面向移动终端的分布并行化渲染

目的 随着移动互联技术和实时渲染技术的快速发展,面向移动终端的3维展示提供了远程交互式的模型渲染,但较高的渲染计算复杂度与较大的数据处理规模,影响了移动终端3维展示的渲染质量和实时性。针对以上不足,提出一种面向移动终端的分布并行化渲染方法。方法 该方法将渲染任务分布到服务端与终端,服务端采用层次细节模型控制场景复杂度,生成初次渲染图像;终端采用基于图像的渲染技术再次绘制图像,提高渲染质量,同时在渲染过程中利用CUDA(compute unified device architecture)并行计算加速渲染数据处理。结果 本方法有效提高了渲染速度,降低了数据传输量,并保证了图像质量,帧率和数据传输量优化了大约10.8%。结论 本文方法为面向移动终端的3维展示提供了很好的解决途径,在移动网络环境中,能够有效降低服务端负载压力,提高资源利用率并改善用户体验。     

大型三维几何模型在分布式协同设计中实时传输的关键技术

针对网络环境和分布式协同设计的实时性要求，在充分对比CAD模型和三角网格模型特性的基础上，提出了基于三角网格模型进行分布式协同设计，并讨论大型网格模型实时传输的关键技术，以有效的多分辨率模型为基础，在客户机／服务器环境下通过增量传输、选精化和特征映射，实现客户端驱动的产品3D模型的远程实时动态观察和特征参数的在线讨论与修改，系统可跨平台支持多个异地设计节点协同。     

Improving the communication performance of distributed animation rendering using BitTorrent file system

Rendering is a crucial process in the production of computer generated animation movies. It executes a computer program to transform 3D models into series of still images, which will eventually be sequenced into a movie. Due to the size and complexity of 3D models, rendering process becomes a tedious, time-consuming and unproductive task on a single machine. Accordingly, animation rendering is commonly carried out in a distributed computing environment where numerous computers execute in parallel to speedup the rendering process. In accordance with distribution of computing, data dissemination to all computers also needs certain mechanisms which allow large 3D models to be efficiently moved to those distributed computers to ensure the reduction of time and cost in animation production. This paper presents and evaluates BitTorrent file system (BTFS) for improving the communication performance of distributed animation rendering. The BTFS provides an efficient, secure and transparent distributed file system which decouples the applications from complicated communication mechanism. By having data disseminated in a peer-to-peer manner and using local cache, rendering time can be reduced. Its performance comparison with a production-grade 3D animation favorably shows that the BTFS outperforms traditional distributed file systems by more than 3 times in our test configuration.     

面向智能制造的在线通用虚拟装配系统

针对智能制造领域存在的虚拟装配系统通用性不足的问题,提出一种在线通用虚拟装配系统。该系统在传统虚拟装配方法的基础上研发了针对复杂层次化模型的通用装配算法,结合装配管理数据库自由规划装配序列,基于客户端网站实现在线虚拟装配,用户可自主上传三维模型数据并进行可视化装配逻辑设计,利用云服务器端的高计算性能和渲染性能降低客户端硬件要求,便于系统统一维护和更新,具有便捷性、灵活性、易推广的特点。以飞机、航空发动机、汽车发动机三种模型为例对系统的可行性进行检验,并且,以飞机虚拟装配为例,对系统的交互性能进行测试。实验结果表明,对于不同机械产品,系统具有通用性,其中,以飞机为例的130 s装配时段中,人机交互的每帧间隔时间最大为10.9 ms,最小为6.8 ms,平均间隔时间为8.79 ms,人机交互性能良好,能够满足用户交互需求。     

Web-Based Remote Renderingwith IBRAC (Image-Based Rendering Acceleration and Compression)

