REMOTE VISUALIZATION OF A GRAPHICS APPLICATION

• US 20090089453A1
• Filed: 09/10/2008
• Published: 04/02/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Bohan, Ronan, Pasetto, Davide, Hamill, John
• Application Number:
  US12/208,098
• Publication Number:
  US 20090089453A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/246
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/14 Digital output to display device ; Cooperation and interconnection of the display device with other functional units
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1446 display composed of modules, e.g. video walls
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/1454 involving copying of the display data of a local workstation or window to a remote workstation or window so that an actual copy of the data is displayed simultaneously on two or more displays, e.g. teledisplay
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/44 Encoding
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/452 Remote windowing, e.g. X-Window System, desktop virtualisation protocols for virtual reality H04L67/131
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/005 General purpose rendering architectures
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2200/16 involving adaptation to the client's capabilities
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/14 Display of multiple viewports
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/363 Graphics controllers
• CPC Class Codes: G09G 5/397 Arrangements specially adapted for transferring the contents of two or more bit-mapped memories to the screen simultaneously, e.g. for mixing or overlay G09G5/02 takes precedence

Abstract

Many embodiments provide a technique to allow the automatic conversion between the operating system specific interfaces of OpenGL based graphics applications. Embodiments comprise logic such as hardware and/or code related to the display of a graphics application using OpenGL functions executing on a local computer system and displayed on the screen or screens of one or more remote computer systems. The described embodiments may work regardless of the types of OS running on the local computer system and the remote computer system(s). In some embodiments, the OS-specific interface calls to OpenGL, in addition to the platform independent OpenGL calls, are translated into an OS-independent wire protocol. As a result, many embodiments provide automatic conversion between the OpenGL OS-specific interfaces at the local and remote computer systems.

Claims

1. A method for remote visualization of a graphics application, comprising:

encoding operations of a first OpenGL interface for a first type of operating system as operating system independent operations;

transmitting the operating system independent operations via a network connection; and

decoding the operating system independent operations into operations of a second OpenGL interface for a second type of operating system, wherein the first and second types of operating system may be different.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the operating system independent operations are transmitted for rendering on a remote computer system.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the operations relate to windowing system specific rendering methods.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the operations are initialization and management methods for associating a drawable object with rendering contexts.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1, also comprising:

transmitting drawing commands of an operating system independent form via the network.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the operating system independent operations comprise operations for:

the creation of contexts, the management of a current context, font handling, and extension handling.

7. The method as claimed in claim 1, comprising:

executing an OpenGL based graphics application on a computer system with a first type of operating system; and

intercepting operations from the graphics application for encoding.

8. The method as claimed in claim 7, comprising:

rendering the decoded operations for display on one or more remote computer systems.

9. The method as claimed in claim 8, comprising:

maintaining a map between context IDs of the graphics application and resultant context IDs on the one or more remote computer systems.

10. A system for remote visualization of a graphics application, comprising:

an encoder for encoding operations of a first OpenGL interface for a first type of operating system as operating system independent operations;

a wire protocol for transmitting the operating system independent operations via a network connection; and

a decoder for decoding the operating system independent operations into operations of a second OpenGL interface for a second type of operating system, wherein the first and second types of operating system may be different.

11. The system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the operating system independent operations are transmitted for rendering on a remote computer system.

12. The system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the operations relate to windowing system specific rendering methods.

13. The system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the operations are initialization and management methods for associating a drawable object with rendering contexts.

14. The system as claimed in claim 10, wherein:

the wire protocol also transmits drawing commands of an operating system independent form via the network.

15. The system as claimed in claim 10, wherein the operating system independent operations comprise operations for:

the creation of contexts, the management of a current context, font handling, and extension handling.

16. The system as claimed in claim 10, comprising:

an OpenGL based graphics application executing on a computer system with a first type of operating system; and

means for intercepting operations from the graphics application for encoding.

17. The system as claimed in claim 16, comprising:

means for rendering the decoded operations for display on one or more remote computer systems.

18. The system as claimed in claim 17, comprising:

a map between context IDs of the graphics application and resultant context IDs on the one or more remote computer systems.

19. A system for remote visualization of a graphics application, comprising:

a local computer system with a first type of operating system;

an OpenGL based graphics application executing on the local computer system;

one or more remote computer systems for remote display of the graphics application, each with operating systems which may be of a different type from the first type of operating system; and

means for translating operating system specific OpenGL interface operations into and from operating system independent operations for transmitting between the local computer system and the one or more remote computer systems.

20. The system as claimed in claim 19, wherein the means for translating operating system specific OpenGL interface operations into and from operating system independent operations comprises:

an encoder for encoding operations of a first OpenGL interface for a first type of operating system as operating system independent operations; and

a decoder for decoding the operating system independent operations into operations of a second OpenGL interface for a second type of operating system, wherein the first and second types of operating system may be different.

21. A computer program product for remote visualization of a graphics application, the computer program product comprising:

a computer useable medium having a computer useable program code embodied therewith, the computer useable program code comprising;

computer useable program code configured to perform operations, the operations comprising;

encoding operations of a first OpenGL interface for a first type of operating system as operating system independent operations;

transmitting the operating system independent operations via a network connection; and

decoding the operating system independent operations into operations of a second OpenGL interface for a second type of operating system, wherein the first and second types of operating system may be different.