NEWS BRIEFS

Mountain View, CALIF. — SGI Federal, a wholly owned subsidiary of SGI, announced that it has entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) for the development, testing and evaluation of selected flight training image-generation technologies, database development and image processing.

The goal of the CRADA is to create enhanced, low-cost solutions that will meet the requirements of aircrew training established under the U.S. Air Force’s Distributed Mission Training (DMT) initiative. AFRL’s Warfighter Training Research Division (HEA), in Mesa, Ariz., is chartered with the research and development of technologies that will fulfill or enhance the capabilities required to meet the objectives of the U.S. Air Force’s DMT program.

Under the CRADA, SGI Federal and AFRL/HEA will develop and integrate into the DMT testbed the capability to acquire, download and ingest space imagery in real time for the purpose of infusion into aircraft cockpit information processing systems and displays of present and future aircraft weapons systems. The capability will be developed to permanently update databases on high-end generators, either in a post-ingestion process or in real time, using formats such as a clip map created as a part of the data conversion to imagery.

In addition, SGI Federal and AFRL/HEA will develop the capability to download Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-type video in real time, display that imagery in the DMT testbed and infuse the video into aircraft simulator cockpit displays. Using this capability, a process will be developed to amend the visual database “on-the-fly” in order to display the incoming imagery in a high-fidelity virtual simulator for the purposes of mission preview or mission rehearsal. With space images, the capability to permanently amend the visual database with geo- and orthorectified image textures will also be developed.

“SGI is a world leader in the training simulation, defense imaging, high-performance computing and visualization markets,” said Col. Jerald Straw, chief, AFRL’s Warfighting Training Research Division. “AFRL/HEA will benefit from this CRADA by gaining an advantageous position with respect to developed technologies and through the transfer of laboratory-developed technologies to industry.”

“SGI Federal will benefit from this CRADA by exposing SGI technologies to the laboratory environment and by gaining access to laboratory-developed technologies,” said Anthony Robbins, president, SGI Federal. “Further benefit will be gained by the development of new designs for use in military and other U.S. government operations.”

SGI Federal was created in April 2000 to further strengthen SGI’s commitment to U.S. federal government customers. The subsidiary is headquartered in Silver Spring, Md., with offices nationwide.

SGI provides a broad range of high-performance computing and advanced graphics solutions that enable customers to understand and conquer their toughest computing problems. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with offices worldwide, the company is located on the Web at http://www.sgi.com .

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