Recent advances in Internet and computer graphics stimulate intensive use and development of 3D graphics on the World Wide Web. To increase efficiency of systems using 3D graphics on the web, the presented method utilizes previously rendered and transmitted images to accelerate the rendering and compression of new synthetic scene images. The algorithm employs ray casting and epipolar constraints to exploit spatial and temporal coherence between the current and previously rendered images. The reprojection of color and visibility data accelerates the computation of new images. The rendering method intrinsically computes a residual image, based on a user specified error tolerance that balances image quality against computation time and bandwidth. Encoding and decoding uses the same algorithm, so the transmitted residual image consists only of significant data without addresses or offsets. We measure rendering speed-ups of four to seven without visible degradation. Compression ratios per frame are a factor of two to ten better than MPEG2 in our test cases. There is no transmission of 3D scene data to delay the first image. The efficiency of the server and client generally increases with scene complexity or data size since the rendering time is predominantly a function of image size. This approach is attractive for remote rendering applications such as web-based scientific visualization where a client system may be a relatively low-performance machine and limited network bandwidth makes transmission of large 3D data impractical.     

Progressive volume rendering of large unstructured grids

We describe a new progressive technique that allows real-time rendering of extremely large tetrahedral meshes. Our approach uses a client-server architecture to incrementally stream portions of the mesh from a server to a client which refines the quality of the approximate rendering until it converges to a full quality rendering. The results of previous steps are re-used in each subsequent refinement, thus leading to an efficient rendering. Our novel approach keeps very little geometry on the client and works by refining a set of rendered images at each step. Our interactive representation of the dataset is efficient, light-weight, and high quality. We present a framework for the exploration of large datasets stored on a remote server with a thin client that is capable of rendering and managing full quality volume visualizations.     

MCGIM-Based Model Streaming for Realtime Progressive Rendering

While most mesh streaming techniques focus on optimizing the transmission order of the polygon data,few approaches have addressed the streaming problems by using geometry images(GIM).In this paper,we present a new approach which firstly partitions a mesh into several surface patches,then converts these patches into multi-chart geometry images(MCGIM).After resampling the MCGIM and normal map atlas are obtained,we hierarchically construct the regular geometry image representation by adopting the quadtree structure.In this way,the encoded nodes can be transmitted in arbitrary order with high transmission flexibility.Also,the rendering quality of the partially transmitted models can be greatly improved by using the normal texture atlas.Meanwhile only the geometry on the silhouette to the current viewpoint are required to be refined and transmitted,therefore the amount of data is minimized for transferring each frame.In particular,our approach also allows users to encode and transmit the mesh data via JPEG2000 technique.Therefore,our mesh streaming method is suitable for transmitting 3D animation models with use of Motion JPEG2000 videos.Experimental results have demonstrated the effectiveness of our approach,which enables one server to stream the MCGIM texture atlas to the clients.Also,the transmitted model can be rendered in a multiresolution manner by GPU acceleration on the client side,due to the regular geometry structure of MCGIM.     

Compression Domain Volume Rendering for Distributed Environments

This paper describes a method for volume data compression and rendering which bases on wavelet splats. The underlying concept is especially designed for distributed and networked applications, where we assume a remote server to maintain large scale volume data sets, being inspected, browsed through and rendered interactively by a local client. Therefore, we encode the server’s volume data using a newly designed wavelet based volume compression method. A local client can render the volumes immediately from the compression domain by using wavelet footprints, a method proposed earlier. In addition, our setup features full progression, where the rendered image is refined progressively as data comes in. Furthermore, framerate constraints are considered by controlling the quality of the image both locally and globally depending on the current network bandwidth or computational capabilities of the client. As a very important aspect of our setup, the client does not need to provide storage for the volume data and can be implemented in terms of a network application. The underlying framework enables to exploit all advantageous properties of the wavelet transform and forms a basis for both sophisticated lossy compression and rendering. Although coming along with simple illumination and constant exponential decay, the rendering method is especially suited for fast interactive inspection of large data sets and can be supported easily by graphics hardware.     

