3D --- Media Creation --- Shared Space
Published by 4th WAVE, Inc.
Issue #704 (2/27/97)
CONTENTS
DeBabelizer Bundled With Apple Web Authoring
DeBabelizer Toolbox for Macintosh, Equilibrium's popular graphics processing software, is now being bundled with Apple's Power Mac Web Authoring Solution throughout Europe. DeBabelizer Toolbox is one of 15 applications being bundled with the WAS, chosen by Apple as one of the "15 best applications on the Power Macintosh platform to author the ultimate Web studio."
New Imagine 128 Series 2 Accelerators
Number Nine Visual Technology Corp. has unveiled the Imagine 128 Series 2 for Power Macintosh:
| Memory: | 8 MB VRAM |
| Resolution: | Up to 1920x1200 |
| Video: | MPEG at up to 1600x1200 at 16.8 million colors |
| 3D: | QuickDraw3D; Double-buffering, Z-buffering, Gouraud shading at resolutions up to 1152x870 |
| Cost: | $799 |
| Availability: | March 1997 |
Number Nine also announced the H-VRAM Imagine 128 Series 2 for PCs:
| Memory: | 8 MB H-VRAM |
| Resolution: | Up to 1920x1200 |
| Video: | MPEG at up to 1600x1200 at 16.8 million colors |
| 3D: | OpenGL; Double-buffering, Z-buffering, Gouraud shading at resolutions up to 1152x870 with 56K colors |
| Cost: | $699 |
| Availability: | Now |
Toonz Version 4.1 for Windows NT
Softimage is now shipping Toonz version 4.1, their 2D cell animation package, for Windows NT (formerly available only on SGI). It sports an identical feature set to the SGI version, and supports full database transparency between the two platforms. Version 4.1 also introduces a number of new features, including real-time preview window while tuning the exposure sheet, new devices and file format support and a file- sensitive view feature that will show images, palettes and contents of text files. Digital Video Srl, the Italy based developer of Toonz, will become the first independent affiliate to develop a 2-D cel animation plug-in for Softimage's forthcoming Digital Studio software suite, giving full Toonz functionality within Digital Studio. Toonz version 4.1 for Windows NT is available now for $12,995 through the Softimage network of value-added resellers.
Kinetix Hyperwire Web Authoring
This week Kintex released Hyperwire, a visual authoring tool for 2D and 3D Web titles in a Java environment. In addition to Java authoring, Hyperwire also integrates content authored in 3D Studio MAX. It can be used to visually connect modules consisting of many different media types including 2D and 3D objects, data types, widgets and sequencers, as well as support for adding behaviors. Hyperwire is available for $249 for a single-user license via the Kinetix Web site or by calling:
1-888-HYPER4U
DreamWorks SKG Chooses Softimage
This week Softimage announced that DreamWorks SKG has chosen to use Softimage and Mental Ray software to create their upcoming full-length 3D animated feature film "Shrek," due for release in 1999. DreamWorks has also announced a plan to upgrade to Softimage 3.7 as well as "Sumatra" when it becomes available.
This week at the VRML Symposium, Diamond Multimedia announced that they would license Intervista's WorldView 2.0 VRML browsing software, which will be bundled with Diamond's forthcoming sound card. This move further places WorldView at the forefront of the VRML browsing market, following other recent agreements with Microsoft and S3.
3D Labs has "dramatically" enhanced the OpenGL performance of their GLINT processors through enhancements to their OpenGL Installable Client Driver (ICD), offering a reported 42% performance increase over previous releases. These ICD enhancements have already been delivered to some of 3Dlabs' OpenGL source licensees and are expected to be delivered in binary form to all 3Dlabs OEMs and system customers in the first half of 1997.
Shockwave Available Through Castanet
Macromedia's Shockwave can now be used to deliver content through Marimba's Castanet channels due to a new alliance between the two companies.
http://www.macromedia.com http://www.marimba.com
Protozoa, an award-winning animation studio, has created a 10-part animated series called "Driftwood" for the Web exclusively for the Mediadome site. The series features two VRML 2.0 characters in a virtual environment, and uses motion capture for realistic movement. "Driftwood" has been optimized for Intervista's WorldView browser, but is accessible with any VRML 2.0 browser.
