PixelFlow: high-speed rendering using image composition
Steven Molnar,John Eyles,John W. Poulton +2 more
- 01 Jul 1992
- Vol. 26, Iss: 2, pp 231-240
TL;DR: PixelFlow is described, an architecture for high-speed image generation that overcomes the transformation and frame-buffer– access bottlenecks of conventional hardware rendering architectures and performs antialiasing by supersampling.
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Abstract: We describe PixelFlow, an architecture for high-speed image generation that overcomes the transformationand frame-buffer– access bottlenecks of conventional hardware rendering architectures. PixelFlow uses the technique of image composition: it distributes the rendering task over an array of identical renderers, each of which computes a fill-screen image of a fraction of the primitives. A high-performance image-composition network composites these images in real time to produce an image of the entire scene. Image-composition architectures offer performance that scales linearly with the number of renderers; there is no fundamental limit to the maximum performance achievable using this approach. A single PixelFlow renderer rasterizes up to 1.4 million triangles per second, and an n-renderer system can rasterize at up to n times this basic rate. PixelFlow performs antialiasing by supersampling. It supports defemed shading with separate hardware shaders that operate on composite images containing intermediate pixel data. PixelFlow shaders compute complex shading algorithms and procedural and image-based textures in real-time. The shading rate is independent of scene complexity. A Pixel Flow system can be coupled to a parallel supercomputer to serve as an immediatemode graphics server, or it can maintain a display list for retainedmode rendering. The PixelFlow design has been simulated extensively at high level. Custom chip design is underway. We anticipate a working system by late 1993. CR
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Citations
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TL;DR: The architecture and initial algorithms for Pixel-Planes 5, a heterogeneous multi-computer designed both for high-speed polygon and sphere rendering and for supporting algorithm and application research in interactive 3D graphics are introduced.
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TL;DR: A new more affordable VLSI solution that allows 3D graphics systems to be built capable of displaying more than one million triangles per second, and the results of an anti-aliasing technique are shown.
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Henry Fuchs,Jack Goldfeather,Jeff P. Hultquist,Susan Spach,John D. Austin,Frederick P. Brooks,John Eyles,John S. Poulton +7 more
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Kurt Akeley,Tom Jermoluk +1 more
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TL;DR: A system architecture for realtime display of shaded polygons that heavily leverages parallelism in several forms: pipeline, vector, and array processing, which is unique in providing efficient and balanced graphics that support interactive design and manipulation of solid models.
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The pixel machine: a parallel image computer
Michael Potmesil,Eric M. Hoffert +1 more
- 01 Jul 1989
TL;DR: The system architecture and the programming environment of the Pixel Machine - a parallel image computer with a distributed frame buffer based on an array of asynchronous MIMD nodes with parallel access to a large frame buffer is described.
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