On December 15th 2011, Michael Schøler (Hinnerup Net) and Henrik Høj Madsen (LEGO) presented LEGO 3DServices at the “Accelerating Computations – a research conference on graphics processing units, visual computing and beyond” conference held by the Alexandra Institute / Computer Graphics Lab in Aarhus.
Our presentation topic was as follows:
Scalable GPU computing service architecture: LEGO 3DServices
Michael S. Fosgerau (Hinnerup Net) and Henrik Høj Madsen (LEGO)
As LEGO is moving into the virtual playspace, a platform technology has been developed in-house primarily based on NVIDIA technologies, featuring:
- CUDA, OptiX, OpenGL and general shaders
- 17 NVIDIA Quadro Plex 2200 S4 in multiple environments, multiple datacentres
- Advanced shading techniques for approaching high-quality results in real-time
- On-demand asset generation
- CDN assets distribution
- A generic service-oriented interface
- A distributed rendering architecture
- Architectural patterns for distributed computing
- A plugin architecture supporting existing and future LEGO experiences
- A mentality shift from traditional ways of doing things on CPU vs GPU
- General experiences from developing on NVIDIA tech in a large-scale Enterprise setup
The LEGO 3DServices system is designed to support diverse computational needs such as on-demand rendering, mesh optimisation, a Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMO), product visualisations, 3D modeling and other current and future demanding computational tasks. Our aim with this session is to share our learnings and present LEGO’s vision of the future of distributed GPU accelerated computation as a business-driven platform technology.
The conference also included these very exciting presentations:
- How OptiX Makes the GPU Shine – a look inside NVIDIA’s Ray Tracing Engine
David McAllister, Optix Manager, NVIDIA - MR reconstruction on GPU
Thomas Sangild Sørensen, Associate Professor, Computer Science, Aarhus University - Parthenon Renderer Revealed
Toshiya Hachisuka, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, Aarhus University - Subsurface Light Propagation Volumes
Thomas Kim Kjeldsen, Research and Innovation Scientist, Computer Graphics Lab, Alexandra Institute - Accelerating Dense Linear Algebra on the GPU
Hans Henrik Brandenborg Sørensen, Post. Doc., GPU Lab, DTU Informatics - Massive Acceleration at the Alexandra CG Lab
Jesper Bjerg Mosegaard, Head of Research and Innovation, Computer Graphics Lab, Alexandra Institute - Dozens of Uses for Billions of Rays – a survey of ray tracing applications
David McAllister, Optix Manager, NVIDIA