A hierarchical parallel processing system for the multipass-rendering method

The multipass-rendering method integrating radiosity with ray-tracing gives one of the best solutions for synthesizing photo-realistic images. However, the method is also computationally expensive. Therefore, parallel processing is the most promising approach to accelerating the multipass-rendering method. This paper presents a hierarchical parallel processing system for the multipass-rendering method. The system, called (M/spl pi/)/sup 2/, employs two kinds of parallel processing schemes. As a coarse-grain parallel processing, object-space parallel processing with multiple processing elements based on object-space subdivision is adapted, and each processing element is equipped with multiple pipelined units for fine-grain parallel processing. To provide load balancing in the system, static load balancing at the PE level and dynamic load balancing at the pipelined unit level within PEs are employed. Simulation experiments show that a two-dimensional configuration of the (M/spl pi/)/sup 2/ system has a good scalability compared with one- and three-dimensional configurations.