High End Visualization with Scalable Display System

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 visualizationWhy ? • 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. Geometry Database Geometry Transformation Rasterization Image Rendering Pipeline Transformation, clipping, Lighting etc Per Vertex Scan-conversion, shading , visibility Per Pixel Chep06

10. Database Traversal Database Traversal Database Traversal Preprocessing Preprocessing Preprocessing 3D Primitives G G G G G G G G G 2D Primitives R R R R R R R R R Rendered Pixels Display Display Display Distributed Rendering Sort-Last Sort-Middle Sort-First [Molnar et al. 1994] Chep06

11. Server 1 Crserver RenderSPU Graphics Card Server 2 Client Crserver Crappfacker RenderSPU Xlib TilesortSPU Graphics Card Graphics Card Server 16 Crserver Packed OpenGL Commands RenderSPU Graphics Card Sort-First configuration mothership Tile 1 N E T W O R K Tile 2 . . . Tile 16 Chep06

12. 1 4 2 3 6 5 7 8 11 10 9 15 14 13 16 A view … Graphics Servers Graphics Servers 4 1 2 3 5 8 7 6 12 12 9 11 10 13 16 15 14 Graphics Data Graphics Data User Chep06

13. DMX Display1 Display2 Back-end X server Back-end X server Display3 Display4 Back-end X server Back-end X server DMX Console Proxy X Server X Application 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 Ray casting Simultaneous display of multiple datasets Chep06 Isosurfaces

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 Chep06