SGI has released Six Degrees of Freedom, a 22 minute documentary video tape on how individuals use VR and real time 3D to solve problems. It is a must see for those looking at professional applications of 3D technology. To obtain a copy send a self addressed envelope for return shipment of the video tape with a business card to:

Brett J. Douville, game developer at University of Pennsylvania, has composed a "non-adversarial" open letter to Microsoft seeking their support for OpenGL on Win95 and future versions of the OS. Brian created the letter specifically to allow people to sign the letter by e-mail or through a web page. The following is a small excerpt from the letter, which has received 254 signatures to date:

"We, the undersigned game developers, call on Microsoft to continue its active OpenGL development, to ship its DirectDraw bindings for OpenGL and the Windows95 MCD driver-enabled OpenGL, and to continue to improve its implementation of the OpenGL API and its driver models by aggressively supporting common extensions and future ARB-approved standard features. As professionals and amateurs, developers and hobbyists, we believe that the lack of a choice of 3D APIs would be detrimental to the developers community as a whole."

Painter&REG; 5, a leading creative tool from MetaCreations that provides more than one hundred new brushes and creative effects through an extensible plug-in architecture is now available for the Windows platform. The package is available for the suggested retail price of $449 or as an upgrade for $99.

Macromedia and PointCast To Extend Creative Flexibility for Advertisers [July 14]

In order to attract more advertisers to their Internet broadcast news, PointCast has incorporated support of Macromedia’s Shockwave Flash into the PointCast 2.0 client. This new technology will allow advertisers to add compact, vector-based animations to their PointCast commercials. Advertisers can use this technology on PointCast starting in 4Q 1997.

Imax Corporation announced it has signed contract with Edwards Theatres Circuit Inc. to build 10 IMAX 3D theatres in The Edwards Cinemas multiplexes by 2002. Edwards operates 2 IMAX 3D theatres in Irvine and Ontario, CA. With this contract, Edwards Cinemas will be the largest single operator of IMAX theatres. Many of the theatres will use the IMAX 3D SR system. Los Angeles and Fresno, CA and Houston are three of the first IMAX theatre sites in the new agreement.

Express Capital Concepts, Inc., Announces Business Combination with GreyStone Technology, Inc. [July 16]

Express Capital Concepts, Inc. has signed a non-binding letter of intent to enter into a business combination with GreyStone Technology, Inc. The agreement must be approved by company shareholders before the transaction is completed. GreyStone sees this combination as an opportunity to be a leading provider of real-time 3D, interactive and networked software for the LBE, arcade, and in-home entertainment markets.

Intense 3D Voodoo Graphics Accelerator Card to be Available through Retail Stores [July 17]

Intergraph Computer Systems announced that its Intense 3D Voodoo accelerator card will be available in September through Electronic Arts’ retail distribution. The card has a retail price of $229.95 and can be placed on advance order by contacting Electronic Arts at 1-800-245-4525.

Pentafour Software Purchases 63 Licenses of Cambridge Animation’s Animo Software [July 3]

Pentafour Software purchased 63 Animo software licenses for its digital multimedia studios in California and India. Pentafour will use the Animo systems to digitally ink and paint cells for a 1999 US animated feature film release. The Animo software will allow Pentafour to run the software on PCs or migrate to Animo Ax-Cel for SGI’s O2 systems.

LogOn Technologies introduced a new Interactive Multimedia Marketing Application Suite called e-Logic. Users can embed images/bitmaps, active web sites, slides, video clips, sound spreadsheets and text documents into mass communications, surveys or questionnaires with the multi-functional platform. e-Logic runs on Windows 95/NT and viewers supplied support Netscape, Microsoft Explorer, AOL and Eudora. e-Logic will also compile and analyze all responses in "real time," and compile a report of summaries and analysis with graphs and charts.

miro Computer Products has selected MGI Software’s MGI VideoWave to be packaged with its miroVIDEO DRX. miroVIDEO DRX is a Windows 95 entry-level PCI-based digital video editing solution. MGI VideoWave eases video production by eliminating the timeline approach that is used by other products. The suggested retail price of miroVIDEO DRX with MGI VideoWave is $299.

