NEWS BRIEFS
Orlando, FLA. — SGI will highlight its innovative new products and leadership role in meeting the requirements of the vis-sim community with a series of announcements and demonstrations at I/ITSEC 2000, held Nov. 27-30 in Orlando.
SGI product offerings include not only visual workstations and servers, but a full line of complete image-generation solutions. Driven by industry demand, SGI now offers turnkey image-generation systems that include the graphics platform, run-time software, databases, displays, systems integration and program management.
“SGI has demonstrated its market leadership when it comes to visual simulation technology,” said Anthony Robbins, president, SGI Federal. “I/ITSEC, which promotes cooperation among the armed services, industry, academia and various government agencies in pursuit of improved training and education programs, is the premier venue for SGI to showcase its recent wins and developments in visual simulation technology.”
At I/ITSEC 2000, SGI will demonstrate its industry-leading SGI Onyx 3000 series and Silicon Graphics Onyx2 visualization systems, as well as its Silicon Graphics 230, Silicon Graphics 330, Silicon Graphics 550 and Silicon Graphics Zx10 visual workstations and InfiniteReality3 graphics subsystem. SGI will also make several new product announcements, including the release of OpenGL Shader, a new software development kit, and OpenGL Performer 2.4, the latest upgrade to its industry-leading IRIS Performer API, for real-time visual simulation graphics.
In addition, SGI will offer a sneak preview of its new graphics cluster systems at I/ITSEC 2000. SGI Graphics Clusters will support demanding real-time 3D applications through a suite of innovative features such as SGI Image Sync precision channel synchronization technology and integrated software such as multiprocess OpenGL Performer to increase performance and realism, and SGI Advanced Cluster Environment (ACE) to simplify Linux cluster administration. These features will be incorporated into a low-cost, Pentium processor-based system capable of driving multiple channels of high-resolution display in a cluster environment. Product deliveries are planned during the first half of 2001.
A U.S. Air Force A-10 Full-Mission Trainer demonstration at the SGI booth, in cooperation with the Air Force Research Laboratory and Aechelon Technology, will show the world’s highest fidelity, fully correlated, multispectral photo-imagery-based simulation. Powered by a Silicon Graphics Onyx2 with InfiniteReality3 graphics, the A-10 simulator will run submeter, photo-imagery databases of the southwestern United States and will also feature a Night Vision Training System used to train pilots for night vision goggle flight.
The SGI video acquisition and exploitation system (VAES) will be demonstrated at the SGI booth. VAES combines industry-leading video and graphics technology to deliver a compact, powerful video-processing solution that transforms real-time video inputs from unmanned aerial vehicles, surveillance aircraft and handheld cameras into useful intelligence products.
The SGI Reality Center 3300W wall display in the SGI minitheater at I/ITSEC provides a high-resolution, multiprojector wall display that facilitates group visualization. Its high-performance BARCO projectors combine to offer up to five million pixels so that 3D graphics can be displayed in stereo or mono, video output, presentation slides and other input sources simultaneously or individually. Driven by an SGI Onyx(R) family system, the Reality Center 3300W wall display delivers awesome image quality and graphics performance.
The SGI booth at I/ITSEC also features an SGI Total Performance 9400 (TP9400) storage array, the highest throughput RAID storage subsystem in its class. The TP9400 can enhance the throughput of nearly any application by combining end-to-end Fibre Channel technology with state-of-the-art 10,000 RPM disk drives (up to 73GB each). It has parallel high-performance controllers with multifunctional cache modules and advanced cache management microcode for optimum performance.
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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