In January 2004, Apple released Xgrid as a distributed computing solution for use with Macs running OS X. Xgrid uses a Mac interface and Rendezvous networking to provide an easy-to-use solution for cluster computing. Xgrid offers the ability to easily harness the unused resources in Mac OS X environments, including businesses, science and research institutions, educational computer labs, and even wasted computing power when office machines are going unused.
Since Xgrid’s release, many people have been hoping for some method to harness the distributed computing power offered by this technology within their “day-to-day” work. Some of the more frequent questions have been about applying Xgrid to 3D rendering, a natural application for distributed computing because of the processor-intensive nature of 3D software.
Blender is a powerful open-source (and free) 3D application available for many platforms, and used by many professionals and hobbyists around the world. You can read more about Blender in my ATPM review, but please note that since the review was written in January Blender has undergone further development. Blender 2.33a now includes raytracing, ambient occlusion (for global illumination), YafRay integration, and cellular procedural textures—just to name a few of the new features. Because Blender can be easily accessed from the command line, it is well suited for use with Xgrid as a solution for network rendering.
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