CAREER: A systems approach to real-time graphics on single-chip highly-programmable hardware

职业：在单芯片高度可编程硬件上实现实时图形的系统方法

• 批准号: 0546236
• 负责人: William Mark
• 金额: $ 40万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-03-01 至 2010-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0546236&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; systems; approach; real; time

AbstractCAREER: A systems approach to real-time graphics on single-chip highly-programmable hardwareWilliam R. Mark, University of Texas at Austin The goal of this project is to produce better interactive 3D graphics -- that is, to synthesize images that are indistinguishable from the real world and to generate these images rapidly enough that users can interact with the computer-generated world. Realistic computer-generated images are needed by applications such as emergency and military training, e-commerce, education, and entertainment. Although real-time 3D graphics technology has improved enormously over the past twenty years, the images from today's systems are still not fully realistic, and the goal of realism is in fact unattainable with current system designs due to fundamental limitations of thetechnology used in today's systems.This research is exploring a new, ground-up system design for both software and hardware that overcomes current limitations to enable realistic real-time graphics. The new system is organized around the ray tracing visibility algorithm, which does not suffer from the limitations imposed by using the Z-buffer. Ray tracing has traditionally been considered impractical for real-time systems because previous approaches have been unable to efficiently support dynamic and deformable objects that are needed by most applications. The new system overcomes this restriction with a novel approach to ray tracing that integrates the two parts of the system that were previously separated: scene management and visibility computations. In turn, this tight integration requires that the two-part hardware architecture of today's systems (the central processing unit (CPU)+graphics) be replaced with a single, unified hardware architecture. This new hardware architecture combines the parallelism of today's graphics processors with the flexible programming model of today's CPUs. This new hardware architecture also has the potential to provide better performance for a wide variety of applications beyond 3D graphics. In conjunction with this research, the investigator is training students and other researchers to understand how to design and analyze this new type of system.

摘要CAREER：一种在单芯片高度可编程硬件上实时图形的系统方法该项目的目标是产生更好的交互式3D图形--即合成与真实世界难以区分的图像，并足够快地生成这些图像，以便用户能够与计算机生成的世界交互。紧急和军事训练、电子商务、教育和娱乐等应用都需要逼真的计算机生成图像。尽管实时3D图形技术在过去的二十年中有了很大的进步，但来自今天系统的图像仍然不是完全逼真的，而且由于当今系统使用的技术的根本限制，逼真的目标实际上是不能通过当前的系统设计来实现的。本研究正在探索一种新的、针对软件和硬件的、全新的系统设计，它克服了当前的限制，使得能够实现逼真的实时图形。新系统围绕光线跟踪可见性算法进行组织，该算法不受使用Z缓冲区施加的限制。光线跟踪传统上被认为对于实时系统是不切实际的，因为以前的方法已经不能有效地支持大多数应用程序所需的动态和可变形对象。新系统通过一种新的光线跟踪方法克服了这一限制，该方法集成了之前分离的系统的两个部分：场景管理和可见度计算。反过来，这种紧密集成要求将当今系统(中央处理器(CPU)+显卡)的两部分硬件体系结构替换为单一、统一的硬件体系结构。这种新的硬件架构将当今图形处理器的并行性与当今CPU的灵活编程模型结合在一起。这种新的硬件架构还有可能为3D图形以外的各种应用程序提供更好的性能。在这项研究的同时，研究人员正在培训学生和其他研究人员，让他们了解如何设计和分析这种新型系统。