1. TerraForm3D Plasma Works 3D Engine & USGS Terrain Modeler
Heather Jeffcott
Craig Post
Deborah Lee Soltesz
Trent D’Hooge

2. Overview - Heather Jeffcott
Design of 3D Engine(s) which meet the needs of both
PlasmaWorks
Object renderer for upcoming Storm Saga game
Variety of special effects possible
USGS
High-quality image renderer
User-Driven image manipulation
Overview - Heather Jeffcott

3. Overview - Heather Jeffcott
Design Changes
THEN:
One Engine
Same Architectural Base
Plasma Works Engine is extension of USGS Engine
OpenSource vs. Proprietary Info. issues
NOW:
Two separate Engines
Different Architecture
Eliminates “copyright issues”
OpenGL exclusively
GLUT
GLUI
Overview - Heather Jeffcott

4. Overview - Heather Jeffcott
Organization:
3D Engine
Craig – Lead Programmer
Heather – Support Programmer
Terrain Modeler
Deborah – Image Rendering
Trent – Parallelization
Overview - Heather Jeffcott

5. Development and Testing
Design Methodology:
Prototyping
Testing Methodology:
Bottom up
Black Box
Individual Module Building and Testing

6. Overview - Heather Jeffcott
Main Task Schedule
Simultaneous development of both Engines
Status: On Schedule
Finish Code Development by April 1st
Final Testing: April 2nd – April 20th
Overview - Heather Jeffcott

7. Craig “The Mad Commenter” Post
Plasma Works 3D Engine
Craig “The Mad Commenter” Post

8. Plasma Works 3D Engine - Craig Post

9. PW3D: Architecture Overview: Object Vertex Animations Texture Renderer
Camera
Textures
Lights
Pointer to objects to render
Plasma Works 3D Engine - Craig Post

10. Plasma Works 3D Engine - Craig Post
PW3D: Architecture
External Interface:
Init the Renderer
Load Objects
Load Textures
Init Lights
Begin Main Loop
Clear Screen
Check Inputs
Play Animations
Transform Objects
Draw Shadows
Light Objects
Project Objects
Draw Objects
Update Screen
Plasma Works 3D Engine - Craig Post

11. Plasma Works 3D Engine - Craig Post
PW3D: Architecture
Data Flow Diagrams:
Client Code
Commands
Commands
Object *
Object
Renderer
Pixel Data
Screen
Lights
Object *
Plasma Works 3D Engine - Craig Post

12. Plasma Works 3D Engine - Craig Post
PW3D: Architecture
Risks and Issues:
The Renderer is complicated.
A lot of the work of the engine relies on good modeling and animation work using 3rd party tools.
Speed is dependent on many things. It could be difficult to isolate modules to be optimized.
Plasma Works 3D Engine - Craig Post

13. Plasma Works 3D Engine - Craig Post
PW3D: Architecture
Lessons Learned:
There are 100+ ways to do everything.
We must keep the design simple to enable project completion.
It doesn’t matter so much if it’s accurate, just if it looks good.
Plasma Works 3D Engine - Craig Post

14. Deborah Lee Soltesz
Terrain Modeler

15. USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz

16. Package Interface View
Image Manager
Manages input image files
GUI
Manages user input, data manipulation, image rendering and screen display
Media Output
Manages output image rendering and files
Request:
Create media of specific type
Give:
transformation matrices
pointer to Image Manager
Retrieve data from a specific region of a terrain or overlay image
Set detail level
Open file(s)
USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz

17. Functional Design Input Data: ImageManager Data Manipulation: TerraGUI
Product Generation: MediaOuput
USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz

18. Functional Design Input Data: ImageManager Data Manipulation: TerraGUI
Product Generation: MediaOutput Parallel
Parallelization
USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz

19. TerraGUI User Interface
USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz

20. TerraGUI User Interface
USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz

21. USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz
TerraGUI
TerraGUI serves as the user interface and on-screen 3D manipulation package
USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz

22. USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz
ImageManager
ImageManager serves as a generic interface to a plethora of image file formats
USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz

23. USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz
MediaOutput
MediaOutput handles saving transformations set in TerraGUI to high-resolution imagery, digital video frames, or VRML
USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz

24. Interfaces to TerraGUI
USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz

25. Interfaces to TerraGUI
USGS Terrain Modeler - Deborah Lee Soltesz

26. Trent D’Hooge
Parallel Processing

27. Parallel Processing - Trent D'Hooge
Parallelization
Parallel Processing - Trent D'Hooge

28. Parallel Processing - Trent D'Hooge
Parallel Software
Condor
Could easily be implemented on multiple machines.
Could not do fine grain computations.
LAM MPI
Harder to implement.
Allows medium and fine grain computation.
Parallel Processing - Trent D'Hooge

29. Program Design Problems
The program needs to run both in parallel and linear mode.
The code has to be written in a way that at compile time it can be made to run either way.
Few MPI calls
Algorithms are crucial to speed
Had to play with different algorithms to get maximum performance.
Parallel Processing - Trent D'Hooge

30. Parallel Processing - Trent D'Hooge
I/O
Message Passing
Faster to send all the information at once.
Can be somewhat linear
Memory
Limited amount of memory.
Network File System
Use existing system software
Allows each computer to read from the same file at the same time
Allows writing multiple files at the same time that are accessible to each computer.
Parallel Processing - Trent D'Hooge

31. Parallel Processing - Trent D'Hooge
Network File System
Allows each computer to read from the same file at the same time
Each computer gets a pointer to the file and based on its ID knows what to work on in that file.
Allows writing multiple files at the same time that are accessible to each computer.
Parallel Processing - Trent D'Hooge

32. Parallel Processing - Trent D'Hooge
I/O Speed
Writing to files to disk
Streaming file output
Better for greater than 1K Byte writes at a time.
Buffered file output
Better for small writes to a file.
Parallel Processing - Trent D'Hooge