Experimental Parallel Architecture for Rendering 3D Model into MPEG-4 Format

This paper will present the initial findings of a research into distributed computer rendering. The goal of the research is to create a distributed computer system capable of rendering a 3D model into an MPEG-4 stream. This paper outlines the initial design, software architecture and hardware setup for the system. Distributed computing means designing and implementing programs that run on two or more interconnected computing systems. Distributed computing is often used to speed up the rendering of graphical imaging. Distributed computing systems are used to generate images for movies, games and simulations. A topic of interest is the application of distributed computing to the MPEG-4 standard. During the course of the research, a distributed system will be created that can render a 3D model into an MPEG-4 stream. It is expected that applying distributed computing principals will speed up rendering, thus improving the usefulness and efficiency of the MPEG-4 standard

Authors:

• Ajay Joshi
• Surya Ismail

Keywords:

• Cluster
• parallel architecture
• rendering
• MPEG-4.

References:

[1] http://www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/standards/mpeg-4/mpeg-4.htm
[2] http://www.blender.org
[3] http://openmosix.sourceforge.net/
[4] http://spot.river-styx.com/viewarticle.php?id=12
[5] G. Humphreys, I. Buck, M. Eldridge, and P. Hanrahan, "Distributed
rendering for scalable displays", SC2000: High Performance
Networking and Computing, ACM Press and IEEE Computer Society
Press, Dallas Convention Center, Dallas, TX, USA, November 4-10
2000, pp. 60-60.
[6] http://www.csm.ornl.gov/pvm/pvm_home.html
[7] http://www.python.org
[8] http://www.mesa3d.org
[9] Rudrajit Samanta, Jiannan Zheng, Thomas Funkhouser, Kai Li, and
Jaswinder Pal Singh "Load Balancing for Multi Projector Rendering
Systems",SIGGRAPH/Eurographics Workshop on Graphics Hardware,
Los Angelos, California - August, 1999.
[10] A. Bilas, J. Fritts, and J. P. Singh. "Real-Time Parallel MPEG-2
Decoding in Software."InProceedings of InternationalParallel
Processing Symposium, 1997.
[11] Y.Chen, C.Dubnicki, S.Damianakis, A.Bilas, and K. Li. "UTLB: A
Mechanism for Translations on Network Interface." In Proceedings of
ACM Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating
Systems (ASPLOS-VIII),pp193-204, October 1998.
[12] T.W.Crockett. "An Introduction to Parallel Rendering." Parallel
Computing,Vol 23,pp819-843, 1997.
[13] S. Upstill, The Renderman Companion, Addison-Wesley, Reading,
MA, 1989.
[14] Bengt-Olaf Schneider, Parallel Rendering on PC Workstations,
International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Processing
Techniques and Applications (PDTA98), Las Vegas, NV, 1998.
[15] M. Berekovic, P. Pirsch, "An Array Processor Architecture with Parallel
Data Cache for Image Rendering and Compositing," cgi, p. 411,
Computer Graphics International 1998 (CGI'98), 1998.