Canopus Corp. has released the first accelerated Windows NT 4.0 display drivers for the Rendition Verite chipset. This beta release, which works on all Canopus-manufactured Verite-based graphics boards, can be download from Canopus' Web site at:
http://www.canopuscorp.com/software.htm
1997 Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics
Registration open now Conference dates: 27 - 30 April 97 in Providence, RI
http://www.research.microsoft.com/research/Symp3d.htm
1997 Symposium on Virtual Reality Software & Technology
Date: September 15 - 17, 1997 Location: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland Sponsored by: ACM SIGCHI and SIGGRAPH (tentative) Call for papers: All technical aspects of virtual reality and related technologies Papers Due: April 7, 1997 Call for tutorials: Proposals for tutorials on topics related to virtual reality and interactive 3D computer graphics Tutorial proposals due: April 15, 1997
http://ligwww.epfl.ch/~thalmann/vrst97.html
Virtual Reality WorldWide Conference
Date: April 2-5, 1997 Location: Westin Santa Clara Hotel, Santa Clara, CA Cost: $398 and up
More than 3,000 attendees are expected, along with 60 speakers and 50 exhibiting VR companies. Topics include high payback applications of VR, using VR in health and medicine, tools for developing VR, Internet applications of VR, VRML, Social VR applications. The speakers include keynoters Mark Pesce, Jon Peddie, financier Patricia Glovsky, VR veteran Mark Bolas, pioneer Myron Kreuger, well-known author and commentator Galen Brandt, and many others.
http:// www.cyberedge.com/VRWW.html
Free Softimage Training at NAB
Softimage has announced that they will provide several free hands-on training sessions at NAB '97 in Las Vegas by a Softimage Certified Instructor. The two topics available are "Introduction to Animation Using Softimage 3D," and "Softimage 3.7 Upgrade."
For more information email:
or fax (514) 845-5676
704.3 Ziff Davis 3D Benchmarks - A Hornet's Nest by John Latta and David Lohse
Following Microsoft's Meltdown the WAVE Report was alerted by its readers about the Ziff Davis 3D Benchmark that surfaced in the hardware vendor's suites at the conference. With that began an effort to understand the benchmark and its impact on the industry. This seemingly simple exercise was became an entrance into a hornet's nest.
The WAVE Report has been receiving comments from companies as a result of visits by Ziff Davis as it sought to create a benchmark. Our COMDEX report (see WAVE #614) covered the annual ZDBop rollout of the 1997 benchmarks where virtually nothing was said about the 3D Benchmarks. Yet, few open details have emerged until now on the tests and the response of the 3D industry.
Intel, in Santa Clara and with support from Folsom, has been developing a 3D benchmark called MonaLisa. On December 20th this benchmark was turned over to Ziff Davis and it forms the basis for what will become the Ziff Davis 3D Benchmark (no name has been given). The WAVE Report has obtained an early version of MonaLisa and performed preliminary testing with it.
If one factor is consistent with MonaLisa and the ongoing work on the 3D Benchmark is that these are works in progress. It should be taken as no more than that. Given the enormous importance of benchmarking and the role that Ziff Davis has in setting benchmarks we believe that even a review of this early effort is of value.
At the end of the review we offer comments from the industry and our Points to Ponder.
The MonaLisa interface is rough and the documentation scant. There are a myriad of rendering options as well as a large number of models and several scenes for testing purposes. However, when reviewing the various data bases they appear crude and poorly assembled. This particular version of the software tests only Direct3D in retained mode but we understand that Immediate mode testing will be implemented in the future.
