ENGINEERING

TORONTO, CANADA -- Alias/Wavefront(TM), an SGI (NYSE:SGI) company, announced today that several of its employees have recently been granted patents from the U.S. Patent Office for innovations in 3D animation and surface modeling software development. The technology inherent in the five patents has already been applied to the company's software families, Maya® for the entertainment industry and StudioTools(TM) for industrial design. Alias/Wavefront now holds a total of 30 patents for its technical achievements in computer graphics. ``Alias/Wavefront has a long history of developing ground-breaking products and technology,'' states Jos Stam, research scientist at Alias/Wavefront and recipient of two of the five patents. ``It is extremely rewarding to work for a company that makes it a priority to foster innovation.'' Patents were awarded to Jos Stam and Duncan Brinsmead, for inventing a method of producing fluid-like animations using a rapid, stable Navier-Stokes solver; Dick Rice and Craig McPheeters, for generating a curve through points residing on underlying geometries in a three dimensional space; Dick Rice and Nikki Rohm, for developing curve and surface modeling based on point cloud data; Peter Liepa, for devising a system and method for generating planar maps of three dimensional surfaces; and Jos Stam, for inventing a method for modeling light reflected from anisotropic and diffracting surfaces. ``Each of these patents is not only a demonstration of the depth of creativity and technical excellence of our people, it also shows how Alias/Wavefront software products provide powerful, distinct solutions that you can get nowhere else,'' explains Bill Buxton, Alias/Wavefront chief scientist.