miro Computer Products has announced the shipping of four new products. miroVIDEO DRX is an entry-level PCI-based digital video editing solution for Windows 95. It offers real-time video-overlay with an estimated street price of $299. miroVIDEO DV 100 is a FireWire DV editing solution for Windows 95 which includes miroVIDEO StoryTools and Adobe Premier 4.2 LE. The estimated street price is $599 with an upgrade of registered users of miroVIDEO DC30 plus for $499. miroMOTION DC30 is a Power Macintosh PCI-based digital video editing solution which offers video editing acceleration, video overlay and CCIR 601 active area support. The estimated street price is $799. MiroVIDEO DC30 plus is a new version for PCI-based Windows 95. It offers AVI acceleration and assemble, studio-quality video and data rates up to 7 MB/second. The estimated street price is $999.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has announced the release of V-Collide, a collision detection package for large environments. Key features of the package include application to all polygonal models, support of dynamic addition and deletion of objects from an environment and fast overlap tests and incremental computation. The C++ code is available in both ZIP(1614K) and zipped tar format(1561K0. V-Collide is free for non-commercial use). Further information about V-Collide can be found at their web site.

Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. has announced its new Supra PC Card for hand-held computing devices and notebook computers. The Supra PC Card was displayed at PC Expo and uses Rockwell and Lucent’s K56flex technology. The Supra PC Card features sleep mode and is designed to be upgradeable to prospective ITU standards for 56 Kbps technology. The Supra PC Card will be shipped with the BackWeb CD-ROM, which offers the latest modem-firmware product news and updates. A selection of Internet access software, such as Internet Explorer and NetCom’s NetComplete with Netscape Navigator will be included. The card is designed for Windows 95 and has an estimated retail price of $199.95.

3D Web has announced its VRML 2 library, which allows 3rd party software developers to add VRML import and export capabilities to existing or new applications. The library consists of four components that can be licensed together or purchased separately. The parts include:

VRML2-Parser: Parses VRML2 nodes and optionally calls back into the application every time a node is recognized.

VRML2-SceneGraph: Populates the call-backs with source-code to build a scene that corresponds to the VRML file just parsed using the API of the host applications.

VRML2-Out: An API builds an in-memory scene of the file just parsed. Exports VRML and non-VRML scenes as VRML format.

Conference organizers have announced the Call for Papers for the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Conference. The deadline to submit an abstract is July 28th. The conference will be held in San Diego, California from January 28-31, 1998.

The Siggraph/Eurographics Hardware Workshop will at the Omni Hotel in Los Angeles, August 3-4, 1997. The workshop will consist of two days of paper presentations coupled with discussions during coffee breaks, lunch and a Sunday evening banquet. Registration attendance is limited to 120 with a preference given to those with accepted papers. The registration form, along with a preliminary schedule of the Workshop is available at http://www.cs.unc.edu/Info/Events/Conferences/hwws97.html.

The Sixth International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics and Visualization 98 [July 14]

The Sixth International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics and Visualization 98 will be held February 9-13, 1998 in Plzen at the University of West Bohemia close to Prague, the capital of Czech Republic. Papers and participation requests are now being accepted. Check the web site for additional information.

717.3 Utopia Technologies, Inc. Previews Montezuma’s Return By Jonathan Sunberg

WAVE 616.9 profiled Utopia Technologies, a virtual company in Texas and New Jersey. Upon interviewing co-founder Robert Jaeger and Vice-President Steve Bergenholtz, we learned of U-Vision, Utopia’s proprietary real-time 3D engine for PC gaming. On June 18th at E3 in Atlanta, Utopia presented the advantages of U-Vision by demonstrating Montezuma’s Return, the sequel to the video game classic Montezuma’s Revenge.

Mr. Jaeger feels that Montezuma’s Return, a first person 3D action-adventure puzzle-solving quest, offers "the most powerful technology" of any engine currently available. The game takes advantage of U-Vision’s high-color rendering (65,536 colors), multiple movable points, directional and planar lights, high speed rendering of large 6DOF objects, phong shading, chrome mapping, facet smoothing on models, seamless skin on models, jointed models, model morphing, and full freedom for swim modes.

