[Tig] 8k IMAX scans... 16k next

[Rob Lingelbach]

On Jul 24, 2008, at 6:50 PM, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:

> By treating each production as a "one of" event and not supporting  
> the development of open source applications, the cost of production  
> does not fall like it would if free portable tools were developed  
> which could be used (for free) in future productions.

Bob, something that also hasn't ceased to surprise me, in addition to  
your comments, is that instead of developing parallel processing to  
its fullest, still the basic layout of compositing workflow involves a  
render farm, where the machines are mainly single-processor, and  
instead of doing multi-threaded multiprocessor rendering, you're  
basically just putting a bunch of commodity machines connected via  
ethernet and letting the tasks be allotted by some scheduling  
daemon.   It was like, 30 years ago, that parallel processing was  
starting to be applied, with Sun, the Transputer, The Connection  
Machine,  and others using spare CPU cycles on machines that were  
otherwise sitting idle.  There is a very good article in American  
Scientist (my favorite magazine) back 9 months ago or so at

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2007/11/computing-in-a-parallel-universe

or, if that wraps badly:

http://tinyurl.com/54qtdt

that talks about how finally, multi-core CPUs are bringing the  
threading nature of programming into reality, many decades after its  
conception.

as the article points out, there will be some new programming  
techniques- (why haven't they been thought out in the last 30 years?  
because of the cheap availability of commodity hardware) where  
programmers will have to understand how to stand in the same place at  
the same time, so to speak, and relegate portions of programs, in a  
way different than used in today's clusters.   Shared memory awaits  
those who can unlock its power.

Anyway, if you get a chance to read the AmSci article, would be  
interesting to know what you think.   (being in a place where I can't  
get that magazine, and this being the only issue I have at hand, I've  
read it several times.)

--
Rob Lingelbach
rob at colorist.org    http://www.colorist.org/robhome.html