***Company Profile - Datapath - Setting a New Standard
for 3D Tool Software
by John Latta
The WAVE Report picked up indications of a hot software product,
RealiMation by Datapath, following SIGGRAPH last year. Since that time
we have been using RealiMation and RealiBench for 3D Performance
Characterization at 4th Wave, the parent company of the WAVE Report.
RealiBench has proved invaluable in our testing efforts. To gain more
insights into the company behind these products we conducted an e-mail
interview with its Managing Director, Brett Butcher, one of the
founders of the company.
At Datapath there are approximately 50 people in a group of three
companies: 25 in Datapath UK, 5 in Datapath GmbH (their German
operation) and 15-20 in their UK distributor sister company (called
TERMTEK). The company revenues are approximately $10M.
According to Brett, software is a very important area for Datapath: "We
made a decision some time ago to avoid the 'consumerization' of the
mainstream market for hardware, and develop software for that market
instead. Hence the RealiMation-STE Desktop Professional edition at
$500.00. RealiMation has been in development for over five years now
and represents many man-years of effort. The development tools however
reflect our on-going and growing commitment to the Visual Simulation
and Games community. We intend to carry on our development of hardware,
however, part of the reason for this is that knowing hardware makes us
good at software."
Their flagship product is RealiMation 4.1, which began shipping at the
beginning of February. This is a major underlying structural change for
the 3D API which is at the core of Datapath's software products.
According to Brett, the key changes, in part, include the following:
Images are handled very differently with the application now passing a
pointer to an image thus allowing the use of video textures and
backgrounds.
The lighting mechanisms were changed to create a light as a specific
object rather than just living in an 'atmospheric'. The ability to
override the lighting was added to allow applications to selectively
pre-light objects or scenes.
The LOD (Level of Detail) was changed to include distance switching as
well as projected area on an object-by-object basis.
Object caching was added to allow support for Image Generators (e.g.,
the Lockheed-Martin Real3D Pro-1000) and other retained mode sub-
renderers (e.g., D3D or OpenGL) to operate more efficiently (sometimes
- D3D often works better in immediate mode but they feel more retained
mode devices will come along as time goes on (retained mode is where an
IG or graphics engine holds a 3D object display list)).
Texture Layering was added where one can now have up to eight textures
on a single material. (Hardware such as 3Dfx supports this with its
multiple texture units - great for things like reflection and bump
mapping effects).
Compression was added for RealiMation files (.RBS).
Other utility functions were added to the API and speed up improvements
made including the ability to duplicate an entire hierarchy, fast
database purging and object replacement.
Camera support was considerably enhanced to provide sheer and other
extra functions to allow for stereo cameras and autostereo cameras (we
have a client making 28 channel AutoStereo systems).
Although the above changes were made largely in the API, there were
some small changes to the editor to make use of these API changes.
Other usability features which were added included a face merge option
for reducing polygon counts in large models, especially from CAD
sources.
The viewer for RBS files, RealiView was considerably enhanced to be
useable as a Netscape or IE3 plug in. This means that you can put your
RBS files in your HTML pages (Which means that no VRML authoring is
required). RealiMation also supports texture streaming based on
direction of view.
This feature set can be seen by some as countering VRML but Brett
counters that "We are not trying to go against the VRML stream in fact
we are supporting it."
The company has been successful in having its software bundled with
many products. The current bundles include: 3Dfx, Diamond, Leadtek,
Number Nine, Omnicomp, and Real3D. A typical bundle includes a 45 day
demo of RealiMation STE, RealiView (which includes the Internet plug-
ins) and screen savers via RealiSave. Brett emphasizes that users can
really try it all out for free. Another advantage is that these bundles
show off the API capabilities.
When asked about product availability Brett stated that "Users can buy
the straight STE-Pro edition from PC-Zone catalogue house and also from
DEK software at (609) 424-6565. Developers can either buy direct or via
our VAR channel which is just starting to open up. For example,
S.A.I.C., OmniSIM in California will supply the full tools. This
company also supplies an OEM version of the development tools with
their SIMTools product. Datapath is also in negotiation right now with
several other VARS and OEM's. Potential distributors can contact us
direct."
In response to a question Brett responded that his company views
"RealiMation as a very hot technology and as such it deserves to get
both recognition and commercial success. My main aim is to make it a
commercial success."
Brett also sees the industry as being too narrowly focused on
Microsoft's Direc3D. He finds it interesting how Microsoft is strongly
advocating Direct 3D but unfortunately with what he describes as the
"wholly D3D route. D3D is fine, I just don't think it is all things to
all folks as Microsoft claims it is."
In a broader context Brett finds it interesting how noise often
outweighs substance in the 3D industry. He states, "I guess it is just
that it is new and there are a lot of folks with only noise to offer."
Brett's describes his experience with the game community as one of
surprise. That is, the response is binary to RealiMation - "...either
mega-enthusiasm, or mega-disdain; hardly anything in between." He
follows with "further investigation has told us that those who treat it
with disdain are in fact afraid of it (it will steal my job). I think
this is the most curious thing I have seen in a long while. The more
switched on members of the games community are indeed now using the
tools and are getting along great - with the view which reflects the
following perspective 'Great I can make more games with the resources I
have.'"
When asked to look forward Brett gave the readers an early view of the
plans for V5.0. Developers should start to see V5.0 betas around the
end of Q3 this year.
He stated that "The major changes for V5.0 will be towards the editor
and the development tools usability (Whereas 4.0-4.1 really focused on
getting the API right)."
Additions to the API for V5.0 should be fairly minimal but will include
several important features. Actions will be able to have other events
built in to them. Sound will be added by the addition of a microphone
object (sound analogy of a camera), and speaker objects. The sound
driver technology will be similar to the way in which they drive other
display rendering technologies, at present, which use a driver layer.
This will allow the sound to be independent too, as well as the image.
(They are looking to work with other sound specialists in this area).
The database will have the ability for user-defined application data to
be added to objects. This is presently possible in the memory run-time
image of the worlds but not in the file.
The editor is where a lot of changes will take place. Besides the
obvious capabilities in the API needing to be catered for (i.e. sound,
etc.), Datapath will be adding more direct support for video texturing.
Other changes will be the addition of time-line editing the action
data, with trigger points able to hook up directly with chunks of 'C'
or Java code. Another major feature in the editor that will come out in
the maintenance release will be VRML 2.0 export from the STE. According
to Brett, "We already have most of the features needed to produce
'point and click VRML worlds'. This will cement our lead in this
market."
Datapath has also recently released a 3D benchmarking application based
on Realimation (and bundled with the full version of Realimation)
called Realibench. Although more 3D performance tests are beginning to
appear in the industry, Realibench remains unique in its ability to run
the same suite of tests across different APIs, including Direct3D,
OpenGL, Glide and RenderWare. Realibench computes the average frame
rate for any database supplied by the user (in RBS format) and features
interactive toggling of rendering and texturing effects.
Datapath expects to be at SIGGRAPH this year. In their booth they are
showing "all our stuff including some really wild new things."
Datapath is also currently in the process of opening its U.S. office in
the San Francisco Bay Area.
S.A.I.C. e-mail contact John Dodd at postjrd@aol.com
www.datapath.co.uk
Wave Issue 9705 3/14/97 Article 7-01