The game stars you as Max Montezuma, the descendant of Aztec King Montezuma. As Max, you must jump-climb-swim-fight and solve puzzles through 500+ indoor and outdoor scenes in seven major nonlinear worlds. Montezuma’s Revenge, which was originally slated for April and is now expected in October, can currently support Verite and 3Dfx-based accelerators, but will work on normal VGA. To learn more about U-Vision and/or Montezuma’s Revenge visit Utopia’s website at:

717.4 Softimage Announces Updated List of Certified Products by Jonathan Sunberg

In Issue 610.5 of WAVE, we described Softimage’s Hardware Certification Tests (HCT). On July 8th Softimage released an updated list of hardware products (12 new accelerators since our first article) that have gained certification for compatibility with Softimage 3D on WindowsNT. The new products under the latest release of Softimage 3D version 3.7, will show a "Softimage Certified Logo" as a symbol of compatibility for end users to pick out hardware products that can be used with Softimage software.

To obtain certification the accelerators must pass two separate tests: Softcomp and Regression Tests. These tests are described more in Issue 610.5. When the tests are completed and all bugs have been cleared, an official certification is issued along with permission to use the "Softimage Certified" logo.

3Dlabs Inc:	500TX, 300SX
AccelGraphics:	AccelPRO 2500TX, AG 500
Densan:	PCI 300DX/A
Diamond MM Systems Inc.:	Fire GL 3000
Digital Equipment Corp.:	PowerStorm Series
Dynamic Pictures Inc.:	Oxygen 3D Family, V192
Elsa Inc.:	GloriaL
Force:	3DE-TurboTX, 3DE-TurboSX
Hitachi America Ltd.:	SPHERIX
Intergraph Corp.:	RealiZm Series, Intense3D, GLZ2, GLZ1, GLZ6
Melco:	WHP-TX16, WGP-SX8
NeTpower Inc.:	ULTRAfx, Elite2
Omnicomp:	3Demon Pro8, DTX88

Note that these certification results still do not apply to all combinations of operating system versions and Softimage 3D versions. Softimage does not publish their benchmark scores, but will recommend the best card for a users system if the user contacts the company at sidr@softimage.com.

In April, 1997 DH Institute of Media Arts (DHIMA) opened its doors in Santa Monica, CA. WAVE spoke to the VP of DHIMA, Taka Tsurutani, about the 3D graphics training center and what his expectations are for its future.

DHIMA is the successor of ‘Digital Hollywood, The Multimedia School’ a school established in Japan in October of 1994. Mr. Tsurutani explained to WAVE that in just three years, the parent school has had "1600 students enrolled, while working on 200 SGI workstations, 200 MACs, and 100 Intergraph machines." DHIMA decided to open up its’ US operation in order to attract students wanting to travel to the US from Japan and to attract local students who want to get 3D graphical art and film making training.

All of the 14 students at DHIMA’s first class on May 12th, consisted of Japanese exchange students from the parent facility. The school though, which offers ESL (English as a Second Language) classes, will not be limited to Japanese students. Mr. Tsurutani foresees US students attending DHIMA and actually traveling over to Japan in the same way the present students are traveling to the US. Unfortunately, like the US school, which comprises of all English speaking-only classes, the school in Japan comprises of all Japanese speaking-only classes. Mr. Tsurutani believes this will be an issue they will need to address, but also feels that because some of the instructors in Japan already do speak some English it may not be an impossible problem to overcome.

Mr. Tsurutani explained that the school is currently in talks with a publicity agent and is working with administrators at UCLA and USC to possibly set up a program to attract more students to the school.

The school, located in a 5,000 sq. foot suite on 3rd St. Promenade, is in the heart of Santa Monica’s social scene. Mr. Tsurutani expects the facility to house about "ten classes per year, with 28 students in each class." DHIMA currently has 24 SGI/O2 machines, but Mr. Tsurutani told WAVE they expect more systems soon.

