[GRASS-dev] Multi-threading and use of multiple processors

[Colin Nielsen]

A colleague of mine would like to run a cost analysis (with either
r.walk or r.cost) on a very very large raster, ~ 1500 km x 800 km with
about 30 m resolution equals about 40 billion cells. This is obviously
going to take a ridiculously long time, and he would like to make use
of his dual quad-core processors to speed up this process (he has
decided that a week of running time is acceptable).

Is there any plan to add multi-threading to these or other modules (I
think I remember something about r.mapcalc and another a while back)?
What would it take to do this? Is there anything else anyone can
recommend to help speed up this analysis (I think I remember something
about keeping the whole thing in memory as well...)?

Thanks,
-Colin