Usability:
The program provides a number of the options and tests but it is unclear what many of them actually do and their utility is not evident. For example, several prominent but cryptic buttons and options on the main screen are labeled "Scene Analyzer," "Bench Runner," "Rescan" and "CPU Soaker" with no other indication of their role and impact on the benchmarks. One can only take from the prominent placement that they perform important functions. Similarly, a button labeled "Synthetic Scene Generator" apparently enables the creation of a custom 3D scene/model, but the editing options lack coherency and functionality. Although we have not yet run a complete series of tests, we understand from others who have tried, it can take up to a whole day - hardly an efficient use of time to measure real time 3D acceleration. Further, the frame rates are quite low in a number of the tests - 1 frame per second.
Benchmarking:
There appear to be two primary ways to run tests: either with a custom- designed batch text file based on input commands (also very sparsely documented), or interactively via the GUI interface. Results are given in frames/sec and kpps which we assume to be polygons/sec. Thus, this test appears to evaluate only a limited set of performance parameters.
Options:
Screen sizes and bit depths are supported from 320x200x8 up to 1024x768x32. The number and types of lights can be customized, as can the fill and shading modes (flat or Gouraud, with Phong currently grayed out - this is not supported yet by Direct3D). Other grayed-out options include fog table and antialiasing. There are also a large number of texturing options, allowing the user to specify both the scene and background texture (from a provided collection). Only two filtering options are currently enabled: nearest and linear, while four other options remain grayed out (nearest mipmap nearest up to liner mipmap linear).
Scenes:
A large number of models are included with the benchmark (more than 50), most of which are only moderately complex textured models - as reported by a user the chapel has 20,382 triangles and the city 44,558 triangles. During testing the camera path can be specified as either linear, circular or static around the model. In addition, a few of the models/scenes are actually more complex scenes that have pre-determined camera paths (flight paths) for fly-through testing. In some of the scenes the textures were poorly aligned including some with gaps which became evident with movement.
Reporting:
MonaLisa can provide very detailed information about a scene or model, including the number of vertices, triangles, materials, groups and objects. It also has a separate "Scene Analyzer" function that can analyze scenes and models for very specific information such as triangle distribution by size and pixel depth and writes distribution. However, it appears to only work with .sdl models and scenes.
Logging:
Although you can generate log files from the tests run, the files are very primitive. Insufficient information is included in the log files; many of the important parameters used in the tests are not reported.
The WAVE Report sent a draft of this article to a number of companies.
Ziff Davis was obviously guarded in its response to the WAVE Report. It is their policy not to comment on unreleased benchmarks. However, their work on the 3D Benchmark has become a consuming task and ones whose scope and importance is much greater than anticipated. This is also a reflection on the importance that the industry places on doing well in 3D and the critical role that benchmarks play. Ziff Davis would agree to be quoted in stating that their objective is to "create THE 3D benchmark" for the industry.
One area where Ziff Davis has been criticized is that their Winstone and Winbench tests are not forward looking but test systems based on last year's industry hardware availability and software sales. That is, the industry is not challenged by the tests to set new performance levels or capabilities. At WAVE we regard it critical that the benchmarks on 3D allow companies to excel in both quality and performance. If there is one significant shortcoming in the MonaLisa is that it does not set a performance and quality expectation. We recognize that the industry will continue to be driven by the single number rating schemes but that 3D poses an especially difficult problem of evaluating image quality which has both spatial and temporal variations. MonaLisa does not address this and, for example, does not even provide the means to support side by side comparisons between systems.
Microsoft responded to the benchmark as follows:
These tests are a first step, however, they are focused on fill rate and frame rate as the primary metric of performance. It would, for example, be better to have tests which automatically scale to the performance of the hardware so that measurements are taken based on load capacity, not frame rate. As chips become available with transform and lighting acceleration these capabilities also need to be measured. A beginning but more remains to be done.
A developer also responded that:
The benchmark does not give any information about the driver or hardware. It should query the hardware and report on what it finds. Then it should have a test case that tests each cap bit reported and verify the capability.
Another hardware company stated that although MonaLisa does a good job of measuring overall system performance for the high performance 3D graphics companies the tests tend to mask this performance behind sluggish CPU performance. As a result they recommended that there be two modes: system testing and just 3D acceleration testing using the Direct 3D execute buffer performance evaluation.
