***Quick News
By Christina Person
3Dfx - Significant Changes to Prospectus Filed with SEC
[May 22]
3Dfx Interactive modified its filing with the SEC with an announcement
that Electronic Arts would invest $3m in the company. The number of
shares being offered is being reduced from 4.5m to 3.0m. The filing on
April 17 contained an excised version of the Technology Development and
License Agreement with Sega but the May 22 version has removed this.
www.3dfx.com
ViaGrafix releases DesignCAD 97
DesignCAD 97 is the latest version of its CAD system which incorporates
2D drafting with 3D solid modeling. The package includes: 2D drafting
tools, 3D solid-modeling, tools which create complex surfaces, 3D walk-
through and texture mapping and animation with AVI support. Design CAD 97
is also customized with Visual Basic and Visual C++ support, DWG file
compatibility and free technical support. The suggested retail price is
$499.95 with a competitive upgrade for $299.95. DesignCAD 2D users can
upgrade for $149.95 while DesignCAD 3D users will pay $79.95.
www.viagrafix.com
Electronic Arts Announces 4th Quarter Results
[May 6]
Electronic Arts (EA) has announced its operating results for the 4th
fiscal quarter and fiscal year ending March 31, 1997. The 4th quarter
revenues increased 23% from $117,254,000 to $143,791,000. Revenues for
the fiscal year increased 17% from $531,887,000 to $624,766,000.
Geographically, EA's 4th quarter revenues in Europe and North America
increased 35 and 21 percent respectively.
www.ea.com
S3 and Faroudja Laboratories Partner for Improved Video Technology
[May 28]
S3 has exclusively licensed video technology from Faroudja to produce
high-quality video for the personal computer. The technology license
includes: Line Doubling, Detail Enhancer and Cross Color Suppression,
Motion Tracking and Compensation, and Digital Compression Filter. The
combined technologies will allow for DVD, cable and/or DSS video made for
TV monitors to be shown on PC monitors with "cinema quality." This new
technology will enter the market in two phases. Phase 1 is an S3
reference design board which should be available Q3 1997. Phase 2 is an
integrated Faroudja technology single-chip design, due out in the first
half of 1998.
www.s3.com
www.faroudja.com
Integrated Data Systems Announces "The Cave of Madness"
[May 9]
IDS's new interactive 3D game, The Cave of Madness, combines VRML, HTML,
Java, JavaScript and 2D graphics. IDS is seeking to show visitors its
VRealm Builder 2.0 as well as what can be enabled in 3D on the web. The
game requires Netscape Navigator 3.01 and SGI's CosmoPlayer Beta 3a plug-
in for Windows 95/NT. It is designed for one player and runs on a PC with
a minimum of 120 MHz Pentium and 16MB of RAM.
www.ids-net.com
Macromedia Ships Director 6 Multimedia Studio
[May 27]
Macromedia has announced the availability of Director 6 Multimedia Studio
for Windows 95, NT 4.0, Macintosh and Power Macintosh. The Multimedia
Studio also includes Extreme 3D 2, Macromedia xRes 3, and SoundEdit 16 2.
Coupled with Streaming Shockwave, Director animations can now be played
over the Internet without Web surfers. The estimated street price is
$999. Studio or Director users may upgrade to Director 6 Multimedia
Studio for $499 or Director 6 for $399.
www.macromedia.com
ATI's All-In-Wonder Accelerator Board Selected By Sony
[June 2]
ATI Technology Inc. has announced that Sony has selected its All-In-
Wonder graphics and multimedia accelerator board for its new PCV-130 and
PCV-150 systems. The All-In-Wonder provides six graphics and multimedia
functions, so that purchasing add-in boards is not necessary. Included in
these functions are 3D acceleration, video capture and interactive TV
tuning.
www.sony.com/pc
www.atitech.ca
LSI Logic Corp. and Micron Technology, Inc.'s Embedded DRAM Technology
[June 2]
LSI Logic Corp. and Micron Technology, Inc. have announced an alliance to
develop embedded DRAM technology. The companies will develop and produce
digital logic integrated circuits capable of embedding from 64 to 128 Meg
of conventional DRAM on a single chip. Each company will fund its own
research with initial development products expected by mid-1998.
www.micron.com
www.lsilogic.com
S3 Announces New Design Wins
[June 2]
S3 has announced new design wins for their 3D accelerator chip, in
addition to those mentioned in the last issue of WAVE. AcerPower
Minitower PCs offer S3 Trio 64V+ or S3 ViRGE/GX-based video cards. The
NEC Ready Series subsystem includes the S3 ViRGE/DX graphics accelerator
also.
www.s3.com
Computational Engineering Intl. Offers Hardcopy of Graphics with GLPrint
[May 27]
Computational Engineering Intl. is now offering a new utility library
called GLPrint. GLPrint captures OpenGL drawing commands and converts
them to plot language that reproduces graphics as hardcopy. The program
is written in standard C and can be embedded into graphics applications,
like those for CAD/CAM/CAE, GIS and molecular modeling.
www.ceint.com/products/GLPrint/
Metatools, Inc. and Fractal Design Debut as MetaCreations
[June 3]
Metatools, Inc. and Fractal Design have announced their merger as the
newly named MetaCreations Corporation. The new symbol for NASDAQ is
"MCRE" and became effective May 30, 1997. MetaCreations will be
developing products and technologies for visual computing markets
including; photography and video, digital imaging, animation, computer
graphics, 3D and data visualization. The headquarters will be in
Carpinteria, CA with offices in Scotts Valley, CA; Princeton, NJ; Dublin,
Ireland; and Paris, France.
www.metacreations.com
Sense8's Virtual Real Estate Shown at Intel Technology Series
[June 2]
Sense8's Virtual Real Estate, an Intranet application for prospective
home buyers to view homes for sale in a 3D/VR environment, was shown at
the Intel Technology Series: The Visual Connected PC. Intel used Virtual
Real Estate to demonstrate the advantages of the Pentium II architecture.
Virtual Real Estate was created with Sense8's visual simulation tool
World Up. Real estate agents and homebuyers can retrieve information
about homes from photographs and videos to school proximity and shopping
areas.
www.sense8.com/realestate/>
StrayLight Corp. Designs "An Automotive Adventure" for Hoechst Celanese
[May 30]
At the SAE '97 Trade Show in Detroit, StrayLight Corp. used its Virtual
Reality 3D-XTC system to create a real-time interactive game, An
Automotive Adventure, for Hoechst Celanese Technical Polymers. Players
learned about Hoechst Celanese's product applications while using
StrayLight's technology to transform the products into auto parts.
www.strayzr.com (Under Construction)
Softimage and Digital Announce Winners of 1996 Student Animation and
Image Contest
[June 2]
Softimage Inc. and Digital Equipment Corp. announced the winners of the
Softimage Student Animation Contest that began at the last SIGGRAPH
conference. The Grand Prizewinners for best animation and still image
categories received a DIGITAL Personal Workstation with PowerStorm
graphics loaded with Softimage 3D version 3.5 for Windows NT operating
system. The grand prize winners for animation were Greg Tarteta, Gino
Della-Savia, Peter Haralabous and Nick Michaleski. The grand prize
winner for Still Image was Natalia Saenko. Softimage will launch the next
Softimage Student Animation Contest at SIGGRAPH'97.
www.softimage.com/
www.digital.com/
www.microsoft.com/
Wave Issue 9713 6/6/97 Article 1-01