CoreWall Prototype

Presented by Arun Rao@ EVL’s Tech Meeting

8/25/04

Background What is a “core”?

Background Received training as a core lab

technician Made to understand “the process”

Sensor scans on whole cores Splitting cores Imaging cores Sensor scans on split cores Initial Core Description (ICD)

Machinery & Data

So what’s the problem? Line Scan Images of Cores are

“big” 50 MB on average 10 pixels/mm resolution

Scientists desire to look at images and data right next to each other

Solution? Use available libraries for loading

different image formats Draw over multiple screens using a

multi-headed video card Try a couple ideas to get a starting

point Keep a notebook in hand for

random thoughts!!!!

Prototype 1 Done by drawing pixels every

frame Results: Slow!!

Prototype 2 Take a textured polygon approach

to drawing images Has advantages over drawing pixels

every frame Has drawbacks

Textured Polygon Rendering of Images Textures stored in local video memory

Often in Least Recently Used paging system Can be compressed and decompressed by

video card hardware Texture Quadtree

For dynamic allocation textures (actually not yet implemented)

Acts as a multi-resolution control to be able to make better use of available memory

Problems? Multiheaded cards are on the PCI bus

Paging textures to video cards can be slow Code is far from optimized causing pointless

cache misses for texture usage/lookup “Too many” OpenGL contexts

4 OpenGL contexts on a single machine Extra time chewed up by context switching

User Interface? Needed a way to bring in tables,

graphs and images easily Needed a way to organize tables,

images, graphs One way suitable for testing slight

differences in rendering approaches One way suitable for

controlling/modifying data based on user events

Features Finished For Florida Natural organization of core data and

images Ability to:

Load multiple images of different core sections Load multiple sets of data tables Create and display graphs of data relative to a

core section Move whole groups of cores Move individual core sections and have the

graphs move with them It can make coffee too!

The Future Incorporate rendering technique

into next JuxtaView Use LambdaRAM and Optistore (or

similar types of services) Obtain experimental data for variable

controls (e.g. texture dimensions) Lots of late nights

Cheers