The Japanese and US schools will differ in content. The Japanese school currently focuses on authoring tools and CD-ROM authoring, while the US school will focus on 3D graphics and film making on computers.

DHIMA offers five courses taught by four full-time instructors and part-time instructors that will come from computer graphic companies. All four instructors have a history of CG industry experience, including the chief instructor who has worked at Accolade as well as Wavefront.

Beginning in September DHIMA will offer four, one-month evening courses. 3D Animation Basic, the first course, teaches animation, modeling, and rendering using Alias/Wavefront Power Animator. The second course will be an intermediate-level animation course for students who have a basic knowledge of Power Animator and operating a UNIX machine. This course will teach motion path, hierarchical and keyframe animation, OptiF/X, rendering for animation and basic deformation. The third course is Basic Digital Compositing and the fourth course is an Intermediate Digital Compositing.

The daytime course, which begins in October and lasts for 6 months, is meant to develop and teach skills for creating high-quality 3D modeling, animation, and rendering effects using Alias|wavefront Power Animator V8, Composer, ICE, AVID, Accom, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator.

Mr. Tsurutani explained that there is still room for September registration and if you are a California resident you may be able to obtain a grant from the state to actually pay for the courses ($1200 evening, $9600 day).

To learn more about attending, registering, or even sponsoring the school you can call Mr. Tsurutani or his associate Ms. Uemura at the phone number below. Also attendees of SIGGRAPH will be able to view some of DHIMA’s work first hand, as three of the students will be receiving rewards at the show. DHIMA will also be one of the sponsors at Sega GameWork’s Siggraph Party.

In the Microsoft booth at A/E/C Systems ’97, Virtus Corp. demonstrated its new, real-time 3D prototyping and multimedia application for architects, ConceptCAD. The program, which supports DirectX technology, was also given the "Technology Leader" award by CADALYST Magazine at the show. This award is given to new products that significantly improve on existing technologies or introduce a new technology. ConceptCAD was one of three Technology Leaders chosen out of a list of products from approximately 300 companies.

ConceptCAD allows architects to create virtual prototypes of potential projects and collaborate with clients and colleagues through a desktop computer. The application is easy to learn and use; offers a real-time "walk through" of 3D environments and has advanced modeling tools and texture-mapping for added realism.

In addition, models can easily be annotated with sounds and text pop-ups to produce full-scale interactive 3D presentations that can be delivered in a variety of ways. The data can be exported in DXF and 3DS formats to other CAD programs and over the Internet.

Although ConceptCAD is easy to use and provides for fast modeling, Virtus does recognize the need for pre-built content and supplies MediaPAKs, focused on specific applications. A MediaPAK disc contains a Content Reference Database, which offers keyword searches for 3D objects, textures, or sounds.

MediaPAK, Volume 1, contains 3D structures, furnishings, and sounds is included in ConceptCAD. The LandscapePAK, which began selling separately in June, contains over 800 landscape design elements. Future MediaPAKs will focus on exterior building elements, interior furnishing, and manufacturer-specific content.

ConceptCAD is available for Windows95 and NT. It also has been optimized for Pentium II’s with MMX. Virtus also points out that, although ConceptCAD supports all of the D3D graphics cards, some cards work better than others. Among the cards that they tested which run the application well:

Virtus did get varying results with some of these cards and suggests using the "If Driver is Certified" or Never" settings when asked for the level of DVD support:

ConceptCAD is currently available through AEC VARS and direct from Virtus at $1595.

On June 24th, PC Magazine introduced the 3D Graphics WinMark test suite developed by Ziff-Davis. The test, which is intended to objectively measure 3-D acceleration, has resulted in strong opinions.

In June, Matrox Graphics Inc. used WinMark to rank their cards and came up with results quite different from PC Magazine’s. In a press release on Matrox’s web site, they stated they were

"…proud to offer the fastest and most stable 2D/3D accelerator, the Matrox Mystique, as confirmed by industry standard Ziff-Davis 2D and 3D benchmarks, and leading game developers. Reaching over 51 3D WinMarks for 3D acceleration and 89.5 million WinMarks in 2D, the Matrox Mystique combines all the critical elements of 2D, 3D, and video to make it the best all-in-one solution in the industry."

