NetApp
HPCwire

Since 1986 - Covering the Fastest Computers
in the World and the People Who Run Them

Language Flags

Visit additional Tabor Communication Publications

Datanami
Digital Manufacturing Report
HPC in the Cloud
Green Computing Report

Tabor Communications
Corporate Video

Army Buys SGI, VRSim Virtual Reality Systems


Silicon Graphics has announced the sale of six SGI and VRSim turn-key Virtual Reality Welding Trainers to the U.S. Army Ordinance Center and School at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, to train soldiers and Marines for battlefield repairs, parts repairs and maintenance on armored and other vehicles. The immersive, Virtual Reality Welding Trainer is based on SGI visualization hardware and VRSim simulation software; the Welding Trainer was announced at the American Welding Society Show in Dallas earlier this year.

Designed and integrated by SGI Professional Services specifically for the U.S. Army/Marine Corps as a time and cost-saving productivity tool for Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) and Shielded Metal Arc Welding (SMAW), the simulators are for novice and experienced welders alike. The six welding bays are linked to a central console for instructors to monitor trainee performance and store weld information for future training analysis.

The U.S. Army/Marine Corps has contracted SGI and VRSim to deliver GMAW and SMAW welding in flat, vertical, horizontal and overhead welding positions. A follow-on project to add Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) and OXY/Fuel processes is under consideration. The Welding Trainer incorporates an actual welding gun with haptic feedback and a custom headset through which the trainee experiences a realistic motion-tracked 3D welding environment. The instructor console monitors all of the end-user stations allowing the instructor to select one, two or as many of the virtual welding bay stations as desired. From either the central console or at each individual bay, the instructor can view the real-time training exercise and monitor the graphical performance metrics, which can be displayed during and after each pass.

"VRSim's Welding Trainer represents the first commercial effort to combine haptic (or touch) simulation technology with real-time computer interaction to provide fast, efficient skills transfer for welders," said Matthew Wallace, Chief Executive Officer, VRSim. "Whether novice or expert, each welder can learn better welding techniques, faster and with less waste. We are proud to present this new generation of training technology to the U.S. Army."

Key benefits of the Virtual Reality Welding Trainer include:

    -- Improved workmanship and productivity:  Muscle memory and hands-on
       experience play a critical role in complex and critical welds. The
       Virtual Reality Welding Trainer promotes faster learning as trainees
       can complete more practice welds within a fixed amount of training time
       when compared to conventional training. Instant feedback from each weld
       pass allows the trainee to hone the specific skills that need
       improvement until the full technique of laying a quality weld is
       achieved.
      
    -- Increase training retention and improve trainee/worker safety:  Welders
       learn new techniques or practice their skills in a safe environment
       without risk of injury.
      
    -- Reduce training costs: Reduced expenditures in training materials,
       waste disposal and unavailable welders due to injury all result in cost
       savings.
      
    -- Environmental concerns: Harmful emissions and/or waste materials are
       eliminated in a virtual environment.

The Silicon Graphics Prism Deskside system powers the VRSim Welding Trainer visualization. The  Deskside is driven by dual Intel Itanium 2 processors and ATI FireGL graphics processors.

"The power of Intel Itanium 2 processors and SGI visualization technology delivers realistic welding in real time, enhancing the learning experience," said Melissa Laird, general manager of Intel's Developer Relations Division. "The SGI and VRSim Welding Trainer is a unique product that takes great advantage of Intel's platform."

VRSim's Sim Welder Software leverages SGI OpenGL Performer technology to deliver the realism required for a virtual training environment. The virtual environment can be tailored to display real-world scenarios such as a vehicle repair on a battlefield or an industrial manufacturing setting during the training exercise. VRSim's IO software provides the middleware to manage the complex array of peripheral devices required to make the turn-key training solution complete.

"The Virtual Reality Welding Trainer provides a cost-effective solution that decreases overall training expenditures while increasing safety, training productivity, and the overall quality of workmanship," said James Hooks, global sales manager for welding trainers, SGI. "With the acquisition of virtual welding technology, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps will now have a powerful new tool to quickly and safely train personnel. SGI has a long history of providing robust, turn-key visualization solutions to both government and commercial industries, and we are excited to apply state-of-the-art visualization technology to provide this new leap forward in welder training productivity."

June 18, 2013

June 17, 2013

June 14, 2013

June 13, 2013

June 12, 2013

June 11, 2013

June 10, 2013

June 07, 2013

June 06, 2013

June 05, 2013


Most Read Features

Most Read Around the Web

Most Read This Just In


Feature Articles

My Supercomputer is Bigger Than Yours!

