Parallel Volume Rendering on Distributed-Memory Multiprocessor System

Several approaches have been proposed to visualize 3D volume data on multiprocessor systems in recent years. Most of these algorithms are tailored for special architectures and hard to immigrate to new architectures, such as Tsinghua High-Performance Cluster System (THPCS), a distributed-memory multiprocessor system. In this paper, a parallel volume rendering algorithm is presented for THPCS. To reduce the communication cost and the complexity of blending local intermediate images, a static subtask distribution strategy is proposed. Combined with the prediction for the subtask load and node performance, our strategy yields a good load balance. An asynchronous binary compositing method is adopted to provide flexibility for our algorithm. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and practicality of our algorithm. As a result, THPCS using our algorithm achieves performance ofrendering 5 12 x 512 color image for l28x 1 28x 197 volume within 1 second