一篇关于Gate的并行计算的文章

Geometry and tracking (GEANT4) is a Monte Carlo package designed for high energy physics experiments. It is used as the basis layer for Monte Carlo simulations of nuclear medicine acquisition systems in GEANT4 Application for Tomographic Emission (GATE). GATE allows the user to realistically model experiments using accurate physics models and time synchronization for detector movement through a script language contained in a macro file. The downside of this high accuracy is long computation time. This paper describes a platform independent computing approach for running GATE simulations on a cluster of computers in order to reduce the overall simulation time. Our software automatically creates fully resolved, nonparametrized macros accompanied with an on-the-fly generated cluster specific submit file used to launch the simulations. The scalability of GATE simulations on a cluster is investigated for two imaging modalities, positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Due to a higher sensitivity, PET simulations are characterized by relatively high data output rates that create rather large output files. SPECT simulations, on the other hand, have lower data output rates but require a long collimator setup time. Both of these characteristics hamper scalability as a function of the number of CPUs. The scalability of PET simulations is improved here by the development of a fast output merger. The scalability of SPECT simulations is improved by greatly reducing the collimator setup time. Accordingly, these two new developments result in higher scalability for both PET and SPECT simulations and reduce the computation time to more practical values.

Cluster computing software for GATE simulations

Medical Physics -- June 2007 -- Volume 34, Issue 6, pp. 1926-1933

    Jan De Beenhouwer and Steven Staelens
    Ghent University, ELIS/MEDISIP, De Pintelaan 185, Block B, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium

    Dirk Kruecker
    Forschungszentrum Juelich, Institute of Medicine, 52425 Juelich, Germany

    Ludovic Ferrer
    INSERM U601, CHU Nantes, F-44093 Nantes, France

    Yves D'Asseler and Ignace Lemahieu
    Ghent University, ELIS/MEDISIP, De Pintelaan 185, Block B, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium

    Fernando R. Rannou
    Departamento de Ingeniera Informaticá, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Av. Ecuador, 3659 Santiago, Chile

(Received 11 May 2006; revised 26 March 2007; accepted 27 March 2007; published 9 May 2007)