Progressive radiosity method on clusters using a new clipping algorithm. (8th August 2005)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Amor, M.; Sanjurjo, J.R.; Padron, E.J.; Doallo, R.
• Is Part Of: International journal of high performance computing and networking. Volume 1:Number 1/2/3(2004)
• Page Start: 55
• Page End: 63
• Publication Date: 2005-08-08
• Subjects: computer graphics -- global illumination method -- progressive radiosity -- cluster computing -- scene partitioning -- clipping algorithm -- simulation -- image synthesis -- distributed memory -- parallel programming -- high performance computing -- high performance networking; High performance computing -- Periodicals; Computer networks -- Periodicals; High performance computing; Periodicals; 004.05
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1740-0562

Abstract

Global illumination simulation is highly critical for realistic image synthesis; without it, the rendered images look flat and synthetic. The main problem is that the simulation for large scenes is a high time-consuming process. In this paper, we present a uniform partitioning method in order to split the scene domain into a set of disjoint subspaces which are distributed among the processors of a distributed memory system. Since polygons partially inside several subspaces have to be clipped, we have developed a new clipping algorithm to manage this situation. Memory and communication requirements have been minimised in the parallel implementation. Finally, in order to evaluate the proposed method, we have used a progressive radiosity algorithm, running on two different PC clusters with modern processors and network technologies as a testbed. Good results in terms of speedup have been obtained.