Images for accelerating architectural walkthroughs

We describe our image-based solutions to produce a system for the interactive walkthrough of large architectural models. Our overall approach uses a specialization of impostors introduced by Maciel and Shirley (1995). With this method, portions of a general 3D model can be replaced with representations that take less time to render, namely 2D textures. Solving the general problem of deciding where to place textures to improve rendering performance proves difficult. The cells and portals framework lets us formulate a set of concrete and efficient algorithms for replacing geometry with images     

Real-time exploration and photorealistic reconstruction of large natural environments

This paper presents a hybrid (geometry- and image-based) framework suitable for providing photorealistic walkthroughs of large, complex outdoor scenes, based only on a small set of real images from the scene. To this end, a novel data representation of a 3D scene is proposed, which is called morphable 3D panoramas. Motion is assumed to be taking place along a predefined path of the 3D environment and the input to the system is a sparse set of stereoscopic views at certain positions (key positions) along that path (one view per position). An approximate local 3D model is constructed from each view, capable of capturing the photometric and geometric properties of the scene only locally. Then, during the rendering process, a continuous morphing (both photometric as well as geometric) takes place between successive local 3D models, using what we call a ‘morphable 3D model’. For the estimation of the photometric morphing, a robust algorithm capable of extracting a dense field of 2D correspondences between wide-baseline images is used, whereas, for the geometric morphing, a novel method of computing 3D correspondences between local models is proposed. In this way, a physically valid morphing is always produced, which is thus kept transparent from the user. Moreover, a highly optimized rendering path is used during morphing. Thanks to the use of appropriate pixel and vertex shaders, this rendering path can be run fully in 3D graphics hardware and thus allows for high frame rates. Our system can be extended to handle multiple stereoscopic views (and therefore multiple local models) per key position of the path (related by a camera rotation). In this case, one local 3D panorama (per key position) is constructed, comprising all local 3D models therein, and so a ‘morphable 3D panorama’ is now used during the rendering process. For handling the geometric consistency of each 3D panorama, a technique which is based on solving a partial differential equation is adopted. The effectiveness of our framework is demonstrated by using it for the 3D visual reconstruction of the Samaria Gorge in Crete.     

Interactive view-dependent rendering over networks

For a client-server based view-dependent rendering system, the overhead of view-dependent rendering and the network latency are major obstacles in achieving interactivity. In this paper, we first present a multiresolution hierarchy traversal management strategy to control the overhead of view-dependent rendering for low-capacity clients. Then we propose a predictive parallel strategy to overcome the network latency for client-server based view-dependent multiresolution rendering systems. Our solution is to make the client process and the server process run in parallel, using the rendering time to cover the network latency. For networks with long round-trip times, we manage to overlap the network latency for one frame with the rendering time for multiple frames. View-parameters prediction is incorporated to make the parallelism of the client and the server feasible. In order to maintain an acceptable view-dependent rendering quality in the network environment, we develop a synchronization mechanism and a dynamic adjustment mechanism to handle the transient network slowdowns and the changes of the network condition. Our experimental results, in comparison with the sequential method, show that our predictive parallel approach can achieve an interactive frame rate while keeping an acceptable rendering quality for large triangle models over networks with relatively long round-trip times.     

An adaptive framework for 3D graphics over networks

Access to and transmission of 3D models over networks becomes increasingly popular. However, the performance and quality of access to remote 3D models strongly depends on system load conditions and the capabilities of the various system components, such as clients, servers, and interconnect. The network graphics framework (NGF) integrates various transmission methods for downloading 3D models in a client–server environment. The NGF automatically selects the optimal transmission method for a given pair of client and server, taking into account characteristics of the model to be transmitted, critical environment conditions, user preferences and the capabilities of the client and the server. The NGF aims to provide constant quality of service across different clients and under varying environment conditions.     

