GPU-based Streaming for Parallel Level of Detail on Massive Model Rendering

Rendering massive 3D models in real-time has long been recognized as a very challenging problem because of the limited computational power and memory space available in a workstation. Most existing rendering techniques, especially level of detail (LOD) processing, have suffered from their sequential execution natures, and does not scale well with the size of the models. We present a GPU-based progressive mesh simplification approach which enables the interactive rendering of large 3D models with hundreds of millions of triangles. Our work contributes to the massive rendering research in two ways. First, we develop a novel data structure to represent the progressive LOD mesh, and design a parallel mesh simplification algorithm towards GPU architecture. Second, we propose a GPU-based streaming approach which adopt a frame-to-frame coherence scheme in order to minimize the high communication cost between CPU and GPU. Our results show that the parallel mesh simplification algorithm and GPU-based streaming approach significantly improve the overall rendering performance

Simulating streamer discharges in 3D with the parallel adaptive Afivo framework

We present an open-source plasma fluid code for 2D, cylindrical and 3D simulations of streamer discharges, based on the Afivo framework that features adaptive mesh refinement, geometric multigrid methods for Poisson's equation, and OpenMP parallelism. We describe the numerical implementation of a fluid model of the drift-diffusion-reaction type, combined with the local field approximation. Then we demonstrate its functionality with 3D simulations of long positive streamers in nitrogen in undervolted gaps, using three examples. The first example shows how a stochastic background density affects streamer propagation and branching. The second one focuses on the interaction of a streamer with preionized regions, and the third one investigates the interaction between two streamers. The simulations run on up to $10^8$ grid cells within less than a day. Without mesh refinement, they would require $4\cdot 10^{12}$ grid cells

Recent Advances in Graph Partitioning

We survey recent trends in practical algorithms for balanced graph partitioning together with applications and future research directions

Real-time simulation and visualisation of cloth using edge-based adaptive meshes

Real-time rendering and the animation of realistic virtual environments and characters has progressed at a great pace, following advances in computer graphics hardware in the last decade. The role of cloth simulation is becoming ever more important in the quest to improve the realism of virtual environments. The real-time simulation of cloth and clothing is important for many applications such as virtual reality, crowd simulation, games and software for online clothes shopping. A large number of polygons are necessary to depict the highly exible nature of cloth with wrinkling and frequent changes in its curvature. In combination with the physical calculations which model the deformations, the effort required to simulate cloth in detail is very computationally expensive resulting in much diffculty for its realistic simulation at interactive frame rates. Real-time cloth simulations can lack quality and realism compared to their offline counterparts, since coarse meshes must often be employed for performance reasons. The focus of this thesis is to develop techniques to allow the real-time simulation of realistic cloth and clothing. Adaptive meshes have previously been developed to act as a bridge between low and high polygon meshes, aiming to adaptively exploit variations in the shape of the cloth. The mesh complexity is dynamically increased or refined to balance quality against computational cost during a simulation. A limitation of many approaches is they do not often consider the decimation or coarsening of previously refined areas, or otherwise are not fast enough for real-time applications. A novel edge-based adaptive mesh is developed for the fast incremental refinement and coarsening of a triangular mesh. A mass-spring network is integrated into the mesh permitting the real-time adaptive simulation of cloth, and techniques are developed for the simulation of clothing on an animated character