***QuickNews
Newfire: Torch Available; OEM Agreements
This Monday Newfire made available Torch (previously known as Heat),
their high-performance VRML 2.0 player with a 3D engine optimized for
the Internet. Reportedly able to deliver "game speed" performance,
Torch uses a number of "tricks" in order to achieve its high
performance, including culling, LOD, back-face elimination and clipping
techniques.
Newfire also announced OEM agreements with 3Dfx Interactive and Diamond
Multimedia. Under the agreements, 3Dfx and Newfire will jointly
distribute an optimized version of Torch for accelerators based on
Voodoo Graphics and Voodoo Rush, and Diamond and Newfire will
distribute an optimized version of Torch for Diamond's Monster 3D
board.
www.newfire.com
ATI's 3D RAGE PRO First To Support AGP
This week at Intel's Visual Computing Day, ATI demonstrated the 3D RAGE
PRO, which they trumpeted as the first chip to fully support Intel's
AGP technology. The 3D RAGE PRO supports the AGP 2X mode (133 MHz),
allowing memory bandwidths of up to 500 MB/s. The chip also features
100 MHz SGRAM (with bandwidths up to 800 MB/s), a floating-point set-up
engine, a 4 KB texture cache, and DVD support. The 3D RAGE PRO, which
is targeted at the high-end board and mid-range OEM systems markets,
will ship in the second half of the year and will be available for $30
to $36 in volume.
www.atitech.ca
8 New Design Wins For Permedia
3D Labs has announced eight new design wins for the Permedia and
Permedia NT chipsets from Taiwan-based manufacturers including Britech,
DataExpert, Deltron, Gainward, GVC Media, Mitac, Tekram and UMAX. In
addition, UMAX announced that they will be launching their first Intel-
based PC, the UmaxPC, which will ship with an optional Permedia or
GLINT 500 TX processor.
www.3dlabs.com
Apples Licenses ThinkFish Rendering Technology
Apple Computer has licensed LiveStyles, a QuickDraw3D plug-in for
artistic rendering capabilities. LiveStyles is an "intelligent
rendering technology" developed at MIT Media Lab, which views a 3D
object and draws the key lines and strokes in user-selectable fine art
motifs. Fractal Design also recently announced a license of LiveStyles.
The plug-in LiveStyles Player will be available at the end of Q2 from
both ThinkFish's and Apple's Web sites.
www.thinkfish.com
quickdraw3d.apple.com
New Products From OZ
OZ Interactive announced OZ Virtual 2.0, the newest release of their
3D/VRML 2.0 browser. New version 2.0 features include avatar voice chat
capabilities with 20 custom voice fonts, more than 40 user-controlled
avatar motions and facial expressions, HTML support for 2D Web pages
from within virtual worlds, and support for VRML 2.0, ActiveX, DirectX,
MMX and Java.
OZ also announced OZ Server 1.0, with features including shared object
behaviors across virtual worlds, unlimited scalability to accommodate
thousands of users in a single virtual world, and full VRML 2.0
functionality.
www.oz.com
MetaTools and Real3D Agreement
This week MetaTools Inc. and Real3D announced an agreement for the
joint development and licensing of MetaTool's Real Time Geometry (RTG)
technology into many of Real3D's products. Joint development teams will
begin immediately in both New Jersey and Orlando. It is expected that
Real3D's products will utilize RTG's dynamic resolution and Trixel
technology.
www.real3d.com
www.metatools.com
STB Acquires Symmetric
Earlier this week STB Systems acquired Symmetric Inc., under an
agreement in which Symmetric will become a wholly owned subsidiary of
STB Systems with an unchanged management team and product line.
Additional terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
www.symmetric.com
www.stb.com
STB Releases Nitro 3D
STB Systems has released the Nitro 3D accelerator, targeted at the
gaming market. Here are the stats:
Chip: S3 ViRGE/GX
3D Features: Bilinear filtering, MIP-mapping, fogging and depth
queuing,
alpha blending, double buffering, and anti-aliasing
Video: Full-screen, full-motion MPEG playback, support for
ActiveMovie, Direct Video, ACI and Intel ProShare and
Intercast
Resolution: Up to 1600x1200
Memory: 4 MB VRAM
Cost: $129 (2 MB), $149 (4 MB)
Bundled Titles: HyberBlade and MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries (Activision)
WIRL (VREAM), Simply3D (Micrografx)
New 3DS MAX Plug-Ins From Digimation
Digimation Inc. has released several new MAXimizer 3D Studio MAX plug-
ins:
Texture Lab: Elemental Tools - A set of 6 procedural textures that
represent fire, water, fog, electricity, strata and noise.
Cost: $149
Glider - Consists of two new space warps, Object Glider and Particle
Glider. They work by constraining geometry or particles to the surface
topology of another selected object.
Cost: $150
Atomizer - Works in conjunction with MAX particle systems, allowing
them
to use any MAX object as a particle.
Cost: $95
www.digimation.com
Integraph To Provide 3D Engine for IBM Workstations
Intergraph Computer Systems has announced that they will be the
exclusive provider of 3D graphics engines for IBM's new Pentium Pro-
based line of workstations. The workstations will feature Intergraph's
Intense 3D Pro 1000-T accelerator. The Intense 3D Pro 1000 feature
SDRAM memory, tri-linear MIP-mapping, 24- or 32-bit double buffering, a
24-bit Z-buffer and YUV to RGB color space conversion.
www.intergraph.com
Diamond Announces Stealth 3D 2000 Pro
New from Diamond Multimedia, the Stealth 3D 2000 Pro, featuring:
Memory: 4 MB EDO DRAM
Chip: S3 ViRGE/DX
Features: TV-out (retail version only), full-screen digital
video at 30 fps, integrated 170 MHz RAMDAC
OS: Windows 95, Windows NT, DOS (Windows 3.1 planned)
APIs: OpenGL, Direct3D
Cost: $199.95
Availability: Now
www.diamondmm.com
SolidWorks Supports Intel's VCI
SolidWorks Corp. has announced support for Intel's Visual Computing
Initiative (VCI), an industry initiative aimed at developing new visual
computing capabilities for the PC platform. Visual Computing is
described as "the convergence of video, 3D modeling and imaging
technologies," and was the basis for Intel's "Platforms for Visual
Computing" event held this week.
www.solidworks.com
Wave Issue 9706 3/28/97 Article 1-01