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From: peterb@pbear.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Ray-Tracing Processor
Message-ID: <68@pbear.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Mar-85 02:28:56 EST
Article-I.D.: pbear.68
Posted: Fri Mar  1 02:28:56 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Mar-85 07:36:10 EST
Lines: 30
Nf-ID: #N:pbear:28100002:000:1592
Nf-From: pbear!peterb    Feb 28 15:45:00 1985


	IF you plan to use hypercube for image processing (i.e. computer
graphics for a movie like Star Wars) then why not scrap the cube in any of
its designs and go to a 1 to 1 mapping of pixels per processor. If your
talking huge then this is not so impossible. each processor execute a
ray-tracing algorithm back to a light source or other known end point and
produce the color/brightness for that pixel.

	This would require one high speed one-way bus from a master object
definer to each processor and this is done by having all of the processors
listen to the bus at the same time. This is possible since each processor
needs the exact same copy of the definition for it to apply ray tracing.
Then each pixel can be computed and returned to the imager over a slower
speed bus (such as ethernet) where it is converted into a rasterized image.
Then the imager sends out the definition of the next frame and the process
repeats itself.

	You could even group processors together so their memory
requirements are not gargantuan. If you are talking mega-sized systems, then
this configuration does have its merits. For a standard "high-res" CAD
picture of 640X400 pixels, this requires 256000 processors, each with about
256kb = 65.536Gb of memory. If you shrink this by grouping together 64
processors per memory array(this assums keeping 64K local) memory
requirements go down to 1.024 Gb of memory. Surely this is better than
spending megabucks on controllers to talk point to point or groupings.

	I welcome responses and suggestions and even flames.

					Peter Barada
					ima!pbear!peterb