Open Inventor by VSG leverages NVIDIA technology to greatly improve quality and performance when visualizing massive data sets

HOUSTON, Oct. 26 -- SEG 2009 -- NVIDIA and Visualization Sciences Group (VSG), a leader in 3D development solutions for the oil & gas industry, announced today that the newest release of the Open Inventor 3D Graphics Toolkit will employ the NVIDIA CompleX scene-scaling acceleration engine, enabling the visualization and manipulation of huge data sets required for energy exploration.

Open Inventor 8.1 by VSG integrates the CompleX engine, enabling advanced 3D applications to fully scale across the multiple graphics processing units (GPUs) powering NVIDIA Quadro Plex visual computing systems. This technology turns a single workstation into a visual supercomputer, providing engineers and scientists an immersive, ultra-high resolution experience capable of handling extremely large visual scenes, such as those used in seismic interpretation and other oil & gas-related research.

"This innovative package makes it possible to manipulate and access massive scenes in a practical, efficient way," said Jean Bernard Cazeaux, CEO of VSG. "An application powered by Open Inventor 8.1 with CompleX running on a Quadro Plex system delivers a smoother, faster frame rate, and offers a much more interactive experience for engineers and geophysicists when viewing a seismic dataset of 100 million triangles. Without it, the performance would be unbearably slow."

"The value of NVIDIA application acceleration engines integrated into software like Open Inventor and powered by Quadro professional solutions is incredibly significant to the oil and gas industry," said Jeff Brown, general manager of NVIDIA Professional Solutions Group. "Geophysicists can perform large-scale visualization faster and with greater precision -- meaning they can discover new energy reserves more rapidly and cost effectively than ever before."

Open Inventor is an object-oriented, cross-platform 3D graphics toolkit for developing industrial-strength, interactive, 3D graphics applications using C++, .NET or Java. Its easy-to-use application programming interface, extensible architecture and large set of advanced components provide developers with a high-level platform for rapid prototyping and development of 3D graphics applications.

NVIDIA application acceleration engines like CompleX, which are available at no charge, are highly optimized software modules enabling developers to supercharge their products with high-performance capabilities. When combined with NVIDIA Quadro solutions, they unleash advanced creative and investigative possibilities for professionals. Quadro Plex solutions deliver breakthrough levels of productivity and capability, giving geophysicists, scientists, engineers, and other technical professionals the visual supercomputing power they need to tackle today's biggest challenges.

Product Information

VSG and NVIDIA will be demonstrating Open Inventor at the Society of Exploration Geophysicists International Exposition (SEG) at the George R. Brown Convention Center, Houston, Texas, in the VSG booth #2310, Hall C, Oct. 26-29.

For more information about Open Inventor 8.1 by VSG, visit http://www.open-inventor.com.

For more information about NVIDIA, Quadro Plex, and NVIDIA Application Acceleration Engines, visit http://www.nvidia.com/quadro.

About VSG

Visualization Sciences Group ("VSG"), is the leading provider of high-performance 3D visualization toolkits and software for engineers and scientists, delivering advanced 3D software solutions for scientific data visualization, engineering and simulation, materials science and geosciences. Formerly TGS, VSG has been the Visualization Sciences Group of Mercury Computer Systems, from May 2004, before becoming a stand-alone company again on June 2009.

About NVIDIA

NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) awakened the world to the power of computer graphics when it invented the graphics processing unit (GPU) in 1999. Since then, it has consistently set new standards in visual computing with breathtaking, interactive graphics available on devices ranging from portable media players to notebooks to workstations. NVIDIA's expertise in programmable GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which make supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. Fortune magazine has ranked NVIDIA #1 in innovation in the semiconductor industry for two years in a row. For more information, see www.nvidia.com.

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Source: NVIDIA Corp.