Dynamic load balancing for real-time multiview path tracing on multi-GPU architectures

Abstract

Stereoscopic and multiview rendering are used for virtual reality and the synthetic generation of light fields from three-dimensional scenes. Because rendering multiple views using ray tracing techniques is computationally expensive, the utilization of multiprocessor machines is necessary to achieve real-time frame rates. In this study, we propose a dynamic load-balancing algorithm for real-time multiview path tracing on multi-compute device platforms. The proposed algorithm was adapted to heterogeneous hardware combinations and dynamic scenes in real time. We show that on a heterogeneous dual-GPU platform, our implementation reduces the rendering time by an average of approximately 30%–50% compared with that of a uniform workload distribution, depending on the scene and number of views.