Chromium: a stream-processing framework for interactive rendering on clusters

ABSTRACT

We describe Chromium, a system for manipulating streams of graphics API commands on clusters of workstations. Chromium's stream filters can be arranged to create sort-first and sort-last parallel graphics architectures that, in many cases, support the same applications while using only commodity graphics accelerators. In addition, these stream filters can be extended programmatically, allowing the user to customize the stream transformations performed by nodes in a cluster. Because our stream processing mechanism is completely general, any cluster-parallel rendering algorithm can be either implemented on top of or embedded in Chromium. In this paper, we give examples of real-world applications that use Chromium to achieve good scalability on clusters of workstations, and describe other potential uses of this stream processing technology. By completely abstracting the underlying graphics architecture, network topology, and API command processing semantics, we allow a variety of applications to run in different environments.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.2 Graphics Systems
          Subjects: Distributed/network graphics

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.2 Network Protocols
          Subjects: Applications (SMTP, FTP, etc.)
      C.2.4 Distributed Systems
          Subjects: Client/server; Distributed applications

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.1 Hardware architecture
          Subjects: Parallel processing
      I.3.4 Graphics Utilities
          Subjects: Virtual device interfaces; Software support

General Terms:
Design, Performance

Keywords:
cluster rendering, parallel rendering, remote graphics, scalable rendering, stream processing, tiled displays, virtual graphics