Chep06 1 High End Visualization with Scalable Display System By Dinesh M. Sarode, S.K.Bose, P.S.Dhekne, Venkata P.P.K Computer Division, BARC, Mumbai
Chep06 2 Introduction Shortcomings of present graphics systems Limited Resolution of display device Rendering Power Visualization and understanding multi terabyte scientific data Interactivity
Chep06 3 Cluster based visualization Why ? Current high end visualization hardware is expensive No flexibility No commodity building block Need redesign in order to keep track with faster semiconductor technology
Chep06 4 System Architecture A Cluster of PCs PC graphics accelerator cards LCD displays Network
Chep06 5 Scalable Display System at BARC Rendering Cluster 1 Master Client 16 Graphics Servers 1.7 Ghz P-IV Processors, 512 MB RAM per PC 64 MB 3Dlabs Oxygen GVX1 Pro AGP card Fast & Gigabit Ethernet Interconnection High Resolution Display Tiled 4x4 LCD panels 5120x 4096 total resolution
Chep06 6 Architecture Problems Cluster of PC No shared memory pool Independent graphics accelerator cards Genlock Swap lock Data lock Tiling Multiple monitors seams between monitors
Chep06 7 The Software Environment Client / Server Single instance of application Higher network bandwidth Synchronized program execution Multiple instances of the application Less network bandwidth
Chep06 8 System Software Chromium Framework for distributed rendering Client/Server approach Run existing OpenGL applications DMX (Distributed Multihead X) Distributes X window sessions across the nodes of scalable display system Run X11 applications
Chep06 9 Rendering Pipeline Geometry Database Geometry Transformation Rasterization Image Transformation, clipping, Lighting etc Scan-conversion, shading, visibility Per Vertex Per Pixel
Chep06 10 Distributed Rendering [Molnar et al. 1994] Sort-First Sort-Middle Sort-Last G R G R G R Display Database Traversal Preprocessing 3D Primitives Database Traversal Preprocessing G R G R G R Display Rendered Pixels Database Traversal Preprocessing G R G R G R Display 2D Primitives
Chep06 11 Sort-First configuration Tile 1 Tile 2 Tile 16 NETWORKNETWORK Crserver RenderSPU Graphics Card Server 1 Crappfacker XlibTilesortSPU Graphics Card Client... Crserver RenderSPU Server 2 Graphics Card Crserver RenderSPU Server 16 Graphics Card Packed OpenGL Commands mothership
Chep06 12 A view … Graphics Servers User Graphics Data
Chep06 13 DMX Proxy X Server X Application Back-end X server Display1 DMX Console Display2 Back-end X server Display3Display4 Back-end X server
Chep06 14 Graphical Control Panel Login/Logout X windows on all tiles Manage the cluster Reboot / shutdown nodes Display power management Display system information Interface for running scripts across cluster
Chep06 15 Applications : AnuVi Scalar Plot Vector Plot
Chep06 16 AnuVi Isosurfaces Ray casting Simultaneous display of multiple datasets
Chep06 17 Visualization of Tsunami simulation data
Chep06 18 CollabCAD
Chep06 19 Tiled MPEG/AVI movie player
Chep06 20 Tiled Image Viewer
Chep06 21 Conclusion Scalable display system with PC cluster is reasonable alternative to High-end multiprocessor, multi-pipe systems Low cost & technology tracking Deep & rich visual experience Adaptable to variety of applications & usable under various computing and display configurations
Chep06 22 Thanks