Parallel image computation in clusters with task-distributor

Distributed systems, especially clusters, can be used to execute ray tracing tasks in parallel for speeding up the image computation. Because ray tracing is a computational expensive and memory consuming task, ray tracing can also be used to benchmark clusters. This paper introduces task-distributor, a free software solution for the parallel execution of ray tracing tasks in distributed systems. The ray tracing solution used for this work is the Persistence Of Vision Raytracer (POV-Ray). Task-distributor does not require any modification of the POV-Ray source code or the installation of an additional message passing library like the Message Passing Interface or Parallel Virtual Machine to allow parallel image computation, in contrast to various other projects. By analyzing the runtime of the sequential and parallel program parts of task-distributor, it becomes clear how the problem size and available hardware resources influence the scaling of the parallel application.