Performance Analysis of Local and Distributed Rendering Methods for Preparing Video Contents

Nikola B. Gajić ; Dušan B. Gajić ; Radomir S. Stanković

Review of the National Center for Digitization, Tome 27 (2015) no. 1

Résumé

The process of digitalization of cultural and historical heritage often requires methods which involve construction of three-dimensional (3D) computer models and their rendering onto computer displays. Algorithms which are used for this purpose demand intense computations. This makes them time-consuming, even with the computing power available on contemporary computers. One of possible solutions for this problem is to distribute computations over multiple computer systems. For the purpose of distributed generation of video contents based on 3D scenes, we apply Autodesk Backburner and perform a comparative analysis of this method and traditional local rendering. We study characteristics of the local and distributed rendering processes in terms of computation times. We measure the influence of scene complexity, determined by the number of polygons, size of textures, and settings of the ray-tracing system, on the run-time of computations. Based on these experiments, we offer several conclusions in the form of recommendations. Besides the complexity of processed scenes, these recommendations are formulated by taking into account the characteristics of used distributed systems, such as network throughput. We believe that the presented information can be useful for practitioners dealing with 3D scenes of different complexity in diverse computing environments.