ALIs
kommt nochWhat is Remote Visualisation?
What is Remote visualisation?
In the following two paragraphs, and especially the following two images, we'd like to explain the concept of remote visualisation in simple terms (a more technical explanation can be found here).
Remote Computation
After logging-on to a server, your local computer is reduced to a terminal that simply displays the output of the remote machine. Especially, you get access to the servers processor power, memory and disk storage. Due to the nature of this connection, however, you cannot utilise any graphics cards that might be present in the remote computer. This means that the raw data has to be transmitted to your local computer and any visualisation has to be done locally. Imagine, for example, you want to follow a complex time-dependent simulation, then for each iteration step computed by the remote server, the complete data-set has to be transferred to your workstation, there to be rendered by your graphics card. Obviously, you need a powerful broadband connection and an expensive graphics card present in your workstation.
Remote Visualisation
Most of the time, it is not necessary to transfer complete data-sets to your local workstation, since you will only be interested in the visualisation results, i.e. rendered images of your simulation. This is where remote visualisation comes into play. Simply speaking, you open a second connection between your terminal and the remote computer. Your "regular" connection is now mainly needed to relay your commands to the server (typically very low bandwidth). The data-sets of your simulation, however, remain on the remote server where your visualisation appplication runs. Rendering of the data takes place on the servers graphics card and only the rendered images are sent to your client, via the second connection (also fairly low bandwidth). Think of it as a personalized stream of screen shots, or an interactive movie based on your simulation data.
In conclusion, in remote computation, you can only use the remote computing power, whereas in remote visualisation, you make use of both the remote computing power and the remote graphics power.