-last rendering: performance evaluation and pipelined implementation
Author :
Cavin, X. ; Mion, Christophe ; Filbois, Alain
Abstract :
Sort-last parallel rendering is an efficient technique to visualize huge datasets on COTS clusters. The dataset is subdivided and distributed across the cluster nodes. For every frame, each node renders a full resolution image of its data using its local GPU, and the images are composited together using a parallel image compositing algorithm. In this paper, we present a performance evaluation of standard sort-last parallel rendering methods and of the different improvements proposed in the literature. This evaluation is based on a detailed analysis of the different hardware and software components. We present a new implementation of sort-last rendering that fully overlaps CPU(s), GPU and network usage all along the algorithm. We present experiments on a 3 years old 32-node PC cluster and on a 1.5 years old 5-node PC cluster, both with Gigabit interconnect, showing volume rendering at respectively 13 and 31 frames per second and polygon rendering at respectively 8 and 17 frames per second on a 1024 x 768 render area, and we show that our implementation outperforms or equals many other implementations and specialized visualization clusters.
Keywords :
computer graphic equipment; data visualisation; image processing; pipeline processing; rendering (computer graphics); sorting; workstation clusters; 32-node PC cluster; 5-node PC cluster; COTS cluster-based sort-last parallel rendering; CPU; GPU; Gigabit interconnect; image resolution; parallel image compositing algorithm; performance evaluation; pipelined implementation; polygon rendering; volume rendering; Clustering algorithms; Computed tomography; Computer graphics; Computer networks; Concurrent computing; Distributed computing; Hardware; Image resolution; Rendering (computer graphics); Visualization;
Conference_Titel :
Visualization, 2005. VIS 05. IEEE
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-9462-3
DOI :
10.1109/VISUAL.2005.1532785