Sepia: scalable 3D compositing using PCI Pamette

We have implemented an image combining architecture that allows distributed rendering of a partitioned data set at interactive rates. The architecture achieves real-time frame rates and low latency through pipelining and the use of a high bandwidth network technology to transfer the image data. It is flexible because it uses programmable FPGA devices to implement the combining logic. The implementation cost is kept low by using only commodity components for the network and graphics, and FPGA logic. The result is a cost-effective interactive visualization system that can be used with a variety of applications running on distributed computing systems such as cluster of workstations and personal computers. We first motivate the development of a distributed rendering system and we introduce some of the concepts related to the 3D-visualization domain. We then describe our implementation of this system using the PCI Pamette FPGA-based board. We emphasize the advantages of using a programmable board for the prototype development and also for a potential commercial version