Parallel medical image reconstruction: from graphics processing units (GPU) to Grids

  • Authors:
  • Maraike Schellmann;Sergei Gorlatch;Dominik Meiländer;Thomas Kösters;Klaus Schäfers;Frank Wübbeling;Martin Burger

  • Affiliations:
  • Institut für Informatik, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany 48149;Institut für Informatik, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany 48149;Institut für Informatik, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany 48149;Institut für Informatik, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany 48149;Institut für Informatik, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany 48149;Institut für Informatik, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany 48149;Institut für Informatik, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany 48149

  • Venue:
  • The Journal of Supercomputing
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

We present and compare a variety of parallelization approaches for a real-world case study on modern parallel and distributed computer architectures. Our case study is a production-quality, time-intensive algorithm for medical image reconstruction used in computer tomography (PET). We parallelize this algorithm for the main kinds of contemporary parallel architectures: shared-memory multiprocessors, distributed-memory clusters, graphics processing units (GPU) using the CUDA framework, the Cell processor and, finally, how various architectures can be accessed in a distributed Grid environment. The main contribution of the paper, besides the parallelization approaches, is their systematic comparison regarding four important criteria: performance, programming comfort, accessibility, and cost-effectiveness. We report results of experiments on particular parallel machines of different architectures that confirm the findings of our systematic comparison.