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PGP Grid
NeSC Review
May 2005
Description and Aims
Apply real time 3D vision technology to animation production.Apply remote parallel processing to real time 3D vision.Apply remote parallel processing to hyper-realistic rendering of imaginary environmentsPropose best practice for Animation Virtual Organisations
Description
PGP LtdPGP Ltd
GlasgowGlasgowEPCCEPCC
WP1: VO Study
WP6: Distributed Rendering
WP4: Grid enabling S/Correlator
WP5: Image streaming
WP2: Capture of sequences
WP3: Specialisation of software
Status
Project completed at end of 2004Remaining activity since then limited to preparation of journal articles and final report.
Achievements
EPCC: Produced Virtual Organisation report Built Resource Locator for ParallelisationDeveloped a Remote Rendering Service integrated with 3dStudio for PGP
GU :Developed parallelised matcher based on Pi calculusIntegrated and tested Pi calculus system with EPCC resource locatorSet up a resource locator server at GlasgowDeveloped video sequence conforming software
PGP :Built CGA sequences using material produced by GUJointly developed approach to remote rendering of sequences
Dissemination
GGF-March 2004Presentation to All Hands 2004Award of A H Reeve Premium by IEE in Jan 2005Presentation to be given to 2nd International Workshop on Middleware for Grid Computing, in TorontoDemonstration given to Pinewood Studios of the animation technique2 Presentations to ITI Techmedia Papers published – see subs page.Code and documents available from website.
Papers published or accepted
1. 3D Performance Capture for Facial Animation, MacVicar, D.W., Ford, S., Borland ,E., Rixon, R.C., Patterson, J.W., Cockshott, W.P., 3DPVT, Thessaloniki, Greece, IEEE Computer Society Press, (2004), ISBN/ISSN: 0-7695-2223-8
2. The PGP Grid Project, Cockshott, W.P., Yarmolenko, V. Mackenzie, L. Borland, E. Graham,P. Ju,X. , All Hands Conference, Nottingham, (2004).
3. JPIE INTERFACE: A Java Implementation of the PI-Calculus for Grid Computing, Yarmolenko, V., Cockshott, P., Borland, E., Mackenzie, L., Graham, P., Proceedings Middleware Grid Conference, Toronto-Canada (Oct 2004)
4. Pre-commercial 3D Digital TV studio, Cockshott, W.P., Nebel, J-C., to appear in IEE Proc. Vision, Image & Signal Processing
5. Applying the Grid to Cartoon Animation , Lewis Mackenzie, Paul Cockshott, Viktor Yarmolenko, Ewan Borland, Paul Graham, Kostas Kavoussanakis, to appear in Concurrency and Computation : Practice and Experience.
Exploitation
Presentation to Pinewood Studios. Possible use in Captain Scarlet. Need better handling of eyes and mouth. We upgraded the handling of head pose and eyes in response to this.Proposal to EPSRC for follow on project – rated of fundable quality but funds not awarded.Development proposal to ITI Techmedia, this was rejected on the grounds that the world market for digital motion capture too small to justify the investment.
Project Participants
PGP Productions Ltd:Carl GoodmanPeter Stansfield (Wavecrest)
Glasgow University:Paul CockshottLewis MacKenzieEwan BorlandViktor Yarmolenko
EPCC:Kostas KavoussanakisAli AnjomshoaaPaul GrahamGavin Pringle
Technical Achievements – JPieThe versions of GridFTP available do not support memory-to-memory transfer, which is required by our application.Lack of GridFTP server implementations on Windows has been a serious concern, with respect to cross platform use. This is especially the case when more than half the machines available to us are running Windows.Further investigation revealed that the existing GridFTP protocols are not available in pure Java versions. We regard this as desirable to allow our matching harness to have a light software footprint on machines such as teaching lab equipment running Windows. Milner’s π-Calculus provides the ability to transfer communications channels along communications channels in addition to image data itself, which is advantageous to our application for establishing dynamic data-flow graphs in the processing of image streams. Resource locator incorporated into the Jpie system.
Technical Achievements – ILS
As part of its code, each -Calculus node can solve a problem or pass it to other, willing nodes to do it on its behalf
A node can pass its communications channels allowing dynamic configuration of data-flow graphs.Lookup for willing nodes is done through our Resource Locator Service (aka ILS – Initiator, Locator, Servent)
A webservice that allows Servents to register with JPie and Initiators to locate Servents fulfilling their criteria
Technical Achievements – ILSLocatorHolds a database of resourcesHosts web services for updating and querying the databaseBrokers resource requests
Servent (Server Entity)Contacts the Locator with its resource descriptionUpdates the Locator with its resource status
InitiatorRequests resource(s) from the Locator
InitiatorClient
LocatorResourceRequestService LocatorRegistryService
LocatorDataModel
ServentClient
Database
Technical Achievements – RRS
The Remote Rendering Service (RRS) is a webservice which allows the submission, control and monitoring of rendering jobs on a remote, 3D-StudioMax farmThis involves:
A user-interface integrated to 3D-StudioMaxAuthentication at the remote farmSeamless transfer of appropriate files to and from the farm
Technical Achievements – RRS
Remote Farm (Server-Side)PGP (Client-Side)
Animator
3ds max 6
RRS-GUI
RRSDOSClient
RRSJavaClient
Web Server
3ds max 6
Backburner 2
RRSJavaServer
GridFTP
Farm
1
Rendering config & .max files3
4
6RRSJavaGftpClient
5
2