Overview

OpenGL Multipipe™ enables unmodified single-pipe applications to achieve both display and performance scalability in multi-pipe environments. This is important for users who need to display extremely high-resolution information and analyze large data sets in an interactive manner but who do not have the ability to change their applications to directly utilize scalable visualization resources.

Examples of users who benefit from OpenGL Multipipe include:

Manufacturing industry users who need to analyze large engineering analysis data sets in a group environment. OpenGL Multipipe allows a single application to drive a large multi-projector SGI® Reality Center® environment, and allows the power of multiple graphics pipelines to be combined to drive each projector.

Government agencies that use SGI Reality Center environments as decision support centers. OpenGL Multipipe enables multiple single-pipe applications to be moved around the entire display, be enlarged when they deliver critical information, and share the large display with high-performance multi-pipe applications.

Energy customers that bring multi-disciplinary teams together to maximize oil field production. OpenGL Multipipe increases the performance of volume visualization applications and enables them to be displayed in an SGI Reality Center environment.

User Need OpenGL Multipipe Feature Benefit Achieved Create productive high-resolution SGI Reality Center environment Application transparent Immediate utilization of existing applications with scalable environments Single logical display Single pipe applications scale across the boundaries of individual graphics pipes. Co-existence with and support of high-performance explicitly parallel visualization applications High performance and productivity applications can co-exist and overlap on large displays Increase interactivity for large models Scalable graphics compositor support The output of multiple graphics pipes can be combined to increase the performance of a single monitor or projector Viewport clipping, display list breakdown and geometry culling Both fill rate limited and geometry limited applications run faster