A classification of scientific visualization algorithms for massive threading

As the number of cores in processors increase and accelerator architectures are becoming more common, an ever greater number of threads is required to achieve full processor utilization. Our current parallel scientific visualization codes rely on partitioning data to achieve parallel processing, but this approach will not scale as we approach massive threading in which work is distributed in such a fine level that each thread is responsible for a minute portion of data. In this paper we characterize the challenges of refactoring our current visualization algorithms by considering the finest portion of work each performs and examining the domain of input data, overlaps of output domains, and interdependencies among work instances. We divide our visualization algorithms into eight categories, each containing algorithms with the same interdependencies. By focusing our research efforts to solving these categorial challenges rather than this legion of individual algorithms, we can make attainable advancement for extreme computing.