An Open Source Grid Based Render Farm for Blender 3D

Growing demand for scientific simulations that visualise results through 3D graphics requires high quality 3D models and animations. Better quality 3D models, e.g. more complex geometry and photo-realistic rendering, always need more time and computational power for rendering. The rendering process assumes time and power are inversely proportional to each other, the less computational power you have the more time you require to render and the more power you have the less time you need to render. Traditionally, a render farm requires a cluster of computers to perform satisfactory rendering in terms of computational power and time, but not every scientific organization can afford such clusters. This paper presents an open source Grid based render farm, which can be plugged into Blender 3D as a tool bar that exploits a Condor based Grid.