skip to main content
research-article

Particle graphics on reconfigurable hardware

Published:19 September 2008Publication History
Skip Abstract Section

Abstract

Particle graphics simulations are well suited for modeling complex phenomena such as water, cloth, explosions, fire, smoke, and clouds. They are normally realized in software as part of an interactive graphics application. The computational complexity of particle graphics simulations restricts the number of particles that can be updated in software at interactive frame rates. This article presents the design and implementation of a hardware particle graphics engine for accelerating real-time particle graphics simulations. We explore the design process, implementation issues, and limitations of using field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) for the acceleration of particle graphics. The FPGA particle engine processes million-particle systems at a rate from 47 to 112 million particles per second, which represents one to two orders of magnitude speedup over a 2.8 GHz CPU. Using three FPGAs, a maximum sustained performance of 112 million particles per second was achieved.

References

  1. Azizi, N., Kuon, I., Egier, A., Arabiha, A., and Chow, P. 2004. Reconfigurable molecular dynamics simulator. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines. 197--206. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  2. Beeckler, J. S. and Gross, W. J. 2005. FPGA particle graphics hardware. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines. Napa, CA, 85--94. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  3. El-Araby, E., Taher, M., Abouellail, M., El-Ghazawi, T., and Newby, G. B. 2007. Comparative analysis of high level programming for reconfigurable computers: Methodology and empirical study. In Proceedings of the 3rd Southern Conference on Programmable Logic (SPL), 99--106.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  4. Hamada, T., Fukushige, T., Kawai, A., and Makino, J. 1998. PROGRAPE-1: A programmable special-purpose computer for many-body simulations. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines, 256--257. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  5. Herout, A. and Zemcik, P. 2005. Hardware pipeline for rendering clouds of circular points. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision WSCG, 17--22.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  6. Ilmonen, T. and Kontkanen, J. 2003. The second order particle system. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision WSCG. 11, 240--247.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  7. Kipfer, P., Segal, M., and Westermann, R. 2004. UberFlow: A GPU-based particle engine. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH/EUROGRAPHICS Conference on Graphics Hardware, 115--122. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  8. Kolb, A., Latta, L., and Rezk-Salama, C. 2004. Hardware-Based simulation and collision detection for large particle systems. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH/EUROGRAPHICS Conference on Graphics Hardware, 123--131. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  9. Koo, J. J., Fernández, D., Haddad, A., and Gross, W. J. 2007. Evaluation of a high-level-language methodology for high-performance reconfigurable computers. In Proceedings of the IEEE 18th International Conference on Application-Specific Systems, Architectures and Processors (ASAP), 30--35.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  10. Krüger, J., Kipfer, P., Kondratieva, P., and Westermann, R. 2005. A particle system for interactive visulalization of 3D flows. IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graph. 11, 6 (Nov./Dec.), 744--756. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  11. Latta, L. 2004. Building a million particle system. In Proceedings of the Game Developers Conference, 54--60.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  12. Makino, J. 2006. The GRAPE project. IEEE Comput. Sci. Eng. 8, 1 (Jan./Feb.), 30--40. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  13. Maxwell, C. 2007. FPGA-Based solution interfaces to Intel bus. EETimes Online. http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=203100031.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  14. Reeves, W. T. 1983. Particle systems—A technique for modeling a class of fuzzy objects. ACM Trans. Graph. 2, 2 (Apr.), 91--108. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  15. Shirley, P., Ashikhmin, M., Gleicher, M., Marschner, S., Reinhard, E., Sung, K., Thompson, W., and Willemsen, P. 2005. Fundamentals of Computer Graphics, 2nd ed. A. K. Peters, Ltd., Natick, MA. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  16. Sims, K. 1990. Particle animation and rendering using data parallel computation. In Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, 405--413. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  17. Styles, H. and Luk, W. 2000. Customising graphics applications: Techniques and programming interface. In Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines, 77--87. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  18. Zemcik, P., Herout, A., Crha, L., Fucik, O., and Tupec, P. 2004. Particle rendering engine in DSP and FPGA. In Proceedings of the 11th IEEE International Conference and Workshop on Engineering of Computer-Based Systems, 361--368. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  19. Zemcik, P., Tisnovsky, P., and Herout, A. 2003. Particle rendering pipeline. In Proceedings of the 19th Spring Conference on Computer Graphics, 165--170. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library

Index Terms

  1. Particle graphics on reconfigurable hardware

      Recommendations

      Comments

      Login options

      Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

      Sign in

      Full Access

      • Published in

        cover image ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems
        ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems  Volume 1, Issue 3
        September 2008
        135 pages
        ISSN:1936-7406
        EISSN:1936-7414
        DOI:10.1145/1391732
        Issue’s Table of Contents

        Copyright © 2008 ACM

        Publisher

        Association for Computing Machinery

        New York, NY, United States

        Publication History

        • Published: 19 September 2008
        • Accepted: 1 June 2008
        • Revised: 1 May 2008
        • Received: 1 March 2008
        Published in trets Volume 1, Issue 3

        Permissions

        Request permissions about this article.

        Request Permissions

        Check for updates

        Qualifiers

        • research-article
        • Research
        • Refereed

      PDF Format

      View or Download as a PDF file.

      PDF

      eReader

      View online with eReader.

      eReader
      About Cookies On This Site

      We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website.

      Learn more

      Got it!