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The Photon4D distributed engine: A distribution layer for high quality rendering in shared virtual immersion

  • 2. Computational Science
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High-Performance Computing and Networking (HPCN-Europe 1998)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1401))

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Abstract

Distributed virtual reality is expensive in terms of machine resources, and is even more so for realistic and complex structures. We combine two different meanings of “distribution” in a system for handling multi-participant immersion in a highly responsive virtual environment with ray-traced image quality in real time.

In the first sense, we use distribution to partition scene computation over a cluster of processors managed by the Photon4D distributed engine. Photon4D itself is the graphics kernel running on each processor, and can deal with a wide range of objects (shapes), from simple primitives to complex metaforms or medical imagery. The second meaning of distribution refers to multi-user participation via networked nodes (data sharing). Nodes possess local copies of the scene data, and changes to the scene are synchronized throughout the network during the editing and immersion processes. Both aspects of distribution are merged to propose multi-participant immersion with high-quality graphics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 13S Laboratory - Informatique, Signaux et Systèmes de Sophia Antipolis, Bat. ESSI 650 Route des Colles, B.P. 145, 06903, Sophia Antipolis cedex, France

    Franck Diard

Authors
  1. Franck Diard
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Peter Sloot Marian Bubak Bob Hertzberger

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© 1998 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Diard, F. (1998). The Photon4D distributed engine: A distribution layer for high quality rendering in shared virtual immersion. In: Sloot, P., Bubak, M., Hertzberger, B. (eds) High-Performance Computing and Networking. HPCN-Europe 1998. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1401. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0037165

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0037165

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-64443-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69783-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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