Improving distributed visualisation rendering for grid environments through stream adaptation

This thesis addresses remote distributed rendering in grid environments. The research, and resulting software tools are merited according to the improvements afforded to application scientists. This includes the portability and transparent methods with which the rendering systems can be incorporated into existing visualisations. A discussion of existing research in the domains of remote visualisation and parallel rendering is presented. In doing so, the thesis examines relevant technology from other domains including Internet video streaming. This research is then extrapolated into the domain of interactive distributed rendering. From this, a new Stream Adaptive Rendering (StreamAR) framework is developed. The StreamAR framework is implemented as visualisation service grid, providing the unique capability to dynamically adapt the rendering process of bespoke applications across distributed resources to maintain the quality-of-service requirements of a visualisation user.