Significance Applications that run on massively parallel supercomputers produce massive output datasets that are often cumbersome to move across the network for post-processing. Using the power of the parallel machines to perform graphics and visualization operations in place reduced the output to a manageable size. Embedding graphics calls within parallel applications allows users to take advantage of visual data representations for debugging, execution monitoring, and interactive steering. Future Plans Performance evaluation of the span-based rendering algorithm is under way. Of particular interest is the behavior as the number of processors approaches or exceeds the number of scanlines in the image.
Additional work is needed to develop parallel visualization algorithms.
Test scene composed of 100,000 random triangles. The statistical properties approximate the assumptions of the analytical performance models. A more typical image. Load balancing becomes an issue because the geometric complexity varies within the scene.