Experiments in the Parallel Computation of 3D Convex Hulls

Abstract

Two parallel implementations of a 3D convex hull algorithm are reported. The paper considers a MIMD distributed memory architecture and the implementations are carried out on the Meiko Computing Surface using T800 transputers and the programming languages Occam and C. The first method uses a simple parallel geometric decomposition strategy and produces encouraging results. With the second approach a parallel generic Divide-and-Conquer kernel is incorporated. This is an example of the algorithmic skeleton approach to parallel programming and involves run-time, dynamic allocation of work to processors. The resulting performances for both methods are measured and compared.