基于移动Agent的无线移动计算模型及应用

传统的分布式计算模型客户/服务器模型不适应无线移动计算环境,文中详细分析了扩展的客户/服务器模型及其存在的问题。在此基础上将移动agent应用到扩展的客户/服务器模型,无线移动计算的性能得到了改善。文中还分析了基于移动agent的无线移动计算模型的特点,其中最重要的一点是信息和服务完全分离。最后将基于移动agent的无线移动计算模型应用到移动电子商务系统,设计了一个产品电子交易的原型。     

基于移动Agent的无线移动计算模型及应用

传统的分布式计算模型客户／服务器模型不适应无线移动计算环境，文中详细分析了扩展的客户／服务器模型及其存在的问题。在此基础上将移动agent应用到扩展的客户／服务器模型，无线移动计算的性能得到了改善。文中还分析了基于移动agent的无线移动计算模型的特点，其中最重要的一点是信息和服务完全分离。最后将基于移动agent的无线移动计算模型应用到移动电子商务系统．设计了一个产品电子交易的原型。     

Web-based visualization of spatial objects in 3DGIS

Adaptive rendering large and complex spatial data has become an important research issue in a 3DGIS application. In order to transmit the data to the client efficiently,this paper proposes a node-layer data model to manage the 3D scene. Because the large spatial data and limited network bandwidth are the main bottlenecks of web-based 3DGIS,a client/server architecture including progressive transmission methods and multiresolution representations,together with the spatial index,are developed to improve the p...     

Garuda: a scalable tiled display wall using commodity PCs

Cluster-based tiled display walls can provide cost-effective and scalable displays with high resolution and a large display area. The software to drive them needs to scale too if arbitrarily large displays are to be built. Chromium is a popular software API used to construct such displays. Chromium transparently renders any OpenGL application to a tiled display by partitioning and sending individual OpenGL primitives to each client per frame. Visualization applications often deal with massive geometric data with millions of primitives. Transmitting them every frame results in huge network requirements that adversely affect the scalability of the system. In this paper, we present Garuda, a client-server-based display wall framework that uses off-the-shelf hardware and a standard network. Garuda is scalable to large tile configurations and massive environments. It can transparently render any application built using the Open Scene Graph (OSG) API to a tiled display without any modification by the user. The Garuda server uses an object-based scene structure represented using a scene graph. The server determines the objects visible to each display tile using a novel adaptive algorithm that culls the scene graph to a hierarchy of frustums. Required parts of the scene graph are transmitted to the clients, which cache them to exploit the interframe redundancy. A multicast-based protocol is used to transmit the geometry to exploit the spatial redundancy present in tiled display systems. A geometry push philosophy from the server helps keep the clients in sync with one another. Neither the server nor a client needs to render the entire scene, making the system suitable for interactive rendering of massive models. Transparent rendering is achieved by intercepting the cull, draw, and swap functions of OSG and replacing them with our own. We demonstrate the performance and scalability of the Garuda system for different configurations of display wall. We also show that the server and network loads grow sublinearly with the increase in the number of tiles, which makes our scheme suitable to construct very large displays.     

Distributed computing paradigms for collaborative signal and information processing in sensor networks

In this paper, we report the development of an energy-efficient, high-performance distributed computing paradigm to carry out Collaborative Signal and Information Processing (CSIP) in sensor networks using mobile agents. In this paradigm, the processing code is moved to the sensor nodes through mobile agents, in contrast to the client/server-based computing, where local data are transferred to a processing center. Although the client/server paradigm has been widely used in distributed computing, the many advantages of the mobile agent paradigm make it more suitable for sensor networks. The paper first presents simulation models for both the client/server paradigm and the mobile agent paradigm. We use the execution time, energy and energy*delay as metrics to measure the performance. Several experiments are designed to show the effect of different parameters on the performance of the paradigms. Experimental results show that the mobile agent paradigm performs much better when the number of nodes is large while the client/server paradigm is advantageous when the number of nodes is small. Based on this observation, we then propose a cluster-based hybrid computing paradigm to combine the advantages of these two paradigms. There are two schemes in this paradigm and simulation results show that there is always one scheme which performs better than either the client/server or the mobile agent paradigms. Thus, the cluster-based hybrid computing provides an energy-efficient and high-performance solution to CSIP.     

