Adaptation of volume visualization techniques to MIMD architectures using MPI

Author

West, John E. ; Stephens, Michael M. ; Turcotte, Louis H.

Author_Institution

DoD High Performance Comput. Center, US Army Eng. Waterways Exp. Station, Vicksburg, MS, USA

fYear

1994

fDate

12-14 Oct 1994

Firstpage

147

Lastpage

156

Abstract

This paper presents a divide-and-conquer approach to developing visualization software for scientific analysis of high resolution, volume datasets on, distributed memory parallel computers. A direct volume rendering method is discussed and the design of the parallel implementation of the original sequential algorithm is highlighted. For this algorithm, the data, once distributed, remains in place regardless of the viewer´s location, and no interprocessor communication is required during scene generation. The software was developed using an early version of the Message Passing Interface (MPI), and the MPI features used in this application are discussed. Finally, test results indicating the performance of our parallel implementation on an nCUBE 2 are presented and analyzed

Keywords

data visualisation; distributed memory systems; divide and conquer methods; message passing; parallel algorithms; parallel architectures; parallel machines; rendering (computer graphics); standards; MIMD architectures; MPI; Message Passing Interface; distributed memory parallel computers; divide-and-conquer approach; high resolution volume datasets; interprocessor communication; nCUBE 2; parallel algorithm; parallel implementation; scene generation; scientific analysis; sequential algorithm; volume rendering method; volume visualization techniques; Algorithm design and analysis; Application software; Computer architecture; Concurrent computing; Data visualization; Distributed computing; Layout; Message passing; Performance analysis; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Scalable Parallel Libraries Conference, 1994., Proceedings of the 1994

Conference_Location

Mississippi State, MS

Print_ISBN

0-8186-6895-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SPLC.1994.376995

Filename

376995