New Products

High Performance Computing on Cloud Services LuxRender Rendering Service Service of large-scaled analysis, simulation, CG rendering with the advanced calculation feature of high performance computing Service price  Separate estimate Release  July 2014 Support Service

Introduction

This service is a service that generates and provides realistic images just like a photograph based on CG models created in 3dsMac, etc. At the time of image generation, a high speed image generation is realized using a supercomputer which FOCUS (Foundation for Computational Science, Kobe city) owns. It can be utilized for various purposes such as design consideration of BIM model and interior coordination in construction, and others like project of automobiles and parts, review at the design stage, presentation, public relations, and marketing.

About LuxRender

This service performs an image generation using a renderer called LuxRender. Renderer indicates a software that performs imaging process based on a generated 3DCG model, and that process is called rendering. The feature of LuxRender is the point that it generates realistic images as if it were photographs by strictly calculating the equation based on the physical laws of light. Rendering by LuxRender uses a rendering method called "ray tracing". This method simulates the propagation path of the light, but to make it faster, it is possible that the calculation of reflection and refraction are simplified in other renderers. In LuxRender, such simplification does not happen, so it makes much account of physical stringency compared to other ray tracing renderers, and it is suitable when you want to reproduce a real landscape in CG. On the one hand, there are also disadvantages such as performing strict calculation causes an increase of calculation amount, which increases the rendering time too. It may take a few days to render a single still image in an ordinary PC. Figure 1 LuxRender rendering example

High speed rendering by supercomputer

LuxRender takes a very long time for the calculation, but it can be quickened by parallel computing using multiple numbers of computers. In general, such computer clusters dedicated for CG rendering are called Render Farms. In a parallel computation of LuxRender standard, the speed can be quickened to about 20-30 times compared to a rendering by a single PC, but the speed will start decreasing when the number of PCs goes above 50, and it cannot get any faster (in a case of still image rendering). Also, in order to construct such environment requires various know-hows. In FORUM8, alteration accomplishing 10000 node parallel in supecomputer K was done, accomplishing a high speed of more than 2000 times an ordinary PC. That know-how has been transplanted in the supercomputer installed in FOCUS (Foundation for Computational Science), and the render farm has been reconstructed. FOCUS has been upgraded in 2014, and the rendering cost has decreased due to the increase in concurrency resulting from an increase of the numbers of node. The rendering cost per frame decreases as the number of frames increases. The cost can be reduced by rendering many frames or a slightly long video at once. Figure 2 Rendering example in FOCUS Making the best use of high speed rendering, a rendering that would take about a week in a single PC can be done in an hour of actual real rendering time. Also, the installed memory is large so a rendering of a large size (such as 4k) is possible.

Future developments

Currently, a faster, stable, and convenient LuxRender is being developed, so it is expected to become easier to use and cheaper.

(Up&Coming '14 Fall issue)

Up&Coming