Chromium (software)
Encyclopedia
Chromium is an OpenGL
implementation. Unlike other OpenGL
implementations, Chromium does not render the OpenGL command stream to
a raster image in order to display on-screen. Instead, it manipulates, and moves the OpenGL command stream to other
OpenGL implementations (including even other Chromium implementations).
Chromium provides an infrastructure in which modules, known as SPUs or
Stream Processing Units, can be inserted. For each OpenGL command, a
SPU can modify, discard, or forward it to the next SPU. Chromium
supports a client/server architecture. The last SPU in a node can
choose to either pass it to another local OpenGL implementation, such
as an ATI or nVidia graphics card, or send it over a network to one or
more Chromium Servers.
Uses include:
OpenGL
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
implementation. Unlike other OpenGL
implementations, Chromium does not render the OpenGL command stream to
a raster image in order to display on-screen. Instead, it manipulates, and moves the OpenGL command stream to other
OpenGL implementations (including even other Chromium implementations).
Chromium provides an infrastructure in which modules, known as SPUs or
Stream Processing Units, can be inserted. For each OpenGL command, a
SPU can modify, discard, or forward it to the next SPU. Chromium
supports a client/server architecture. The last SPU in a node can
choose to either pass it to another local OpenGL implementation, such
as an ATI or nVidia graphics card, or send it over a network to one or
more Chromium Servers.
Uses include:
- Providing OpenGL for multimachine, multimonitor displays. Chromium can be used to provide OpenGL for XdmxXdmxXdmx or DMX is the Distributed Multihead X Project. It acts as a proxy X server for multiple back-end X servers...
displays. - Moving an OpenGL stream from one machine to another. For example, an OpenGL application running in a Windows Virtual MachineVirtual machineA virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...
, without 3d acceleration, can make use of full hardware 3d acceleration on a Linux host machine via the use of Chromium. - Manipulating an OpenGL stream. Chromium can be used to make polygons an application renders transparent.
- Via stream manipulation, Chromium can make non-stereoscopic applications stereoscopic.
- High performance, sort-last configurations. Chromium can be used to split an OpenGL command stream, so that different machines can do different parts of the rendering work. This is like nVidia's SLIScalable Link InterfaceScalable Link Interface is a brand name for a multi-GPU solution developed by NVIDIA for linking two or more video cards together to produce a single output...
but it supports multiple machines.