Contributing commentator, Andrew Jones, offers a break in the news cycle with an assessment of what the national "size matters" contest means for the U.S. and other nations...
Read more...

Alternatives Emerge as Linpack Loses Ground

Today at the International Supercomputing Conference in Leipzing, Germany, Jack Dongarra presented on a proposed benchmark that could carry a bit more weight than its older Linpack companion. The high performance conjugate gradient (HPCG) concept takes into account new architectures for new applications, while shedding the floating point....
Read more...

Intel Snaps New Grips to HPC Hook

Not content to let the Tianhe-2 announcement ride alone, Intel rolled out a series of announcements around its Knights Corner and Xeon Phi products--all of which are aimed at adding some options and variety for a wider base of potential users across the HPC spectrum. Today at the International Supercomputing Conference, the company's Raj....
Read more...

Short Takes

Supercomputers: Not Always the Best for Big Data

Jun 18, 2013 | The world's largest supercomputers, like Tianhe-2, are great at traditional, compute-intensive HPC workloads, such as simulating atomic decay or modeling tornados. But data-intensive applications--such as mining big data sets for connections--is a different sort of workload, and runs best on a different sort of computer.
Read more...

Gordon Flashes Its Versatility in HPC Workloads

Jun 18, 2013 | Researchers are finding innovative uses for Gordon, the 285 teraflop supercomputer housed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) that has a unique Flash-based storage system. Since going online, researchers have put the incredibly fast I/O to use on a wide variety of workloads, ranging from chemistry to political science.
Read more...

Supercomputers: Still the King of the HPC Hill

Jun 17, 2013 | The advent of low-power mobile processors and cloud delivery models is changing the economics of computing. But just as an economy car is good at different things than a full size truck, an HPC workload still has certain computing demands that neither the fastest smartphone nor the most elastic cloud cluster can fulfill.
Read more...

TACC Longhorn Takes On Natural Language Processing

Jun 14, 2013 | For all the progress we've made in IT over the last 50 years, there's one area of life that has steadfastly eluded the grasp of computers: understanding human language. Now, researchers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) are utilizing a Hadoop cluster on its Longhorn supercomputer to move the state of the art of language processing a little bit further.
Read more...

Titan Didn't Redo LINPACK for June Top 500 List

Jun 13, 2013 | Titan, the Cray XK7 at the Oak Ridge National Lab that debuted last fall as the fastest supercomputer in the world with 17.59 petaflops of sustained computing power, will rely on its previous LINPACK test for the upcoming edition of the Top 500 list.
Read more...

Sponsored Whitepapers

Best Practices in Big Data Storage

05/10/2013 | Cleversafe, Cray, DDN, NetApp, & Panasas | From Wall Street to Hollywood, drug discovery to homeland security, companies and organizations of all sizes and stripes are coming face to face with the challenges – and opportunities – afforded by Big Data. Before anyone can utilize these extraordinary data repositories, however, they must first harness and manage their data stores, and do so utilizing technologies that underscore affordability, security, and scalability.

Progress in Parallel: the Bull Parallel Programming Center

04/15/2013 | Bull | “50% of HPC users say their largest jobs scale to 120 cores or less.” How about yours? Are your codes ready to take advantage of today’s and tomorrow’s ultra-parallel HPC systems? Download this White Paper by Analysts Intersect360 Research to see what Bull and Intel’s Center for Excellence in Parallel Programming can do for your codes.

Sponsored Multimedia

HPCwire Live! Atlanta's Big Data Kick Off Week Meets HPC

Join HPCwire Editor Nicole Hemsoth and Dr. David Bader from Georgia Tech as they take center stage on opening night at Atlanta's first Big Data Kick Off Week, filmed in front of a live audience. Nicole and David look at the evolution of HPC, today's big data challenges, discuss real world solutions, and reveal their predictions. Exactly what does the future holds for HPC?

Webinar: Mellanox Virtual Modular Switch, the Most Efficient 40GbE Aggregation Switch Solution

Join our webinar to learn how IT managers can migrate to a more resilient, flexible and scalable solution that grows with the data center. Mellanox VMS is future-proof, efficient and brings significant CAPEX and OPEX savings. The VMS is available today.

Atlanta's Big Data Kick Off Week Meets HPC Cray

HPC Job Bank


Featured Events






  • November 17, 2013 - November 22, 2013
    SC'13
    Denver, CO
    United States


HPCwire Events