The transputer - an effective tool for geometric modelling systems

Abstract

Experience has shown that computing machines with conventional bus–structured architectures suffer a degradation in performance due to bus contention after typically three to five processors are placed on the system. The transputer and the programming language Occam2 have introduced low–cost parallel processing. The design of the transputer is such that for certain applications the addition of more transputers gives a corresponding linear increase in computing power. It has been shown that computer graphics is such an application. The transputer allows very powerful networks to be built up relatively cheaply and extended as finances allow with very few changes to the program code being necessary. This paper investigates the implications of using the transputer for a geometric modelling system. It outlines the facilities offered by the transputer, its B007 graphics board and the programming language Occam2, before presenting the experience of the authors in using these to implement geometric modelling systems based on wire–line and spatial enumeration modelling.