From: Axel Hecht Newsgroups: comp.parallel.pvm,comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing Subject: Re: POVPVM Animation Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 13:15:06 +0200 Organization: Institute of Mathematics, Section 2 Message-Id: <373C05BA.8314E1F1@numerik.uni-kiel.de> References: <37319CC8.2C1F84AB@book.com> <373B07AB.1C8919AF@regiocom.net> <7hfmec$jcg@ds2.acs.ucalgary.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Xref: ukc comp.parallel.pvm:8378 comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing:42694 Andreas Dilger wrote: > <..> > > There are two solutions to this issue: > 1) parse the scene file once (on the master), and use POB to pass pre-parsed > data to each slave. This has the benefit of reducing overall parsing time, > and would even allow pre-parsing of scene files for each frame and saving > them on disk. If the master transmits the POB data to each slave via PVM > communications, then it would even be possible to remove the complication/ > need for NFS or other shared filesystem access from the clients. They > wouldn't even need the .inc files or image maps. > 2) allow multiple slaves to work on a single frame, but also allow multiple > frames to be rendered at the same time. This is probably a lot more > complicated, and I'd rather not go there. > <...> Hi, I've been chatting with Thomas about this (Harald got a copy). It may come, but who knows. Currently I don't know if there is POB for 3.1. Not from the original source though. So it may take up some more effort. Anyway, my first idea was exactly No.1) but I think it's better to have a client do the parsing. Then the server can still do distribution and collection of work and fault correction, while the client starts parsing again. One should note, that the server needs the filesystem for the output and the (probably first) client needs the input filesystems. Just a bit messy :-) Dependent on the work for the server No.2) would be possible as well. The image packets just need to include frame no. when returned to the server. Axel