First, GraviT will replace the OpenGL pathways that are commonly used for visualization with a high-performance, open-source ray tracing engine that can interactively render on both a CPU and on accelerator architectures. To address these trends, we pursue a two-pronged approach. This confluence of new, more capable architectures, the increase in geometry per node, and concerns about the durability of the established rendering path all motivate this work. Finally, the software implementation for OpenGL can not be easily mapped to non-GPU multi-core and many-core systems, creating a significant gap if not closed, visualization will not be possible directly on large supercomputers. Further, as the amount of geometry per node rises, ray-tracing becomes increasingly cost effective, since its computational costs are proportional to the screen size, not the geometry size. The computational power available on emerging many-core architectures, such as the Intel Xeon Phi processors on TACC's Stampede machine, enable ray-tracing, a higher quality technique.

However, recent architectural changes on supercomputers create significant opportunities for alternate rendering techniques.

Many visualization programs (VisIt, Ensight, VAPOR, ParaView, VTK) use OpenGL for rendering. The standard technique for rendering geometry is rasterization and the most commonly used library for performing this is OpenGL. Scientific visualization plays a large role in exploring the scientific simulations that run on supercomputers new discoveries are often made by studying renderings generated through visualization of simulation results.

Gravit program