MonaLisa and the Ziff Davis 3D Benchmarking exposed a raw nerve in the emerging 3D industry. This is a high stakes game and benchmarking is a key battleground. We can only encourage the industry to continue to be vocal in its expectations and strive for increasing quality and performance levels which will benefit the consumer and end user.
We also came away with another observation: where is Microsoft in the definition of a 3D benchmark which tests Direct3D? It seems odd that the key benchmark testing a Microsoft API was done by Intel. Microsoft can play a major and important role in allowing developers to set new performance levels and understand how well their hardware performs.
We recognize that MonaLisa is only a first step. By the same token the industry needs much more. Given the role which Ziff Davis can and has played in the past we look forward to the realization of a 3D Benchmark which fulfills their objective of being THE benchmark. The 3D industry looks forward to the next and hopefully vastly improved release.
704.4 TriTech - Pyramid3D by David Lohse
Upping the ante in the 3D accelerator race, TriTech Microelectronics International has released the first members of their Pyramid3D family, the TR25201 and TR25202. The chips offer a single-chip solution for the 3D pipeline, providing an integrated geometry processor (TR25201 only), primitive processor and pixel processor. The design utilizes a single unified memory architecture, with support for up to 32 MB of SDRAM, SGRAM or EDO DRAM (memory bandwidth of up to 800 MB/sec). In addition to a reported performance of up to 1 M textured polygons/sec, Pyramid3D includes an integrated on-chip VGA core.
According to Winston Chen, TriTech's Director of Marketing for Multimedia Products, the Pyramid3D is focusing on life-like quality, which it achieves through its advanced lighting effects. In addition, the comprehensive perspective correction is applied to not only textures, but lighting, coloring and fog, which in addition to efficient bump mapping, radiosity rendering and environmental mapping allows the Pyramid3D to achieve a photorealism not seen before on the PC.
Specifications include:
| Memory: | 2-32 MB of SDRAM, SGRAM or EDO DRAM |
| Frame Buffer: | 24- or 16-bit with support for double and triple buffering and stereo imaging |
| Depth Buffer: | 24- or 16-bit |
| Resolution: | Up to 1600x1200 |
| Performance: |
|
| Texturing: |
|
| Rendering: | Perspectively correct Gouraud shading, transparency and texture mapping; real-time bump mapping, specular highlights, single-pass radiosity rendering, fog and depth cueing |
| API Support: | Direct3D & DirectDraw, OpenGL, Heidi |
Pyramid3D is also programmable: the geometry engine is programmable, allowing new 3D primitives commands and other features to be added, as well as enabling lighting, shading and atmospheric models to be uploaded. And the programmability of the pixel processor allows many different shading models to be realized.
The chip solution is targeted at both entertainment and business applications (CAD and modeling). The TR2502 is available now for $50 in quantities of 10,000; the TR25201 will be available for sampling in Q2 with unit costs of $70 for quantities of 10,000. According to Mr. Chen, TriTech is currently working with many different hardware (board) manufacturers as well as OEMs, with consumer boards expected to hit the market in either late Q2 or early Q3. Reference boards are already in production, with 3 different configurations due in several weeks.
704.5 Company Profile - NeTpower by John Latta
The WAVE Report visited NeTpower to find out how this company positions itself in the 3D systems business. The company was founded in 1993 with the objective of bringing workstation capabilities, using the MIPS processor, in a lower cost platform using Window NT. In December 1995 the company changed strategy and shifted to the Intel processors as the competitive advantage of RISC processors began to fade.
The company has 150 employees, 500 customers and has been shipping Intel NT systems since March 1996. The company did $25m in business in 1996 and expects to do $78m in 1997.
NeTPower has as its target markets MCAD, Digital Media, video/graphics, Internet and the Back Office. Over 1/2 of its accounts are in MCAD. Graphics are at the core of the business. The company stresses two parts of its approach to the high end of the Intel based market - a close relationship with its software partners and special relationship with its 3D supplier - 3DLabs. NeTpower feels that being the only "Definition Partner" with 3DLabs puts it in a unique position to leverage its experience with uses and ISVs to support 3DLabs in the definition of its next generation chips while putting NeTPower in a strong position to integrate 3DLabs technology into its systems.
