Distributed Object Database Ray Tracing on the Intel iPSC/2 Hypercube
M.B. Carter, Keith A. Teague · 2005
A medium-grained, distributed-memory parallel computer is used as a platform from which to research a specific issue in accelerating the ray-tracing process. The work presented here deals specifically with the problem of distributing large object databases over the computing nodes of the Intel iPSC/2. An efficient object database decomposition method is presented which behaves like a fully-associative cache. Ramifications of the distributed object database forced the development of an interruptible ray-tracing loop, a ray scheduler, and a dynamic viewplane decomposition. Performance metrics, such as object database hit ratio, load-balance, and efficiency are presented.