PARALLEL SPHERE RENDERING

Sphere rendering is an important method for visualizing molecular dyna mics data. This paper presents a parallel algorithm that is almost 90 times faster than current graphics workstations. To render extremely l arge data sets and large images, the algorithm uses the MIMD features of the supercomputers to divide up the data, render independent partia l images, and then finally composite the multiple partial images using an optimal method. The algorithm and performance results are presente d for the CM-5 and the T3D.