Collaborative Project: Research on Parallel Raycasting Engines and CAD/CAE/CAM Applications

这是康奈尔大学和杜克大学联合项目的一部分，该项目将继续成功研究用于实体建模的定制硬件。杜克大学正在扩展和改进硬件本身，而康奈尔大学正在为构造立体几何（CSG）构建软件，将生成的系统与应用程序集成，并进行现场测试。最初的8个处理器系统正在升级到256个处理器，以允许并行处理更复杂的对象。同时，硬件的数值精度得到了提高，并包括一个标签系统，使处理器能够跟踪软件指定的物体部分的属性。软件和应用程序正在扩展，不仅使用这些硬件的变化，而且包括算法的改进。预期的改进包括增强从其他表示（如nurb（非均匀递归b样条）和边界表示）转换到该系统使用的CSG树的能力。

This is part of a joint project at Cornell and Duke Universities to continue the successful research on custom hardware for solid modelling. Duke is extending and improving the hardware itself, while Cornell is building software for constructive solid geometry (CSG), integrating the resulting system with applications, and conducting field tests. The initial 8-processor system is being upgraded to 256 processors, to allow parallel processing of more complex objects. At the same time, the numerical precision of the hardware is being increased, and a tag system is included to allow the processors to keep track of software-specified properties of parts of objects. The software and applications are being extended not only to use these hardware changes, but also to include algorithmic improvements. Among the improvements foreseen are enhanced ability to translate from other representations, such as nurbs (non-uniform recursive B-splines) and boundary representations, into the CSG trees that are used by this system.