Furthermore Matrox explained that ATI Technology Inc.’s 3D Pro Turbo + PC2TV garnered low scores because of ATI’s lack of perspective correct texture mapping. Screen shots on Matrox’s website were used to support their belief that ATI doesn’t support perspective correct texture mapping in hardware, but instead relies on quadratic approximation.

According to PC 97 Design guide from Microsoft, a 3D texture mapping accelerator needs perspective correction in the hardware for acceptable quality rendering in 3D games and applications. Matrox believes that because ATI’s hardware did not implement perspective correction it was a fundamental flaw.

However, both PC Magazine and ATI discredit Matrox’s claim. First came PC Magazine’s support of ATI over Matrox, by electing ATI’s All-In-Wonder card ‘Editors’ Choice’ and stating Matrox’s "Mystique 220 placed in the middle of the field on our Graphics WinMark tests, ahead of the ViRGE-based boards but trailing the boards based on ATI, Rendition, and 3Dlabs chips." Next PC Magazine put a positive spin on ATI’s card. "ATI has added a triangle setup engine; improved perspective correction, fog, and transparency implementations; added support for specular lighting; and enhanced the video playback and DVD support." But when analyzing the Matrox card the magazine stated a few negatives. "The board (Matrox Mystique) lacks support for several popular Direct3D features such as bilinear filtering, fog, transparency, MIP mapping, and specular highlighting."

After Matrox placed the assessment on their website ATI came back with a vociferous response. The company dedicated numerous web pages attempting to disprove Matrox’s numbers and accusing Matrox of distorting the truth. This statement is one example of ATI’s response on their website:

"To mislead you, Matrox produced poor ATI results by running the 3D Winbench comparison without enabling key ATI 3D hardware acceleration features."

When we spoke with Caroline De Bie, Media Relations Manager at Matrox, it was explained to us that Matrox does not refute the fact that they did not implement ATI’s perspective correction capabilities. According to Ms. De Bie, "When the perspective correction test came up, the benchmark asked if the roadway image was straight, it was not therefore they had to checkmark no." On the Ziff-Davis Benchmark a roadway is used to decipher if perspective correction is working properly, if so the roadway would look straight, but if it isn’t the roadway zig-zags. In this case Matrox felt it was zig-zagging.

By checking no, as the next paragraph from PC Magazine reveals, ATI’s test results were very constrained.

"When you load a game or application that requires D3D, the software queries your system to see if the proper level of D3D support is present. If it is, the software will take advantage of the hardware-assisted acceleration; otherwise the application defaults to software acceleration, which will run the application-- but much more slowly. This setup is an all or nothing affair. The application software cannot use hardware acceleration for some functions and software emulation for others. It must decide up front whether to use hardware or software acceleration, and this can affect the features. If a D3D feature is missing or improperly implemented in hardware, image quality can suffer; if software emulation is used, performance can suffer."

WAVE not only spoke to Ms. De Bie but also Andrew Schmied, Product Manager-Graphics at ATI. Andrew stands behind the scores from ATI. Today, each company considers the issue over and would not like the issue to escalate any further. Each individual summed the respective company’s position as below.

"ATI 3D products support perspective correction and this fact is collaborated by industry experts. Matrox made claims to the contrary on their Web site and we have posted our response setting the record straight. It is a dead issue, as far as we are concerned."

"Matrox has known about ATI’s statements for a while. We chose not to respond, because we didn’t want to make it escalate into a debate. We believe that ATI does not handle perspective correct texture mapping the correct way."

Since this article was written Matrox has removed the web pages that describe why ATI does not support perspective correction correctly, but ATI continues to post their argument.

717.8 Conference Report – Meltdown July 15 – 17, 1997, Bellevue, WA By John Latta

This was the 4th Meltdown event and the most successful to date. With 500+ attendees the room for the main sessions was packed. The three-day event had presentations by Microsoft the first day and testing the remaining two. The hardware vendors were camped out in hotel suites waiting for game developers to sign up for testing time slots. This is an excellent opportunity to test titles and applications on a broad range of hardware and also to have direct contacts with key individuals from the IHV companies. Next week a version of Meltdown will be held in Japan and one was suggested for Europe but not announced. Ty Graham, technical evangelist at Microsoft, runs the conference and deserves much of the credit for its success. For all practical purposes this is the Direct X developers conference.

