Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Server-side 3D Rendering

The idea that it is more efficient to render 3D images on a server and then deliver these to clients in real time runs counter to the way distributed systems have been developed for decades. We have always lived in a world in which network bandwidth was so scarce and so slow that it was the bottleneck for distributed systems. IBM, Sun, and HP all see a future in which bandwidth is much more abundant and the delivery speeds are many times faster. They are beginning to create distributed visualization systems that allow all of the heavy visualization work to be done on a server and distributed to clients in a manner similar to MP3 movies (e.g. try watching streaming movies on your PC from Netflix). But they also believe that delivery speeds will be fast enough to allow two-way interaction so that the customer on the client end can navigate through the world and make changes to it while it is being rendered on the server side. Currently it appears that they are able to do this with 3D spaces where the client is primarily interested in moving around objects like machine parts and 3D molecules. The client may occasionally make a change and see the effect reflected back by the server in near real time. This is a necessary first step toward server-side rendering for virtual simulation and gaming environments. I do not think we are at a point where we can support real time interactive play yet and are probably very limited in the number of independent players that can be supported. But the financial benefits of this technology are so compelling that I expect many companies to push on this technology until they make it happen. Even Amazon web Services could be a provider in this space if there is enough demand It essentially turns every electronic device into the equivalent of a rendering machine. Imagine playing the hottest new computer game on your iPod, PDA, or cellphone – and not the high-end version, but a very mediocre piece of hardware. Also, imagine that you do not have to upgrade your computer when a new high-powered game comes out because all of the hardware upgrade is done on the servers. The number of potential customers for such a service is certainly in the tens of millions and perhaps handreds of millions. It seems to be on the scale of the cell phone market in size.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Colorado Conkey's said...

What a opportune posting. I am working on a project right now where we are trying to push all the heavy content work back to the server and push towards thin clients so that we can use common hardware for gaming and simulation based training. This helps me fill out a section of the future architecture.
Thanks - good thoughts

February 14, 2008 at 4:37 PM  
Blogger Roger Smith said...

Interesting that server-side rendering provides many of the same advantages that server-based business apps and web services. They eliminate the issues associated with heterogeneous client-side devices - which is where your customer is and where your money is made. Customers will never standardize, so the service provider has to find ways to make overcome this diversity on the customer's end.

The accumulation of little pieces like this point to the inevitability of server-side rendering. We will invent this into existence.

February 16, 2008 at 2:24 PM  

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