Parallel Processing For Computer Graphics

Meeting the growing demands for speed and quality in rendering computer graphics images requires new techniques. Practical parallel rendering provides one of the most practical solutions. This book addresses the basic issues of rendering within a parallel or distributed computing environment, and considers the strengths and weaknesses of multiprocessor machines and networked render farms for graphics rendering. Case studies of working applications demonstrate, in detail, practical ways of dealing with complex issues involved in parallel processing.

Parallel & Distributed Computer Graphics

This book contains mainly a selection of papers that were presented at the International Workshop on High Performance Computing/or Computer Graphics and Visualisation, held in Swansea, United Kingdom on 3-4 July 1995. The workshop was sponsored by the HEFCWI Initiative on ·Parallel Computing - Foundations and Applications·, and it has provided the international computer graphics community with a platform for: • assessing and reviewing the impact of the development of high performance computing on the progress of computer graphics and visualisation; • presenting the current use of high performance computing architecture and software tools in computer graphics and visualisation, and the development of parallel graphics algorithms; • identifying potential high performance computing applications in computer graphics and visualisation, and encouraging members of the graphics community to think about their problems from the perspective of parallelism. The book is divided into six sections. The first section, which acts as the introduction of the book, gives an overview of the current state of the art It contains a comprehensive survey, by Whitman, of parallel algorithms for computer graphics and visualisation; and a discussion, by Hansen, on the past, present and future high performance computing applications in computer graphics and visualisation. The second section is focused on the design and implementation of high performance architecture, software tools and algorithms for surface rendering.

This comprehensive work merges two of the hottest topics in computer science: parallel computing and computer graphics. Selected Topics from the Table of Contents: -Overview of Accelerated Rendering Techniques -Overview of Parallel Methods for Image Generation -Issues in Parallel Algorithm Development -Overview of Base Level Implementation -Compari

THE CONTEXT OF PARALLEL PROCESSING The field of digital computer architecture has grown explosively in the past two decades. Through a steady stream of experimental research, tool-building efforts, and theoretical studies, the design of an instruction-set architecture, once considered an art, has been transformed into one of the most quantitative branches of computer technology. At the same time, better understanding of various forms of concurrency, from standard pipelining to massive parallelism, and invention of architectural structures to support a reasonably efficient and user-friendly programming model for such systems, has allowed hardware performance to continue its exponential growth. This trend is expected to continue in the near future. This explosive growth, linked with the expectation that performance will continue its exponential rise with each new generation of hardware and that (in stark contrast to software) computer hardware will function correctly as soon as it comes off the assembly line, has its down side. It has led to unprecedented hardware complexity and almost intolerable dev- opment costs. The challenge facing current and future computer designers is to institute simplicity where we now have complexity; to use fundamental theories being developed in this area to gain performance and ease-of-use benefits from simpler circuits; to understand the interplay between technological capabilities and limitations, on the one hand, and design decisions based on user and application requirements on the other.

This book is an introduction to the highly topical areas of distributed and parallel processing, and will be of value to computer science undergraduates, students of electrical engineering, electronics and microprocessors, and non-specialist professionals working in related areas.