Hi,
on the WWT website, the feature list of the Windows client says that WWT supports "Multi-monitor cluster rendering". I assume that this means that I can render on a large tiled display. I further assume that the "Master Controller" menu entry in Settings > Advanced is somehow related with this as this starts some kind of TCP server. However, I did not manage to find out how the client setup would work. Do you have any hints for me or is there a manual for that feature? Furthermore, can I use this feature to do passive stereo rendering? It would be great if anyone could help me with some setup information for that.
Thanks in advance,Christoph
Was just wonding the same thing, there seems to be zero information about this from what I can find.
I fired up the new build of WWT today after skimming the notes and seeing multimonitor support. Sadly I couldn't find anything... after a few hours of getting totally distracted finding random galaxies!
So what is this feature and what does it do?
Apologies for the help section not being complete yet. We are working on it, but here is a quick overview.
WWT can have a master slave mode were multiple slaves can be controlled over a local network from a single master.
A file c:\config.xml with contents formated like below will control the rendering of each slave machine.
A simple example would be a video wall of 15 computer in a 5x3 matrix. The address of monitors in the array in this example are zero based: they start with 0,0 and end with 4,2.
Since the monitors don't all align edge to edge, we need to skip the pixels in between them so it looks like you are looking our a French window. The "slats" in this case are the bezels of the monitor and we have a 1.07 factor for them.
** Contents of c:\config.xml for a slave. In this case the middle of a 5x3 matrix **
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><DeviceConfig><Config><Device MonitorCountX="5" MonitorCountY="4" MonitorX="2 MonitorY="1" Master="False" Width="1680" Height="1050" Bezel="1.07" ConfigFile="" BlendFile="" DistortionGrid=""></Device></Config></DeviceConfig>
Once each machine is configured with WWT installed and the config.xml file added to the root drive (c:\) then WWT should be set to autostart, and the machines should be configured to auto-login so a password screen does not show on startup, they will then boot right into WWT.
Now from another machine on the local network run WWT and make it a master by selecting Settings...Advanced...Master Controller
Now whatever you do on the master will be reflected in the slaves. This means you can have a wall of monitors, or a projectors filling a huge area with dozens of mega pixels.
You can also set WWT up in a Dome for multi-Chanel rendering, but that is much more complex. If you need to do this e-mail me (jfay at Microsoft dot com).
For now while you can play a tour on the master, the slaves don't show text and graphic overlays.
Jonathan
Hi Jonathan,
thanks for your help. It works like a charm.
One additional question: Do you support passive stereo rendering, too?
Best regards,Christoph
On a single console, we can do side-by-side, anaglyph and cross-eyed stereo. We don't currently have sterero support on multi-monitor. If you need multi-monitor cluster stereo please let me know and maybe we can set something up. There is no reason why it won't work, other then the UI is absent on the multi-monitor to turn it on..