Next-generation visual supercomputing using PC clusters with volume graphics hardware devices
Shigeru Muraki, Masato Ogata, Kwan‐Liu Ma, Kenji Koshizuka, Kagenori Kajihara, Xuezhen Liu, Yasutada Nagano, Kazuro Shimokawa · 2001
To seek a low-cost, extensible solution for the large-scale data visualization problem, a visual computing system is designed as a result of a collaboration between industry and government research laboratories in Japan, also with participation by researchers in U.S. This scalable system is a commodity PC cluster equipped with the VolumePro 500 volume graphics cards and a specially designed image compositing hardware. Our performance study shows such a system is capable of interactive rendering 5123 and 10243 volume data and highly scalable. In particular, with such a system, simulation and visualization can be performed concurrently which allows scientists to monitor and tune their simulations on the fly. In this paper, both the system and hardware designs are presented.