Parallel Stereo Visualization For Clusters With OpenInventor: A Case Study For The Automotive Industry

Stereo visualization is an area which can greatly benefit from cluster computing due to the parallelizable nature of the rendering task. In order to implement this idea, we have developed a novel software architecture which allows the construction of parallel OpenInventor-based stereo applications. As a result of this work, we present the Open- Inventor Stereo Library for Clusters. The library provides tools to port transparently OpenInventor applications to stereo cluster-based OpenInventor applications. The distribution of the rendering tasks is encapsulated, and the developer does not have to take care of non-graphics-related tasks. Evaluation was carried out on a prototype cluster consisting of a master and two slave rendering Linux PCs. The resulting pair of stereo images was visual- ized with polarization-filter projector and glasses. A standard X desktop is available and multiple OpenInventor based windowed applications can be used simultaneously. The value of the present work was demonstrated with an example 3D-visualization application for the automotive industry.