Parallel Graphics and Interactivity with the Scaleable Graphics Engine

A parallel rendering environment is being developed to utilize the IBM Scaleable Graphics Engine (SGE), a hardware frame buffer for parallel computers. Goals of this software development effort include finding efficient ways of producing and displaying graphics generated on IBM SP nodes and of assisting programmers in adapting or creating scientific simulation applications to use the SGE. Four software development phases discussed utilize the SGE: tunneling, SMP rendering, development of an OpenGL API implementation which utilizes the SGE in parallel environments, and additions to the SGE-enabled OpenGL implementation that uses threads. The performance observed in software tests show that programmers would be able to utilize the SGE to output interactive graphics in a parallel environment.