NeTPower has three card solutions which can be included in its systems:
Truefx $400
Truefx Pro $2,000
Ultrafx $4,000
Consult NeTpower for systems prices.
704.6 Conference Report - Technology '97 by John Latta
Technology '97 is the annual investor conference which has become a premier showcase for high technology companies to tell their story. It is focused exclusively for the investor community and as a result vastly different from the normal trade show. Each company has only 30 minutes to present its story and there is considerable emphasis on markets and financial performance. However, companies frequently highlight roadmaps and disclose future plans. As such it is a very important forum to look for industry trends.
S3 is a marketing gorilla. Its marketing machine is unmatched in the 3D industry and they continue to get better. Only a slight problem - the foundation 3D technology is weak - the chips have yet to represent high performance technology. At Technology '97 this was only made more evident.
3D units shipped in 1996 - 5m. It was claimed that they had 53% share and ATI had 23% share and the rest with 24%.
S3 stated that the graphics controller is becoming the 2nd most complex part of the PC behind the microprocessor. In 1998 they expect that the graphics controller will take from 1.1 to 1.5m gates. However, the software complexity is not trivial - it was claimed that S3 has 350 man years in its software products.
They laid out their current 3D strategy in two phases based on image quality. The first was labeled as Animation and this will emerge in 1998. The second phase is what they called Video 3D which creates photorealistic 3D which can be integrated with video - time frame 1999. The current ViRGE chip is a 10X performance over software rendering and this will be supplemented by the next generation chip (Animation) which will be called the ViRGE/T and will have 1000X performance (10X over the current generation). This chip or family of chips will use Microsoft's Talisman technology including anisotropic filtering.
S3 is also focused on taking share from Chips and Technology in the mobile market, also using 3D technology. A chip for this market is sampling now and is expected to ship in quantity in Q2. In addition to the mobile market S3 has also targeted the audio market. The combination of these two is expected to generate 10% of the company's revenue in 1997 - $60m.
S3 also stated that the 3D product family would go from 3 chips now to 5 by the end of the year.
In its S3D developer program S3 spent from $8 - $9m for conferences and supporting game developers. They are now taking the same approach to the Internet and 3D. In fact, they are going beyond this by setting up a $20m investment fund for supporting software companies which expand the potential for 3D acceleration. Intervista is the first recipient of investment funds.
Process technology is very important to 3D and S3 stated that at the end of 1996 they were on 8" wafers and 0.5 micron technology. Right now their parts are being done with 0.45 micron line widths. In design now are parts for 0.35 micron and these will be tested and sampled Q2. By the end of 1997 S3 will be designing 0.25 micron parts which will be shipped in 1998. They claimed that one of their fab partners, TSMC, is only one quarter behind Intel in fab technology.
Their view of the market evolution is that 3D will continue to be focused on the consumer while the business user will remain focused on 2D. Yet, they feel that 3D will move to the corporate channel by the end of 1997. This will be driven in part by the Internet.
To a packed audience Gordon Campbell, Chairman, gave a presentation totally in 3D. Very impressive. He began with a model of their building and walked from the parking lot to the lobby and then to various rooms. One room was labeled arcades and he showed many arcade machines and could walk up to them. When he went to a PC display in another room a game would show up and he would show how it was played. At the end he showed some of the new titles. Some of the new software is impressive. Very effective use of 3D and a way to communicate. The quality was excellent. During the demo Gordon explained the various features in 3D which included bilinear filtering and MIP Mapping.
3Dfx announced its roadmap for two future products. The first is due in the 2nd half of 1997 and will be a cost reduction of the Voodoo architecture. It will be an integrated single chip accelerator and intended to be directly competitive with the S3 Virge family. This chip marks the end of the pass-through cable. It also appears that this will be the first AGP chip from 3Dfx.
The next generation high performance chip set builds on the Voodoo only to the extent that it is modular where components can be used to build scaleable performance. It was claimed that the performance would be 2X to 3X the Voodoo family. Parts due in 1998.
