Andreu Badal1, Aldo Badano. 1. Division of Imaging and Applied Mathematics, OSEL, CDRH, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, Maryland 20993-0002, USA. andreu.badal-soler@fda.hhs.gov
Abstract
PURPOSE: It is a known fact that Monte Carlo simulations of radiation transport are computationally intensive and may require long computing times. The authors introduce a new paradigm for the acceleration of Monte Carlo simulations: The use of a graphics processing unit (GPU) as the main computing device instead of a central processing unit (CPU). METHODS: A GPU-based Monte Carlo code that simulates photon transport in a voxelized geometry with the accurate physics models from PENELOPE has been developed using the CUDATM programming model (NVIDIA Corporation, Santa Clara, CA). RESULTS: An outline of the new code and a sample x-ray imaging simulation with an anthropomorphic phantom are presented. A remarkable 27-fold speed up factor was obtained using a GPU compared to a single core CPU. CONCLUSIONS: The reported results show that GPUs are currently a good alternative to CPUs for the simulation of radiation transport. Since the performance of GPUs is currently increasing at a faster pace than that of CPUs, the advantages of GPU-based software are likely to be more pronounced in the future.
PURPOSE: It is a known fact that Monte Carlo simulations of radiation transport are computationally intensive and may require long computing times. The authors introduce a new paradigm for the acceleration of Monte Carlo simulations: The use of a graphics processing unit (GPU) as the main computing device instead of a central processing unit (CPU). METHODS: A GPU-based Monte Carlo code that simulates photon transport in a voxelized geometry with the accurate physics models from PENELOPE has been developed using the CUDATM programming model (NVIDIA Corporation, Santa Clara, CA). RESULTS: An outline of the new code and a sample x-ray imaging simulation with an anthropomorphic phantom are presented. A remarkable 27-fold speed up factor was obtained using a GPU compared to a single core CPU. CONCLUSIONS: The reported results show that GPUs are currently a good alternative to CPUs for the simulation of radiation transport. Since the performance of GPUs is currently increasing at a faster pace than that of CPUs, the advantages of GPU-based software are likely to be more pronounced in the future.
Authors: Nan Qin; Marco Pinto; Zhen Tian; Georgios Dedes; Arnold Pompos; Steve B Jiang; Katia Parodi; Xun Jia Journal: Phys Med Biol Date: 2017-01-31 Impact factor: 3.609
Authors: Ehsan Abadi; Brian Harrawood; Shobhit Sharma; Anuj Kapadia; William P Segars; Ehsan Samei Journal: IEEE Trans Med Imaging Date: 2018-12-12 Impact factor: 10.048