Skip to main content
Log in

A method for speeding up beam-tracing simulation using thread-level parallelization

Engineering with Computers Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In recent years, the computational power of modern processors has been increasing mainly because of the increase in the number of processor cores. Computationally intensive applications can gain from this trend only if they employ parallelism, such as thread-level parallelization. Geometric simulations can employ thread-level parallelization because the main part of a geometric simulation can be divided into a subset of mutually independent tasks. This approach is especially interesting for acoustic beam tracing because it is an intensive computing task. This paper presents the parallelization of an existing beam-tracing simulation composed of three algorithms. Two of them are iterative algorithms, and they are parallelized with an already known technique. The most novel method is the parallelization of the third algorithm, the recursive octree generation. To check the performance of the multi-threaded parallelization, several tests are performed using three different computer platforms. On all of the platforms, the multi-threaded octree generation algorithm shows a significant speedup, which is linear when all of the threads are executed on the same processor.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Taylor M, Chandak A, Antani L, Manocha D (2009) RESound: interactive sound rendering for dynamic virtual environments. In: Proc 17th Intern ACM Conf Multimed, 19–24 October 2009. Beijing China

  2. Savoia L, Manocha D, Lin MC (2010) Use of GPUs in room acoustic modeling and auralization. Proc Intern Symp Room Acoust 29–31 August 2010. Melbourne, Australia

  3. Noisternig M et al (2008) Framework for real-time auralization in architectural acoustics. Acta Acust United Acust 94:1000–1015

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Lentz T et al (2007) Virtual reality system with integrated sound field simulation and reproduction. EURASIP J Adv Signal Proc. Article ID 70540

  5. Taylor M et al (2012) Guided multiview ray tracing for fast auralization. IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graphics 12(11):1797–1810

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Laine S et al (2009) Accelerated beam tracing algorithm. Appl Acoust 70(1):172–181

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. James A, Dalenback BI, Naqvi A (2008) Computer modelling with CATT acoustics—theory and practise of diffuse reflection and array modeling. In: Proceedings of 24th reproduced sound conference, 20–21 November 2008, Brighton, UK

  8. Feistel S et al (2007) Improved methods for calculating room impulse response with EASE 4.2 AURA. In: Proc 19th Intern Congr Acous 2–7 September 2007, Madrid, Spain

  9. Sikora M, Mateljan I, Bogunović N (2012) Beam tracing with refraction. Arch Acous 37(3):301–316

    Google Scholar 

  10. Danowitz A et al (2012) CPU DB: recording microprocessor history. Commun ACM 55(4):55–70

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Bigler J, Stephens A, Parker SG (2006) Design for parallel interactive ray tracing systems. Tech Rep, UUSCI-2006-027, SCI Institute, University of Utah

  12. Nunes M, Santos LP (2009) Workload distribution for ray tracing in multi-core systems. In: Proc 17º Encontro Port Comp Graf, 29, 30 October 2009. Covilha, Portugal

  13. Jedrzejewski M, Marasek K (2006) Computation of room acoustics using programable video hardware. Comput Image Vis 32:587–592

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Amdahl GM (1967) Validity of the single processor approach to achieving large-scale computing capabilities. In: Proc Am Fed Inf Proc Soc Conf, pp 483–485

  15. Spjut J, Kopta D, Brunvald E, Boulos S, Kellis S (2008) TRaX: a multithreaded architecture for realtime ray tracing. In: Proceedings of symposium on application specific processors, 08–09 June 2008, Anaheim, USA

  16. Chandak A et al (2009) FastV: from-point visibility culling on complex models. Comp Graphics Forum 28(4):1237–1246

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Gao L et al (2009) Exploiting speculative TLP in recursive programs by dynamic thread prediction. In: Proc 18th Int Conf Compil Constr, pp 78–93

  18. Pombo JJ, Aldegunde M, Garcia-Loureiro AJ (2006) Optimization of an Octree-based 3-D parallel meshing algorithm for the simulation of small-feature semiconductor devices. Parallel Comp 33:439–446

    Google Scholar 

  19. Tu T, O’Hallaron DR, Ghattas O (2005) Scalable parallel octree meshing for terascale applications. In: Proc 2005 ACM/IEEE Conf Supercomput, 12–18 November 2005. Seattle, USA

  20. Hariharan B, Aluru S (2005) Efficient parallel algorithms and software for compressed octrees with applications to hierarchical methods. J Parallel Comp 31(3+4):311–331

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marjan Sikora.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Sikora, M., Mateljan, I. A method for speeding up beam-tracing simulation using thread-level parallelization. Engineering with Computers 30, 679–688 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00366-013-0316-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00366-013-0316-z

Keywords

Navigation