Only limited details were provided on the next generation part. It will be optimized for AGP and targeted for the Entertainment PC and be optimized to exceed Intel's GC97 requirements. It is expected to ship by mid '97 and that it would have performance "substantially in excess" of the first generation product. Pricing will be in the low $30's. In summary, they claimed part will allow them to maintain their performance leadership position.
The company is currently in their 3rd round of funding and this should be completed in 30 - 45 days.
SGI shipped 19m MIPS processors in 1997. They claim to be the largest RISC processor company.
In the latest quarter the company had $825m in sales.
The lines of business are:
Manufacturing (CAD/CAM/etc.) 30% Entertainment 15% Visual Simulation 15% World Wide Web 10% (growing at 40% to 50%) Earth Science 10% Chemical and Medical 8% Database 6% Other 6%
By products the breakout is:
Desktop 40% High Performance Computing 35% Application Software 5% Enterprise and Web 20%
SGI reported that the O2 sold 16,000 units the first 90 days.
In terms of growth they see the following:
Web 27% CAD 10% Software Engineering and EDA 11%
Number 9 announced that they are a chip company and one which sells cards also. It was stated emphatically that the long term goal of the company is to sell chips. They claimed that they would have the best single chip 2D and 3D solution.
In one area where Number 9 has a clear advantage is in bandwidth to memory. It was stated that the 3rd generation Imagine chips have 1.6GB of memory bandwidth. Today, and for the near future, they require dual port memory technology - VRAM and WRAM. In the cost sensitive markets they see SGRAM being the leading memory technology.
Their first generation 3D part would perform at 2.5X the 500TX in Fill Rate and 3.5X in Polygon Rate. At the OEM level the card would cost from $250 to $600 based on memory.
Number 9 claimed to be #2 behind Matrox in the high end business 2D space and wants to be the same in 3D. Thus, for the $1,000 and less pricing for their card, which they see this product as being directly competitive against the 3DLabs cards at $2,000 to $5,000, this is a market killer, in Number 9's view.
The current generation of the Imagine 128 uses 0.5 micron technology and the next generation will go to 0.35 micron - the fab partners are NEC and LSI.
In spite of a disappointing year at Autodesk, the company sees bright prospects for 1997. Without holding back, the company stated that Autocad R13 was released too soon. By Q2 1997 they will release R14, which runs exclusively on Windows 95 and Windows NT. In order to address the quality issue the company will be releasing shortly 10,000 beta copies for extensive testing. The company stated that there are 1.6 - 1.7 million versions of Autocad and of those 450,000 are on Autocad NT. Including unauthorized versions the company claimed there are 10m copies of Autocad worldwide.
Increasingly the company is moving to a suite of products. For example, its Mechanical Desktop product for MCAD has sold 20,000+ copies and they are seeking sales of 100,000+ seats. Another product in the GIS area is Autocad MAP and this has sold 150,000 seats.
It was stated that 3D Studio MAX has sold 25,000 copies. When asked the company acknowledged that there is space in the market for products like 3D Studio MAX that have price points less than this product.
It is clear that the future of the company lies beyond Autocad, in terms of establishing, new sales. They acknowledged that the growth in Autocad seats is in the single digits (percentage). Thus, all the more reason to more closely integrate the products and seek greater income per seat sold.
Technology '97 highlighted the beginning of a classic marketplace battle by companies seeking to dominate 3D. Today we see two entrants, 3Dfx and S3, and the Q4 1997 results will be closely watched. 3Dfx clearly has the best technology on the market today - at least for the price point. Yet, they are not on a par with S3's marketing. S3 has built a marketing juggernaut which is unmatched in the industry. Who will win - technology or marketing? Tough call. At the WAVE Report we are biased to the technology but history has shown over and over that marketing wins. 1997 will be an interesting year in 3D.
Copyright 1997 4th WAVE Inc.
May be redistributed in full for individual readership and posted to newsgroups, Web, and FTP sites. May not be reprinted or redistributed for profit. Short quotes are permitted but must be attributed to the WAVE Report on Digital Media.