dunc@eecg.toronto.edu (Duncan Elliott) (03/02/90)
Electrical Engineering Computer Group
Cider Seminar Series
Hierarchical Parallelism for a Global Illumination Algorithm
by
George Drettakis
Dynamic Graphics Project
Department of Computer Science
University of Toronto
Time: Friday, Mar. 9, 1990, 12:05 --- Place: GB 220
Global illumination algorithms can create highly-realistic
computer generated images. FIAT is a global illumination algorithm
developed at the University of Toronto that uses an adaptive space
subdivision technique, and relies on discrete approximation to
simulate the distribution of light. The algorithm is very expensive
in both computation and memory. In this talk we introduce a novel
algorithm that utilizes hierarchical parallelism to improve
execution speed and to meet the high memory demands.
In the approach presented a two-level hierarchy of parallelism
is used. The first level assigns groups of subvolumes, created by
space subdivision, to each station available in a loosely-coupled
environment. Multiprocessor workstations allow a second level of
parallelism by splitting the computation inside each subvolume into
tasks which are assigned to individual processors within the
workstation.
The design was implemented and tested on workstations connected
by a local area network, resulting in substantial improvement of
execution speed, and satisfactory distribution of memory across
stations.
Amazing pictures and a 2-hour animation will be shown. :-)
Coming Soon
Date Who Topic
Mar. 16 Garth Gibson (2pm) Using Reliable Disk Arrays
To Avoid I/O Bottlenecks