***QuickNews
by John Latta
SGI Shows OpenGL for PCs
SGI announced a version of OpenGL for Windows95 and Windows NT. In a
direct challenge to Microsoft SGI was showing a side-by-side comparison
of Direct3D and this tuned version of OpenGL. SGI claimed it ran 5% to
20% faster than Direct3D. 3DLabs worked closely with SGI on this version
of OpenGL. When asked, it was hinted that 3DLabs would be supporting SGI
on the drivers which will enable OpenGL to be accelerated on PCs.
Mitsubishi and Evans & Sutherland Show 3Dpro Graphics
Both Mitsubishi and E&S were showing a very fast OpenGL graphics card.
The specifications include 24 bit z-buffer, 32bit color (RGB + Alpha),
Anti-Aliased lines, 60M bilinear MIP-mapped pixels/sec fill rate and
resolutions up to 1280 X 1024. It uses up to 15MB of Mitsubishi's 3DRAM
for the frame buffer memory.
SGI Announces Cosmo
Building on the success of Performer, SGI announced its successor, Cosmo,
which combines both Open Inventor and Performer. The Cosmo Player API is
now open which will allow 3rd parties access to a high level API which is
extensible. It was suggested that extensions could include: multimedia
streaming, real time data feeds and database connectivity for VRML. When
combined with the OpenGL version for PCs Cosmo is the first serious entry
by SGI into the PC market place for 3D software. The API will be
available from the SGI Web site.
Seybold Announces "World Movers Developers Conference"
In conjunction with SGI, Seybold Seminars announced a conference for VRML
2.0 compliant tools and technologies, to be held in San Francisco,
December 3-4, 1996. This will be held in conjunction with Seybold's Web
publishing and technology conference held from December 2-5,1996.
BigBook Shows Innovative VRML Application
VRML 2.0 is already showing its potential as a fertile ground for 3D tool
and application innovation. BigBook, which claims to be the leading
online Yellow Page service, was showing how the Yellow Page database can
be linked to 3D replicas of major cities. A user can fly through sections
of a city and see businesses in a district. The visualization can even be
extended to specific buildings where all the business in a building are
shown. The first city to be supported is San Francisco. BigBook sees the
advertising potential as being significant where companies can identify
their presence on the buildings and the sky (airplanes with flying
banners).
Wave Issue 9605 8/12/96 Article 1-01