Overview
Parallel raytracer / renderer that demonstrates the use of parallel_for.
This example includes software developed by John E. Stone. See
here for copyright information.
This example is a 2-D raytracer/renderer that visually shows different parallel scheduling
methods and their resulting speedup. The code was parallelized by speculating
that each pixel could be rendered in parallel. The resulting parallel code was
then checked for correctness by using Intel® Thread Checker, which
pointed out where synchronization was needed. Minimal synchronization was then
inserted into the parallel code. The resulting parallel code exhibits good speedup.
The following versions of the example are provided:
- serial
- Original sequential version.
- tbb1d
- Parallel version that uses Threading Building Blocks and blocked_range to parallelize
over tasks that are groups of scan-lines.
- By default, this version uses one thread per available processor. To change this
default, set the TBB_NUM_THREADS environment variable to the desired number of threads before running.
- This version uses the preview feature: auto_range_partitioner. No grain size is provided to blocked_range.
The blocked_range class uses a default grain size of 1 when none is provided. However, the auto_range_partitioner
controls the amount of range splitting dynamically at runtime, resulting in sub-ranges of varying sizes.
- tbb
- Parallel version that uses Threading Building Blocks and blocked_range2d to parallelize
over tasks that are rectangular sub-areas.
- By default, this version uses one thread per available processor. To change this
default, set the TBB_NUM_THREADS environment variable to the desired number of threads before running.
- This version uses a reasonable task grain size by default. To change this default,
set the TBB_GRAINSIZE environment variable to the desired grain size before running.
The grain size corresponds to the number of pixels (in the X or Y direction, for a
rectangular sub-area) in each parallel task.
Files
- src/main.cpp
- Main program which parses command line options and runs the raytracer.
- src/tachyon_video.cpp
- Source code for GUI interfaces.
- src/trace.serial.cpp
- Source code for original sequential version of example.
- src/trace.tbb1d.cpp
- Source code for Threading Building Blocks blocked_range (scan-line) version of example.
- src/trace.tbb.cpp
- Source code for Threading Building Blocks blocked_range2d (rectangular sub-area) version of example.
- (src/*.cpp)
- Remainder of source code for example.
- (src/*.h)
- Remainder of include files for example.
- Makefile
- Makefile for building example.
Directories
- src
- Contains source code and include files for the example.
- dat
- Contains data sets for running the example.
- msvs
- Contains Microsoft* Visual Studio* 2005 workspace for building and running the
example (Windows* systems only).
- xcode
- Contains Xcode* IDE workspace for building and running the example (Mac OS* X
systems only).
To Build
General build directions can be found here.
For Windows* systems Microsoft* Visual Studio* projects are provided for each of the above
example versions.
The Makefile supports the following build targets (in addition to the general ones).
Here, <version> is one of the above versions of the example, i.e., {serial, tbb1d, tbb}.
- make <version>[_debug]
- Build and run a single version (release or debug).
Equivalent to 'make build_<version>[_debug] run_<version>'.
- make build_<version>[_debug]
- Compile and link a single version (release or debug).
The resulting executable is left in the directory for the example.
- make run_<version>
- Run a single version previously produced by one of the above commands.
- make [(above options or targets)] DATASET={820spheres, balls, balls3, lattice, model2,
teapot, trypsin4pti}
- Build and run as above, but run with the specified data set.
- make [(above options or targets)] ARGS=-D
- Build and run as above, but run with disabled run-time display updating for use in making performance measurements
(strongly recommended when measuring performance or scalability; see note below).
- make [(above options or targets)] UI={con, gdi, dd, d2d, x, mac}
- Build and run as usual, but build with the specified GUI driver: console, GDI+*, DirectDraw*,
Direct2D*, X11, or OpenGL*
(see the description of the common GUI code
for more information on available graphics support).
For Linux* and Mac OS* X systems, the best available driver is detected automatically by the Makefile.
For Windows* systems, UI=gdi is the default GUI driver; compiling with UI=dd or
UI=d2d may offer superior
performance, but can only be used if the Microsoft* DirectX* SDK is installed on your system.
Use UI=con to build without the GUI for use in making performance measurements
(strongly recommended when measuring performance or scalability; see note below).
- make [(above options or targets)] XARCH=x64
- Build and run as above, but
also specify XARCH=x64 (or XARCH=AMD64 for older compilers) when building the example on Windows* as a 64-bit binary.
- make [(above options or targets)] DDLIB_DIR=<specify path to library directory of Direct Draw* SDK here>
- If you experience ddraw.lib linking problems, specify the correct library directory via this option.
Usage
Building via the above make commands, or via Visual Studio projects on Windows* systems, produces executable files
named tachyon.<version>.exe. To run these executables directly, use one or more of the following commands.
- tachyon.<version> -h
- Prints the help for command line options
- tachyon.<version> [dataset=value] [boundthresh=value] [no-display-updating] [nobounding] [silent]
- tachyon.<version> [dataset [boundthresh]] [no-display-updating] [nobounding] [silent]
- dataset is the path/name of one of the *.dat files in the dat directory for the example.
boundthresh is a bounding threshold value.
no-display-updating - disable run-time display updating.
no-bounding - disable bounding technique.
silent - no output except elapsed time.
- tachyon.<version> [dataset] [no-display-updating]
- Run this version (release or debug), but run with disabled run-time display updating
for use in making performance measurements
(strongly recommended when measuring performance or scalability; see note below).
- To run a short version of this example, e.g., for use with Intel® Parallel Inspector:
- Build a debug version of the tbb example with the GUI turned off
(e.g., make UI=con tbb_debug; see also the build directions above).
Run it with a small dataset, e.g., tachyon.tbb.exe dat/820spheres.dat no-display-updating.
Keys
While running with the GUI display turned on the following keyboard keys can be used:
- ESC
- Interrupt the rendering and exit
- Any key
- Enable repetition of rendering after the pause. Press ESC to stop the application.
- Space
- Toggle run-time display updating mode while rendering (see no-display-updating above).
- p
- Holds the picture after rendering completion. Press 'p' again to continue.
Notes
- While running with the GUI display turned on should yield reasonable performance in most cases, running with the GUI
display turned off is strongly recommended in order to demonstrate the full performance and scalability of the example.
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Copyright © 2005-2012 Intel Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Intel is a registered trademark or trademark of Intel Corporation
or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
The original source for this example is
Copyright (c) 1994-2008 John E. Stone
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
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- Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
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