Parallaxis-III - A Structured Data-Parallel Programming Language

Description

Parallaxis is a structured programming language for data-parallel programming (SIMD systems), developed by Thomas Bräunl in 1989. The language is based on sequential Modula-2, but extended by machine-independent parallel constructs. In Parallaxis an abstraction is achieved by declaring a processor configuration in functional form, specifying number, arrangement, and connections between processors. With these "virtual processors and connections", an application program can be constructed independent of the actual computer hardware. We believe this results in more readable and understandable parallel programs.

Parallaxis FTP-Server for copying the Parallaxis system
Parallaxis language description (compressed PostScript, 165KB)
A small sample Parallaxis program
Another Parallaxis program
MPEG-animation created from the above program (500KB)
Information about the latest version of Parallaxis
English book: Bräunl: Parallel Programming, Prentice-Hall, 1993
English book: Bräunl: Parallel Image Processing, Springer-Verlag, 2001
German book: Bräunl: Parallele Programmierung, Vieweg-Verlag, 1993
German book: Bräunl: Parallele Bildverarbeitung, Addison-Wesley, 1995
German book: Bräunl: Massiv parallele Programmierung mit dem Parallaxis-Modell, Springer-Verlag, Informatik-Fachberichte, 1990
Russian book: Bräunl: Parallel Programming, Vyschshaya Shkola Publishers, Kiev, 1997

Compiler

The Parallaxis system comprises compilers for sequential and parallel computer systems. Use man p3 to find out more about it:

NAME
     p3 - Parallaxis-III User Interface

SYNOPSIS
     p3 { options } [ file ] ...

Debugger

The Parallaxis debugger (p3gdb and xp3gdb) is an extension to the gnu gdb and xgbd debugger. It behaves as a Parallaxis source level debugger with all usual features of the gnu debugger, e.g. breakpoints, single steps, printing data, plus two parallel extensions.

Parallel Applications

The Parallaxis system comprises a number of sample software packages available via ftp. The current areas are:

basic: introductory examples
diff-eq: solution of differential equations
genetic-algs: parallel genetic algorithms
graphics: basic graphics functions, window op., area filling, etc. in C
neural-nets: parallel neural networks
numerical: sorting and systems of linear equations
open: demonstration of the open vector concept
scripts: auxiliary unix scipts for compilation, library generation
simulation: head propagation, voting behavior, traffic jams
stereo: stereo vision algorithms
storage: dynamic data structures
strings: integer - string conversion
vision: major library of parallel image processing routines
x-window: sample programs using graphics library for X windows

The sequential version runs on almost all Unix systems: Sun SPARCstation (SUN-OS, Solaris), DECstation, HP 9000, IBM RS6000, SGI Iris, IBM-PC with linux. There are parallel versions for MasPar MP-1, MP-2, Workstations clusters (using PVM) and Intel Paragon (SPMD mode).

Parallaxis-III has been implemented using the GMD Compiler Generation Toolkit by Eduard Kappel, Hartmut Keller, Harald Lampke, Jörg Stippa, and Jürgen Wakunda, under direction of Thomas Bräunl.

Thomas Bräunl