Documentation
Parallel computing; Multi processing; Distributed rendering:
The 'Merge Project' item from the 'File Menu' combines an external
project with the currently loaded project (In this sense, a WinOSi project is an image file, saved after
rendering, that contains HDRI data of the raw image in floating point format, and its image settings). All
the computed photon samples are weighted and added together to a new project with summed image quality.
So, instead of rendering a project in 16 hours on one machine, you can render the same scene 8 hours
on two machines, then merge the resulting project files together and get the same image quality in
half the time. Of course, both projects must have the same resolution and they should use
(though they don't need) the same scene- and render- settings. Different settings are averaged during
merging.
Because each project knows its own 'value' you can integrate very different machines with different
power and rendertime into the calculation. For example you can merge two 8h/1.7GHz projects, one
24h/233MHz, and one 12h/800MHz project together and you can be sure, that each one distributes just
the right percentage to the final project.
On a multiprocessor computer you may just start WinOSi twice (or as many times as you have processors)
and render the same scene parallel for later project merging. Remember that, when selecting the
HitBuffer-Size, you have to share your memory between the tasks.
Future versions of WinOSi will surely support multithreading, so that your multiprocessor machine will
be detected automatically and its full power will be used within a single WinOSi session.
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