A computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working closely together so that in many respects they form a single computer. Often clusters are used for primarily computational purposes. For instance, a cluster might support computational simulations of weather or vehicle crashes. The movie industry and in particular animations has also a great need for cluster computing.
With our new Mobile Cluster (4x Intel Xeon Dual Core CPUs, Linux powered), we are able to demonstrate how image rendering can be distributed onto a cluster. In our demo a digital picture of the interested visitor will be made with an off-the shelf webcam. Then the cluster will render it onto a rotating coffee cup. The result is a movie which shows the rotating cup with the picture of the tester on it.
