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An Introduction to General-Purpose Computing on Programmable Graphics Hardware

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Geometric Modelling, Numerical Simulation, and Optimization

Abstract

Using graphics hardware for general-purpose computations (GPGPU) has for selected applications shown a performance increase of more than one order of magnitude compared to traditional CPU implementations. The intent of this paper is to give an introduction to the use of graphics hardware as a computational resource. Understanding the architecture of graphics hardware is essential to comprehend GPGPU-programming. This paper first addresses the fixed functionality graphics pipeline, and then explains the architecture and programming model of programmable graphics hardware. As the CPU is instruction driven, while a graphics processing unit (GPU) is data stream driven, a good CPU algorithm is not necessarily well suited for GPU implementation. We will illustrate this with some commonly used GPU algorithms. The paper winds up with examples of GPGPU-research at SINTEF within simulation, visualization, image processing, and geometry processing.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Mathematics, SINTEF ICT, P.O. Box 124, Blindern, NO-0314, Oslo, Norway

    Tor Dokken, Trond Runar Hagen & Jon Mikkelsen Hjelmervik

Authors
  1. Tor Dokken
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  2. Trond Runar Hagen
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  3. Jon Mikkelsen Hjelmervik
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Mathematics, SINTEF ICT, P.O. Box 124, Blindern, NO-0314, Oslo, Norway

    Geir Hasle , Knut-Andreas Lie  & Ewald Quak ,  & 

  2. Centre for Nonlinear Studies (CENS) Institute of Cybernetics, Tallinn University of Technology, Akadeemia tee 21, EE-12618, Tallinn, Estonia

    Ewald Quak

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© 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Dokken, T., Hagen, T.R., Hjelmervik, J.M. (2007). An Introduction to General-Purpose Computing on Programmable Graphics Hardware. In: Hasle, G., Lie, KA., Quak, E. (eds) Geometric Modelling, Numerical Simulation, and Optimization. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-68783-2_5

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