Fast data parallel polygon rendering
Frank A. Ortega, Charles D. Hansen, James Paul Ahrens · 1993
This paper describes a data parallel method forpolygon rendering on a massively parallel machine. This method, based on a simple shading model, is targeted for applications which require very fast rendering for extremely large sets of polygons. Such sets are found in many scienti c visualization applications. The renderer can handle arbitrarily complex polygons which need notbe meshed. Issues involving load balancing are addressed andadataparallel load balancing algorithm is presented. The rendering and load balancing algorithms are implemented onboth the CM-200 and the CM-5. Experimental results are presented. This rendering toolkit enables a scientist to display 3D shaded polygons directly from aparallel machine avoiding the transmission of huge amounts of data to a post-processing rendering system. 1