Abstract
Parallel program design and analysis is a complex activity, where many difficulties stem from the principle inadequacy of pure textual formalism to specify parallelism in an understandable fashion. In this paper we report on a visual system, which uses a three dimensional model to describe the data dependencies in the computational domain and to visualise transformations of this domain relevant to the main steps in parallel program design. We believe three dimensional interactive graphics provides an extra degree of freedom for conveying information. Using 3D graphics, we can visualise all the data dependencies evolving in time as a three dimensional graph, displaying it on a screen. Visual abstraction, animation of transformations and visualisation of their effects will shift information to the perceptual level to help assimilate mathematical notions.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
M. Assniis, R. Back, and T. Ldngbacka: Millipede — a programming environment providing visual support for parallel programming. Parallel Computing: From Theory to Sound Practice, W. Joosen and E. Milgrom eds. IOS Press, Amsterdam (1992) 37–46.
D. Bailey, J. Cuny, and C. Loomis: ParaGraph: graph editor support for parallel programming environments. Int. J. of Parallel Programming 19(2) (1990) 75–110.
L.Barfield, E. Boeve, and S. Pemberton: Objects, invariants, and treacle: animation in the View system. Proc. HCI'93 Int. Conf. on People and Computers VIII (1993) 157–171.
U. Banerjee, R. Eigenman, A. Nicolau, and A. Padua: Automatic program parallelization. Proceedings of the IEEE 81(2) (1993) 211–243.
T. Casavant, J. A. Kolh, and Y. Papelis: Practical use of visualization for parallel systems. Parallel Computing: From Theory to Sound Practice, W. Joosen and E. Milgrom eds. IOS Press, Amsterdam (1992) 1–15.
M. Chuah, S. Roth, J. Mattis, and J. Kolojejchick: SDM: selective dynamic manipulation of visualization. Eighth Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1995) 61–70.
A. Couch: Graphical representation of program performance on hypercube message-massing multiprocessors. PhD thesis, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, 1988.
M. Chen. A design methodology for synthesising parallel algorithms and architectures. J. of Parallel and Distributed Computing 3(6) (1986) 461–491.
G. Ivanello and al.: Parallel software development in DISC programming environment. Future Generation Computer Systems 5(4) (1990) 365–372.
R. W. Hockney and C. R. Jesshope: Parallel Computers 2: Architecture, Programming and Algorithms. IOP Publishing Ltd., Bristol U.K., 1988.
O. Krämer-Purhmann: A software environment for graphical specification, automatic configuration and animation of parallel programs. Supercomputing (1988) 25–37.
V. Lo, S. Rajopadhye, S. Gupta, D. Keldsen, M. Mohamed, B. Nitzberg. J. Telle, and X. Zhong: OREGAMI: tools for mapping parallel computations to parallel architectures. Int. J. of Parallel Programming 20(3) (1992) 237–270.
C. Mongenet: Data compiling for systems of uniform recurrence equations. Parallel Processing Letters 4(3) (1994) 245–257.
J. Oinonen: On software tools for parallel programming. Master's Thesis, Department of Computer Science, University of Joensuu, Finland, May 1995.
M.-C. Pong: I-Pigs: an interactive graphical environment for concurrent programming. The Computer Journal 34(4) (1991) 320–329.
S. Rajopadhye and R. Fujimoto: Synthesizing systolic arrays from recurrence equations. Parallel Computing 14(2) (1990) 163–189.
G. Robertson, J. Mackinlay, and S. Card: Cone trees: Animated 3D visualization of hierarchical information. Proc. of the ACM CHP'91 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (1991) 189–194.
P. Quinton: Automatic synthesis of systolic arrays from uniform recurrent equations. Proc 11th Ann Int Symp on Computer Architecture. IEEE Computer Society Press (1984) 208–214.
S. Sedukhin, and E. Trichina: An automated procedure for synthesis of systolic/wavefront arrays. CONPAR'88. Jesshope and al eds. Cambridge University Press (1989) 335–345.
L. Snyder: Parallel programming and Poker programming environment. Computer 17(7) (1986) 27–37.
S. Stepney: Grail — graphical representation of activity, interconnection and loading. Proc of the 7th occam Users Group and Workshop on Parallel Programming of Transputer Based Machines, T. Muntean ed (1987) 1–7.
E. Trichina: Development of occam programs by stepwise transformations of affine recurrent equations. Akademie Verlag Mathematical Research 12 (1994) 151–161.
E. Trichina: From functional equations to occam programs: Systolizing compilation. Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques, L. Bic and al eds. IFIP Press (1995) 310–315.
E. Trichina: Visual tutoring system for programming multiprocessor networks. Machine-Mediated Learning 5(2) (1996) 77–90.
G. Wirtz: Graph-based parallel programming in Graph+C, Proc of Workshop über Parallelverarbeitung, K. Ecker and R. Hirschberg eds, TU ClausthaJ, Institut für Informatik, Clausthal (1990) 103–116.
M. Wolfe and U. Banerjee: Data dependence and its application to parallel processing. Int. J. of Parallel Programming 16(2) (1987) 137–178.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Trichina, E., Oinonen, J. (1997). 3D visual tool supporting derivation of parallel programs for MIMD systems. In: Malyshkin, V. (eds) Parallel Computing Technologies. PaCT 1997. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1277. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-63371-5_28
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-63371-5_28
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-63371-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69525-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.