图形图像融合的海量建筑绘制

目的 城市3维模型数据海量且结构复杂,缺乏一个高效完善的可视化系统往往是影响数字城市应用的瓶颈之一。通常利用多层次细节（LOD）与调度算法减少每一帧绘制的数据量来提高绘制效率,当场景规模足够大时,即使采用复杂的优化算法也难以取得较好的效果。为此,本文在传统算法基础上,提出一种图形图像融合的海量建筑物场景绘制方法。方法 提出并采用视域分级绘制策略,将视椎体平行分割为感兴趣区域、次感兴趣区域和非感兴趣区域,感兴趣区域采用图形实时绘制方法,使用离屏渲染技术将次感兴趣和非感兴趣区域绘制在纹理图像中,每一帧绘制完成后将二者进行顾及深度信息的融合,实现完整场景渲染。结果 使用公开的纽约市区CityGML文件作为实验数据,数据包含了118 195个LOD1和LOD2级别的建筑物模型。分别构建多组不同建筑数量的场景进行帧率统计实验,绘制帧率都达到20帧/s以上。算法实现了视觉无损失的场景完整渲染,并与Cesium平台进行对比实验,证明算法有效且系统运行流畅。结论 图形图像融合的绘制方法,既保持了图形渲染的漫游连续性,同时也具有图像渲染的场景复杂度无关的优点。实验结果表明,针对大规模的低分辨率建筑模型场景,算法可以有效提高系统的渲染能力,在性能相对较低的硬件条件下也能实现海量建筑物实体模型的流畅漫游,并达到视觉无损失的场景完整绘制。     

基于图像分割的三维重构

三维重构方法是医学图像可视化系统、治疗计划系统的重要技术。基于图像分割的三维重构方法结合了图像分割、等值面抽取、网格简化三种技术,是不同于传统Marching Cubes算法的一种三维重构方法。它首先将医学图像分割为二值图,然后利用Marching Cubes方法进行等值面抽取,最后对得到的网格模型进行简化。实验结果表明,基于图像分割的三维重构方法加快了Marching Cubes的运算速度,改善了重构的效果,有利于实现对基于三维重构的大型几何模型的实时绘制和交互。     

渲染器与Web服务器耦合实现远程体 渲染的交互优化

目的 为使用户随时随地获得需要较大计算和存储资源的交互真实感体渲染服务,设计并实现了一种面向Web的远程真实感体渲染方法。方法 计算量较大的实时体渲染任务由远端渲染服务器中的GPU加速完成并通过WebSocket将渲染图像发送至客户端;客户端浏览器只需负责接收显示渲染图像并监听发送用户交互事件。提出了一种输出系统耦合算法用以连接输出图像速率较大的渲染服务器和发送图像速率较慢的Web服务器。算法能根据Web服务器发送图像的情况动态调整每次图像输出的迭代计算次数,改变渲染服务器输出图像的时间间隔以达到与Web服务器发送速度相平衡,同时保持渲染服务器持续工作。结果 实验比较了在不同网络传输条件下,采用输出系统耦合算法与直接连接渲染器和Web服务器,渲染4个不同数据集所需的完成时间及帧率等性能评价指标。在局域网和广域网环境下,本文方法分别最多只需17 s和14 s即可完成整个渲染过程,而采用直接连接渲染器和Web服务器的方法则分别至少需要31 s和60 s才能完成整个渲染过程。实验结果表明采用输出系统耦合算法在不同网络条件下均可较大地缩短整个渲染过程所需时间,使用户在较短时间内获得高质量渲染图像。结论 本文渲染器与Web服务器耦合实现远程体渲染交互优化的方法可让用户使用与计算能力无关的桌面或移动设备通过网络透明使用高性能渲染系统;系统采用的输出系统耦合算法能够根据网络承载能力自适应调整渲染器输出速度,使用户在不同的网络环境中均可以较快的速度获得高质量渲染图像。