Redwood City, Calif. -- Division announced dVISE for Windows NT, designed to bring high-quality, workstation-class virtual reality to the PC. dVISE for NT is expected to open new markets for PC-based virtual reality applications, including virtual prototyping for engineers and designers, marketing and promotional product presentations, detailed simulations for industrial training, and collaborative working across corporate Intranets and the Internet. "Many of our existing customers have requested a PC version of dVISE because of their need to broaden the use of sophisticated virtual reality tools across their enterprises," said Charles Grimsdale, Division's president and CEO. "Having the same software available on the PC means they can extend their use of VR to new fields and increase the contribution of this technology within their organizations." dVISE for NT is a port to the PC of the existing dVISE for UNIX software. It includes the following features: photorealistic rendering; Internet-ready multi-user support for enterprise applications; a comprehensive set of CAD converters and geometry optimization tools; a set of behavioral characteristics for virtual objects; and 3D world authoring tools that do not require programming skills. Rendering features typically found only on high-end graphics workstations are included in dVISE for NT, such as Gouraud shading for natural-appearing light gradients, automatic level-of-detail switching for complex geometries, 24-bit color and texturing, and environment mapping for simulating reflections. dVISE for NT is directly compatible with dVISE for UNIX; virtual environments can be readily transferred between the two platforms without modification. dVISE for NT supports SuperVGA graphics cards and workstations with OpenGL graphics accelerators. It also supports multi-processor, high-performance PC workstations such as the new TDZ system from Intergraph Computer Systems.
Division Launches Multi-User Virtual Reality for NT
July 12, 1996