SC15 Invited Talk-Dr. Laura Grigori Presents Fast and Robust Communication Avoiding Algorithms: Current Status and Future Prospects

Left: computation to communication ratio for the LU factorization with partial pivoting of a dense matrix on a model of exascale machine (ISC 2014). Right: preconditioned Krylov solver as used in the map making problem in astrophysics, results obtained on a Cray XE6 machine (Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2014). Please click to enlarge.

This talk will address one of the main challenges in high performance computing which is the increased cost of communication with respect to computation, where communication refers to data transferred either between processors or between different levels of memory hierarchy, including possibly NVMs.

I will overview novel communication avoiding numerical methods and algorithms that reduce the communication to a minimum for operations that are at the heart of many calculations, in particular numerical linear algebra algorithms.

Communication avoiding LU uses tournament pivoting to minimize communication (SC08).  Lightweight scheduling combines static and dynamic scheduling to provide a good trade-off beween load balance, data locality and dequeue overhead (IPDPS 2012). Please click to enlarge.

Those algorithms range from iterative methods as used in numerical simulations to low rank matrix approximations as used in data analytics. I will also discuss the algorithm/architecture matching of those algorithms and their integration in several applications.

Speaker Background:

Dr. Laura Grigori

Dr. Laura Grigori obtained her Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2001 from University Henri Poincare in France. She was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, before joining French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation (INRIA) in France in 2004.

Currently she now leads a joint research group between INRIA, University of Pierre and Marie Curie, and the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), called Alpines.

Her field of expertise is high performance scientific computing, numerical linear algebra, and combinatorial scientific computing. She co-authored the papers introducing communication avoiding algorithms that provably minimize communication.

She is leading several projects in preconditioning, communication avoiding algorithms, and associated numerical libraries for large scale parallel machines. She is currently the Program Director of the SIAM Special Interest Group on Supercomputing.

SC15 Invited Talk - Nils Thuerey Presents Virtual and Real Flows: Challenges for Digital Special Effects

To get the motion of a crown splash right, surface tension is crucial. The simulation shown here uses a mesh-based approach (please click on photo to enlarge).

Physics simulations for virtual smoke, explosions or water are by now crucial tools for special effects in feature films. Despite their wide spread use, there are central challenges getting these simulations to be controllable, fast enough for practical use and to make them believable.

A drop of liquid impacting a pillar. The thin sheets that form over time are important for believable visuals, but tough for surface tracking algorithms (please click on photo to enlarge).

In this talk I will explain simulation techniques for fluids in movies, and why “art directability” is crucial in these settings. A central challenge for virtual special effects is to make them faster. Ideally, previews should be interactive. At the same time, interactive effects are highly interesting for games or training simulators.

While this image shows a two-way coupled liquid simulation, one-way coupling is often sufficient (or preferred) for special effects applications (please click on photo to enlarge).

I will highlight current research in flow capture and data-driven simulation which aims at shifting the computational load from run-time into a pre-computation stage, and give an outlook on future developments in this area.

Speaker Background:

In 2012, Dr. Nils Thuerey won a Technical Oscar.

Dr. Nils Thuerey works in the field of computer graphics, with a particular emphasis on physically-based animation. One focus of his research targets the simulation of fluid phenomena, such as water and smoke. These simulations find applications as visual effects in computer generated movies and digital games.

Examples of his work are novel algorithms to make simulations easier to control, to handle detailed surface tension effects, and to increase the amount of turbulent detail. After studying computer science, Professor Thuerey acquired a Ph.D. for his work on liquid simulations in 2006. He received both degrees from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

The Technical Achievement Award

Until 2010 he held a position as a post-doctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, in collaboration with Ageia/Nvidia. Subsequently, he worked for three years as Research & Development Lead at ScanlineVFX, developing large scale physics-simulators for visual effects. Since fall 2013 he has been Professor for Games Engineering at Technischen Universität München (TUM).

In 2012, Dr. Thuerey won a Technical Oscar from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

SC15 Technical Program Committee Update from Recent Austin Meeting

The SC15 Technical Program Committee met in Austin on June 22nd-23rd. During the meeting, 358 paper submissions were discussed in nine different focus areas. Out of these papers, 57 papers were accepted for presentation at SC15 and 22 were accepted with shepherds. 

The Program Committee also nominated five papers for the Best Paper award and three for the Best Student Paper award. Additionally, one paper was nominated in both categories.

The Technical Papers chairs would like to thank all the authors and all the Technical Paper Committee members for making the SC15 technical program a success.

The list of accepted papers will be posted on Wednesday, August 12.  More details about the full program are available here.  Check back here for updates as they become available.