These pages contain information about my work in parallel rendering.
I've been developing a parallel ray tracing library named Tachyon, for
use on distributed memory parallel computers, shared memory computers,
and clusters of workstations. Tachyon supports MPI for distributed
memory parallel computers, threads for shared memory machines, and
can support both simultaneously for clusters of shared memory machines.
Tachyon has been selected for inclusion in the SPEC MPI2007 benchmark suite.
Tachyon supports the typical ray tracer features, most of the common
geometric primitives, shading and texturing modes, etc. It also supports
less common features such as HDR image output, ambient occlusion lighting,
and support for various triangle mesh and volumetric texture formats
beneficial for molecular visualization (e.g. rendering
VMD
scenes).
Active Projects
I'm presently working on making Tachyon more efficient for
real-time ray tracing, and to improve its performance and
features for continued use as the primary external renderer
for VMD. I'm also evaluating the use of GPGPU techniques for
acceleration of some parts of the rendering process.
Gallery of JPEG Images
Gallery of MPEG Animations