Ray Tracing on Cluster Computers.
Jens Mache, Robert Broadhurst, Jeffrey Stewart Ely · 2000
The creation of ever more realistic images is central to many fields ranging from the animation industry to education, and ray tracing is one of the most popular and powerful means by which photo-realistic images can be created. In this paper, we report on porting, measuring and optimizing a ray tracer on cluster computers. We investigate (A) the impact of different hardware decisions (interconnection network, type of nodes and number of nodes), (B) the pay-off for restructuring the code (amount of data transfered and size of messages), and (C) sensitivity to problem size (resolution and scene complexity). Our experiments were run on two clusters: 10 Pentium PCs (133 MHz) connected with Ethernet or Fast Ethernet, and 12 Pentium III PCs (450 MHz) connected with Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet.