VirtualGL

Lecture Outline What is VGL ? How to use VGL ? Sun Visualization System Demo

What is VGL ? VirtualGL is an open source package which gives any Unix or Linux remote display software the ability to run OpenGL applications with full 3D hardware acceleration. Some remote display software, such as VNC, lacks the ability to run OpenGL applications entirely. Other remote display software forces OpenGL applications to use a slow software-only OpenGL renderer, to the detriment of performance as well as compatibility.

What is VGL ? VirtualGL also allows 3D graphics hardware to be shared among multiple users, and it provides real- time performance on even the most modest of networks. This makes it possible for large, noisy, hot 3D workstations to be replaced with laptops or even thinner clients; but more importantly, it eliminates the workstation and the network as barriers to data size. Users can now visualize gigabytes and gigabytes of data in real time without needing to cache any of the data locally or sit in front of the machine that is rendering the data.

What is VGL ? VirtualGL, however, employs a technique called “split rendering” to force the 3D commands from the application to go to a 3D graphics card in the application server. VGL accomplishes this by pre-loading a dynamic shared object (DSO) into the application at run time. This DSO intercepts a handful of GLX, OpenGL, and X11 commands necessary to perform split rendering.

How to use VGL ? VirtualGL image transportation VirtualGL can currently use one of three “image transports” to send rendered 3D images to the client machine. VGL Image Transport (Formerly “Direct Mode”) X11 Image Transport (Formerly “Raw Mode”) Sun Ray Image Transport

VirtualGL image transportation VGL Image Transport Reference: http://www.virtualgl.org/vgldoc/2_1final/#hd001

VirtualGL image transportation X11 Image Transport Reference: http://www.virtualgl.org/vgldoc/2_1final/#hd001

VirtualGL image transportation X11 Image Transport Reference: http://www.virtualgl.org/vgldoc/2_1final/#hd001

VirtualGL image transportation Sun Ray Image Transport Reference: http://www.virtualgl.org/vgldoc/2_1final/#hd001

System Requirements Linux/x86

Sun Visualization System Reference: http://www.sun.com/servers/visualization/

Sun Visualization System Intro Not only can you deliver the power to drive multi- display, 3D environments, you can also enable users to simultaneously view and interact with centralized data and 3D applications over the network via remote visualization capabilities. The Sun Visualization System integrates workstations, servers, networking, interconnects, graphics, and innovative software to provide both scalable and sharable visualization solutions.

Sun Visualization System Features and Benefits If you have large data sets that need to be processed, visualized and analyzed, now you can afford a powerful and scalable visualization system that can drive a multi-display environment and serve as a centralized resource that gives users anywhere on your network access to more CPUs, more graphics, and larger shared memory to process and view really large data sets.

Sun Visualization System Key Benefits Easy access to 3D visualization data for more users Faster and better decision making through data visualization Lower IT costs based on more affordable hardware solutions Eliminates cost of dedicated graphics-only systems Flexible architecture and scalability provide investment protection Pre-configured by Sun, ready to deploy

Sun Visualization System Highlights Scale @ will Share & Collaborate Best-in-class components High performance graphics Deploy rapidly

Sun Scalable Visualization The Sun Scalable Visualization software delivers high performance and increased image quality as well as an infrastructure that scales to handle visual processing requirements for increasing amounts of data to provide greater insight and better decision making. Sun Scalable Visualization software enables large, multi- display environments using standard, unmodified OpenGL applications using more than one graphics pipeline either in a single visualization server or graphics cluster. It also allows the use of multiple graphics processing units to speed up the rendering on a single display.

Sun Scalable Visualization Solutions Graphics servers support multiple graphics devices to drive: Higher performance Higher image quality Higher resolution Problem1: Servers Problem2: Lots of Screens – Chromium or OpenSceneGraph Problem3: Performance – Paraview or Chromium

Sun Shared Visualization Sun Shared Visualization software provides users on a variety of client platforms the ability to remotely access and share 3D-accelerated applications which run on a central resource with high performance graphics. This central graphics resource can be a single system with very large shared memory, lots of CPUS, many high-performance graphics cards, and high- performance, high-capacity storage, a graphics cluster, or a grid of multiple, different systems with accelerated graphics capabilities.

Why Shared Visualization ? Process and analyze huge data sets Scale (using Sun Scalable Visualization solutions) to maintain performance as data scales up Access the latest graphics technology Collaborate with remote colleagues to get the answer or decision faster Interactively view 3D data using standard applications without modification Consolidate and secure access to proprietary data Quickly and accurately solve complex problems to heighten productivity Improve analytical ability and innovation

Sun Shared Visualization Software Transparent Remote Access to 3D Applications

Remote Graphics In the Past

Remote Graphics Using VirtualGL

TurboVNC Purpose Allows X applications which were designed to run and display on the same system to transparently run on one system and display on another. Also enables collaboration by allowing more than one client system to display X session. Open source project Derived from TightVNC but uses same optimized image compression technology as VGL. Interoperable with other VNC viewers, including Java-based WebVNC.

VirtualGL With TurboVNC

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