This was the first Meltdown held without NDA restrictions. It provided a wealth of information of interest to multimedia and 3D ISVs and IHVs.

The issue of using OpenGL as a game API (in contradistinction to Direct3D) has dogged Microsoft since John Carmac created a version of Quake for OpenGL – GLQuake. The controversy within the game development community has been pitting OpenGL vs. Direct3D. Microsoft took the issue head-on at Meltdown in three punches.

In a stunning demonstration Microsoft showed GLQuake running faster using Direct3D than OpenGL. A Microsoft summer intern, with no prior experience in Direct3D, had written a wrapper in three weeks which intercepts the calls from Quake for OpenGL and converted them to Direct3D calls. It was claimed that GLQuake ran 1 f/s slower with DirectX 5.0 version of Direct3D than the original GLQuake on a 3Dfx card. However, using the nvidia RIVA 128 chip it runs 1 f/s faster. It was stated that GLQuake uses 50 of the 360 calls in OpenGL. To a hushed crowd the intern was introduced, stood up and received an applause. Microsoft claims that developers have the opportunity to run their titles " on lots of installed base [compared to the narrow sales of titles targeted to specific API’s]." Microsoft also stated that developers can now create titles that will run " on a par or faster than OpenGL."

Next, in an unannounced presentation, Jay Torborg, Director, Graphics and Multimedia, Windows Operating Systems Division laid out the Microsoft position. There have been many emotional arguments on this controversy and Jay’s approach was devoid of such a tone. He succinctly addressed the issue in only a few charts in a pointed matter-of-fact delivery. He first said this is not about OpenGL vs. Direct3D but OpenGL and Direct3D. Microsoft is focused on both OpenGL and Direct3D.

There are two goals in 3D in Microsoft’s API strategy: to provide the best platform for OpenGL and to innovate and invest in Direct 3D.

With OpenGL Microsoft has a two level driver implementation to accomplish its goal. The ICD is a complete robust implementation of OpenGL and only those IHVs prepared to make the substantial investment required to develop an ICD will participate in this market. Jay stated that ICD applications are for technical ISVs, i.e., high end workstation class applications. The second level driver is the MCD and Microsoft defined this for the low cost enterprise solutions. In a significant announcement Microsoft stated that they would not support the MCD on Windows 95 or "Memphis."

To accomplish the Direct 3D goal Microsoft intends to increase the rate of innovation in the API and at the same time keep pace with hardware developments. It was stated that there are over 500 new applications being developed for Direct3D.

Jay Torborg also announced that 2 weeks ago the graphics development teams (assuming Direct3D and OpenGL teams at Microsoft) have been consolidated and also increased in size. This was taken as a measure of the importance of 3D at Microsoft and the level of investment the company is making.

Microsoft also stated that multiple 3D APIs do not make any sense. Jay showed a list that included Java3D, Glide, QuickDraw3D and Speedy. It was his position that the industry should focus on using just two APIs: OpenGL and Direct3D.

The third punch came next when Phil Taylor, an evangelist, gave a presentation on porting 3D applications to DrawPrimitive. In response to a question he stated that henceforth all 3D development should be done using the DrawPrimitive construct. The ExecuteBuffer model is essentially dead and only applicable to a few legacy games and applications.

Mark Kenworthy. Group Program Manager, DirectX Foundation, announced that Windows 95 would support AGP for fall shipments. This will be done with Microsoft’s update release for Windows 95 called OSR 2.1 and DirectX 5. Intel will supply a special section of software code that they are calling VxD. No announcement was made on the availability of this AGP solution for Socket 7 (Pentium processors) and non-Intel processors.

