projects / ceph.git / blame
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1 | [/=========================================================================== |
| 2 | Copyright (c) 2013-2015 Kyle Lutz <kyle.r.lutz@gmail.com> | |
| 3 | ||
| 4 | Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0 | |
| 5 | See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at | |
| 6 | http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt | |
| 7 | =============================================================================/] | |
| 8 | ||
| 9 | [section:design Design] | |
| 10 | ||
| 11 | [section Library Architecture] | |
| 12 | ||
| 13 | The Boost Compute library consists of several different components. The core | |
| 14 | layer provides a "thin" C++ wrapper over the OpenCL API. This includes classes | |
| 15 | to manage OpenCL objects such as | |
| 16 | [classref boost::compute::device device]'s, | |
| 17 | [classref boost::compute::device kernel]'s and | |
| 18 | [classref boost::compute::device command_queue]'s. | |
| 19 | ||
| 20 | On top of the core layer is a partial implementation of the C++ standard | |
| 21 | library providing common containers (e.g. | |
| 22 | [classref boost::compute::vector vector<T>], | |
| 23 | [classref boost::compute::array array<T, N>]) along with common algorithms | |
| 24 | (e.g. [funcref boost::compute::transform transform()] and | |
| 25 | [funcref boost::compute::sort sort()]). | |
| 26 | ||
| 27 | The library also provides a number of "fancy" iterators (e.g. | |
| 28 | [classref boost::compute::transform_iterator transform_iterator] and | |
| 29 | [classref boost::compute::permutation_iterator permutation_iterator]) which | |
| 30 | enhance the functionality of the standard algorithms. | |
| 31 | ||
| 32 | Boost.Compute also supplies a number of facilities for interoperation with | |
| 33 | other C and C++ libraries. See the section on [link boost_compute.interop | |
| 34 | interoperability] for more information. | |
| 35 | ||
| 36 | See the [link boost_compute.reference.api_overview API Overview] section for | |
| 37 | a full list of functions, classes, and macros provided by Boost.Compute. | |
| 38 | ||
| 39 | [endsect] [/ library architecture] | |
| 40 | ||
| 41 | [section Why OpenCL] | |
| 42 | ||
| 43 | Boost.Compute uses [@http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL OpenCL] as its | |
| 44 | interface for executing code on parallel devices such as GPUs and multi-core | |
| 45 | CPUs. | |
| 46 | ||
| 47 | OpenCL was chosen for a number of reasons: | |
| 48 | ||
| 49 | * Vendor-neutral, standard C/C++, and doesn't require a special compiler, | |
| 50 | non-standard pragmas, or compiler extensions. | |
| 51 | * It is not just another parallel-library abstraction layer, it provides direct | |
| 52 | access to the underlying hardware. | |
| 53 | * Its runtime compilation model allows for kernels to be optimized and tuned | |
| 54 | dynamically for the device present when the application is run rather that the | |
| 55 | device that was present when the code was compiled (which is often a separate | |
| 56 | machine). | |
| 57 | * Using OpenCL allows Boost.Compute to directly interoperate with other OpenCL | |
| 58 | libraries (such as VexCL and OpenCV), as well as existing code written with | |
| 59 | OpenCL. | |
| 60 | * The "thin" C++ wrapper provided by Boost.Compute allows the user to break-out | |
| 61 | and write their own custom kernels when the provided APIs are not suitable. | |
| 62 | ||
| 63 | [endsect] [/ why opencl] | |
| 64 | ||
| 65 | [endsect] |