We describe a technique for achieving fast volume ray casting on parallel machines, using a load balancing scheme and an e cient pipelined approach to compositing. We propose a new model for measuring the amount of work one needs to perform in order to render a given volume, and use this model to obtain a better load balancing scheme for distributed memory machines. We also discuss in detail the design tradeo s of our technique. In order to validate our model we have implemented it on the Intel iPSC 860 and the Intel Paragon, and conducted a detailed performance analysis.
Cláudio T. Silva, Arie E. Kaufman