The increasing maturation of Direct X was evident in the plans for the next version – 6.0. Microsoft is moving from just a multimedia API to its complete integration into the OS. Although this is certainly the case with DirectX 5.0 with its integration into both Windows NT 5.0 and "Memphis" we expect that DirectX 6.0 will reflect the experience of working with both OS’s using DirectX and the functionality and performance improvements it brings. This will mark the beginning of rich multimedia integration, including 3D, into horizontal and productivity applications including Word, Excel and many of the office productivity applications.

Features on the list for inclusion in Direct3D are: Multi-texture, Optimized textures, Optimized vertex lists, Shadows, HW transform and lighting Bump mapping (maybe)

In Direct X 6 Microsoft is looking to address a number of issues in 3D. One is what they describe as the "character problem." That is how to display better individuals in 3D. This includes: higher order surfaces, level of detail, skinning and integration of geometry acceleration. Other Direct X 6 new features include compressed textures and a texture cache manager.

Implicit in this release will be full Talisman support. Although unannounced it is expected that in the DirectX 6 time frame there will be multiple chips supporting full Talisman functionality.

Specs in Late August Code Complete: August 14, Beta 1 RTM: December 19 with code ship December 30, Beta 2: February 18, Final RTM: April 22

With this schedule it was stated that game developers would have more time to prepare titles for Christmas 1998. Further, subsequent roll-outs of DirectX will follow roughly this schedule to support the needs of developers.

Microsoft has defined its position in the OpenGL controversy. We doubt that this issue will immediately disappear. However, there is a more substantive issue that underlies the concerns of developers than having fun debating API merits and demerits. They want stability in the API, a high level of quality so that it works without debilitating bugs, and the opportunity to make money. Every indication we get is that Microsoft has made significant progress with DirectX 5 in the former two. Only with a rising installed base of 3D acceleration will the game developers have a chance to make money. Further, as long as Microsoft continues to innovate and set the pace in multimedia, including 3D, the ISV and IHV community will have an ever rising target of functionality and performance to take advantage of. All of this combined serves to support the emergence of a profitable industry which bases its existence on using DirectX. As long as that is accomplished the OpenGL issue will fade into history.

Nick Wilt also gave an excellent overview of the Direct3D Transform Engine. Why? With Microsoft pushing for 3D chips to take on geometry and lighting the presentation was a subtle hint that the problem has been addressed. Or, this problem has been solved, and one only has to just put this into silicon and the industry moves forward with another major improvement in performance.

With this Meltdown the potential for pervasive multimedia that spans usage from within the OS, to the application and to the network, based on DirectX, was exposed. In fact, in a demonstration only session Eric Engstrom highlighted the power of Direct X Media. Using IE 4.0 demonstrations were shown with many combinations of 3D surfaces with images and directional sound. Yet, this appeared to be an afterthought and not an integral part of the program. When Microsoft was asked about the .X file format, another part of the media effort, its status on this was deferred to others and was not contained the program. As Microsoft seeks to integrate DirectX in all of Windows and leverage its presence in all applications Meltdown should also be broadened to encompass the greater potential of DirectX. DirectX no longer is just a game API and Meltdown needs to reflect this in future events.

Meltdown has become a significant event. By making it open and extending the scope it has the potential of shaping the industry in much the same way as WinHEC. We expect more and better at the next conference in the first months of 1998.

717.9 Hewlett-Packard Announces VISUALIZE PxFL – Major 3D Technology Event By John Latta

Hewlett-Packard announced on July 14 the VISUALIZE PxFl 3D graphics system. Based on PixelFlow technology, originally developed at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, VISUALIZE PxFl represents a quantum leap in 3D quality and performance. H-P has taken an aggressive stance and set the beginning system price at $100,000. H-P is seeking to directly assault SGI in the MCAD market. First units will ship Q1 1998.

This technology is based on SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) stream pixel processors. A key advantage of this approach is that it determines the visible pixels early in the pipeline by segmenting the processing at the 3D primitive level. This allows the rendering of individual visible pixels to be deferred to the end of the pipeline. Thus, the heavy burden of memory bandwidth is significantly reduced. This architecture has another advantage of being readily scalable, much more so than traditional architectures. H-P has implemented Enhance Memory Chips (EMCs) which accomplish both the visibility and rendering processing. Each pixel is defined with 384 bytes.

