A distributed GPU-based framework for real-time 3D volume rendering of large astronomical data cubes

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Title: A distributed GPU-based framework for real-time 3D volume rendering of large astronomical data cubes
Author(s): Hassan, A. H.; Fluke, C. J.; Barnes, D. G.
Abstract: We present a framework to volume-render three-dimensional data cubes interactively using distributed ray-casting and volume-bricking over a cluster of workstations powered by one or more graphics processing units (GPUs) and a multi-core central processing unit (CPU). The main design target for this framework is to provide an in-core visualization solution able to provide three-dimensional interactive views of terabyte-sized data cubes. We tested the presented framework using a computing cluster comprising 64 nodes with a total of 128GPUs. The framework proved to be scalable to render a 204GB data cube with an average of 30 frames per second. Our performance analyses also compare the use of NVIDIA Tesla 1060 and 2050GPU architectures and the effect of increasing the visualization output resolution on the rendering performance. Although our initial focus, as shown in the examples presented in this work, is volume rendering of spectral data cubes from radio astronomy, we contend that our approach has applicability to other disciplines where close to real-time volume rendering of terabyte-order three-dimensional data sets is a requirement.
Publication type: Journal article
Research centre: Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Information and Communication Technologies. Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing
Source: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, Vol. 29, no. 3 (2012), pp. 340-351
Publication year: 2012
FOR Code(s): 0201 Astronomical and Space Sciences
Keyword(s): Astronomy; Central processing unit; CPUs; Data analysis methods; Data cubes; Framework; GPUs; Graphics processing units; Volume rendering
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
ISSN: 1323-3580
Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/as12025
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