Implementation of a distributed rendering environment for the TeraGrid

Abstract

This paper discusses the implementation of a distributed rendering environment (DRE) utilizing the TeraGrid. Using the new system, researchers and students across the TeraGrid have access to available resources for distributed rendering. Previously, researchers at universities and national labs, using high end rendering software such as Renderman Compliant Pixie were often limited by the amount of time that it takes to calculate (render) their final images. The amount of time required to render introduces several potential complications in a research setting. In contrast, a typical animation studio has a render farm, consisting of a cluster of computers (nodes) used to render 3D images, known as a distributed rendering environment. By spreading the rendering across hundreds of machines, the overall render time is reduced significantly. Unfortunately, most researchers do not have access to a distributed rendering environment. Our university has been developing a DRE for local use. However, because we are a TeraGrid site, we recently modified our DRE implementation to make use of open source rendering tools and grid tools such as Condor, in order to make the DRE available to other TeraGrid users