A rasterizer consists of two H-P PA-8000 processors and 8,192 � MFLOP pixel processors. The PA-8000 processors do transformation calculations, scan conversion and computations to support later shading. The basic elements of the PxFl are modules called Rasterizers, Shaders and the Frame Buffer and these are linked via a 6.4GB/sec bi-directional network bus. The system supports, for example, Phong Texture shading and 4 sample antialiasing. With 9 flow units the system can sustain, with all of these features on, approximately 9m triangles/second. When the number of units rises to 54 the rate rises to above 30m triangles/sec. The system will not directly do unsorted transparencies but H-P suggests a work around which they claim provides performance consistent with the architecture.

A significant advantage of this system is its programmability. In fact, H-P stated that this is the only architecture flexible enough to simulate the full Talisman architecture. The SIMD architecture actually has applications outside of 3D image generation and these could include volume visualization and even data base mining.

The software interface to the PxFl is with OpenGL. However, this architecture imposes a frame concept. Programmers must specify a begin and end frame. Only by defining a frame is it possible for the PxFl to proceed with the processing and accomplish the composition.

H-P intends to leverage its strong position in MCAD, and the recent announcement of DirectModel, to allow them to gain what they hope will be a commanding position using PxFl. At the demonstration a key ISV partner was Dassault – the leading supplier of CAD software to automobile and aircraft industries. H-P is focused on MCAD as its first primary market. They will examine animation markets if they can provide profitable economics and with a strong partner. H-P has no interest, at present, in pursuing the flight simulator or even visual simulation and training market. From a marketing standpoint this is a narrow attack on the market but one which is based not only on the greatest near term potential of the technology but H-P’s experience and strengths.

The WAVE Report saw the first public demonstration of the PxFl. The image quality is nothing less than stunning. Although H-P was still tuning the frame rate what stood out was the image quality. Using environmental mapping a chess board was shown with a level of detail and realism not seen before in any real time computer generated image.

The SIMD based architecture is the future of 3D computing. At 4th Wave we see this as being where all of 3D will gravitate. There is a close parallel with the flexibility provided by microprocessors in computing and what SIMD based visual computing provides to 3D image generation. The compelling advantage of SIMD is its programmability, expandability and flexibility.

The SIMD implementation is one step in the development of a foundation 3D architecture capable of emulating real scenes. Today there is the traditional architecture that is present in nearly all the 3D accelerators shipping today. But this architecture has as its foundation the original work of Ivan Sutherland over 20 years ago. Talisman with its chunking approach is an interim step to a more general architecture. The Oak Technologies region concept is similar. Both Talisman and Oak’s WARP 5 use what we term as area segmentation and are expected to provide quantum leaps in performance over the traditional architecture. The attributes of SIMD technology are that it provides a general-purpose solution and the highest in image quality.

However, the reduction of the SIMD architecture to single chips for PCs is some years away. There are significant barriers. One is power consumption. Given the high density of the processors on these chips power demand and heat generation is significant. Further, the real potential, at a single chip, will not be realized until .20 micron and below line widths are available along with lower operating voltages.

What H-P has done is set a new visual standard for the industry. At 4th WAVE we estimate that approximately 1,000 high end graphics systems were sold by SGI last year. Of this 300+ went to the manufacturing sector. We believe that H-P has the potential of selling up to 75 systems in 1998 to their initial target market. This level of sales would have a major impact on not only SGI but also the industry as a whole. To accomplish this H-P must be firmly focused on execution. Given that the operation of the PxFl is software based H-P must demonstrate that it can tune the system to work well with real applications. That is, they must be able to which show the highest image quality in real time and leverage the advantage of PxFl across many applications. Further, the company must also demonstrate that it has the marketing capability to sell such a high number of systems, in the first year, into a market segment it has not attacked before. Thus, H-P has a formidable challenge to turn the potential of PxFl into market share. PixelFlow is no longer an academic exercise but serious business which will has the prospect of challenging SGI at the high end of the market.

The public debut of PxFl will be at SIGGRAPH and we expect this to be the attention grabber at the show.

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