VISUALIZATION

SAN ANTONIO, TX -- At SIGGRAPH 2002, SGI is showcasing ground-breaking developments and new milestones in its advanced visualization initiatives. Breakthroughs in graphics quality and interactivity, as well as implementations of Visual Area Networking, will drive new levels of insight and inventiveness among creative professionals, engineers and scientists working in the manufacturing, sciences, energy, government and defense, and media industries. As passionate about graphics innovation in its 20th year as in its first, SGI will demonstrate breakthroughs in advanced visualization at SIGGRAPH, the most important of which is called "Project X." Presented in collaboration with the University of Utah, the *Ray technology powering Project X holds tremendous promise for visualizing the most challenging rendering problems and those with the most complex visual effects. Powered by a high-performance SGI® Onyx® 3000 series visualization system, the program's capability for generating massive image complexity creates a breakthrough in realism and interactivity -- advantages that could benefit and transform traditional workflow and discovery processes in the sciences, manufacturing, government, energy and entertainment industries. Using new interactive rendering technology, the Project X demonstration takes viewers through a series of virtual environments with more than 50GB of data accurately depicted using sophisticated lighting, transparency and reflection effects. The extraordinary image quality generated could have significant impact on medical diagnostics, realistic simulation and training, engineering and exploration. "As we mark our 20th year of leadership in cutting-edge graphics, SGI is continuing to make significant progress in image realism and usability. Visualization is serious business, useful to some life-saving surgery, product safety, successful oil discovery, and better homeland security," said Dr. Eng Lim Goh, chief technology officer, SGI. "Project X demonstrates SGI technologies, which, in many cases, are one to two orders of magnitude faster than the competition. By integrating the InfiniteReality graphics subsystem with our massively parallel, globally shared memory system and using the University of Utah's *Ray software, we can achieve interactive rendering of billion-polygon data sets today. In contrast, competitive offerings are only capable of achieving interactive rendering of million polygon data sets." SGI is also introducing the new InfiniteReality4(TM) graphics subsystem, which combines increased performance and advanced features with the ultimate in realism, interactivity and group collaboration. The SGI Onyx family of visualization systems can support up to 16 InfiniteReality4 graphics pipelines, each supporting a different independent user or viewing angle. This allows multi-disciplined design teams to collaborate using a single high- resolution image in a seamless, scalable display. Users can see both detailed results and the big-picture context needed for breakthrough results. For example in auto manufacturing, this would facilitate better inter-departmental communication and enable collaborative decision making, allowing teams to identify and resolve design and manufacturing problems earlier. Specifically developed for the SGI Onyx family of visualization systems, InfiniteReality4 enables users to generate virtual environments or models that are visually almost indistinguishable from reality. Collaboration in immersive environments is another fundamental aspect of advanced visualization in which SGI continues to take the lead. At SIGGRAPH 2002, SGI is unveiling the latest in both SGI® Reality Center(TM) environments for local group collaboration and Visual Area Networking for network-based collaboration. With new mobile device and set-top box capabilities along with data navigation, display and high-performance distance collaboration capabilities, the combination of Reality Center technology and Visual Area Networking creates powerful decision making environments. These innovative solutions can increase productivity and creativity throughout an organization that ultimately leads to faster time to insight. "Visual Area Networking lets users remotely interact with visualization supercomputers anywhere they are, using any client device-wireless tablets, set-top boxes, mobile phones and wearable computers-whether individually or collaboratively in a group. This gives our customers a competitive tool that fundamentally improves the way they make decisions and increases the benefits they achieve from advanced visualization," added Dr. Goh. Key SGI Announcements at a Glance: Project X: Presented in collaboration with the Scientific Computing and Imaging (SCI) Institute and the Geometric Design and Computation Group (GDC) of the University of Utah, Project X demonstrates techniques for visualizing massive scene complexity-such as huge volumetric data sets, smooth surfaces and curves-with unmatched interactivity and realism. Based on the *Ray (pronounced "star ray") technology developed at the University of Utah, Project X demonstrates interactive rendering of more than 50GB of data, with far more accurate representations of sophisticated lighting, transparency and reflection effects than found in traditional rendering approaches. By handling smooth or curved objects and volumes in their "natural" state instead of translating them into millions of triangles, Project X is able to demonstrate rendering speeds equivalent to tens-of- billions of triangles per second and advanced lighting, shading and effects far beyond techniques available with traditional computer graphics. Using an SGI Onyx 3000 series visualization system to generate completely interactive images, the Project X demonstration ushers viewers through a series of submerged themed rooms connected by transparent tubes showing the complex play of light through the surrounding ocean environment. Other Project X demonstrations include: -- The Living Room which illustrates how this rendering approach could be used to improve visual quality and speed design reviews by showing the highly accurate lighting, soft shadows and surface details of objects including diffraction effects from a curved water pitcher -- The Graphics Museum which showcases a historical look at important advances in computer graphics demonstrating renderings of extremely high resolution and curved surface models -- The Science Room which illustrates the extraordinary quality of imaging that could hugely improve medical diagnostics, featuring the "Visible Woman" medical model which allows users to examine the skeletal, organ, vascular and muscle systems of the human body in great detail -- The Galaxy Room which demonstrates the speed and detail with which special effects can be created. It contains all of the solar system's planets and moons, which will all be accurately choreographed with elliptical orbits and painted with high-resolution layered texture maps including reflective bodies of water and swirling clouds casting shadows across planetary terrain InfiniteReality4: Designed for the SGI® Onyx® family of visualization systems, the flagship SGI graphics subsystem enables photorealistic rendering and interactive volume visualization of complex data sets with the best image quality, performance and display flexibility available in the industry. A system-level approach to high quality rendering ensures that enhancements in image-based rendering, dynamic shading and interactive volume visualization are possible with commercially available software. Creative and technical professionals accustomed to visualization systems that can display data amounting to only one-tenth of what the human eye can see will find SGI Onyx family systems with InfiniteReality4 graphics capable of generating the highest quality interactive visual results. These results can be displayed as large as 130 million pixels, allowing users to solve problems with as much relevant information as possible. SGI Reality Center: SGI Reality Center environment at SIGGRAPH 2002 will feature new manufacturing, medical, energy, scientific and government applications created by SGI customers. A sweeping 30-foot by 12-foot curved display will surround and immerse show visitors in live, interactive guided tours of the textures, volume, composition, topical and interior details of exhibits that include: the first 3,000-year-old mummy to be studied without unwrapping or damaging the artifact; ancient Greece's Temple of Zeus; oil fields and other subjects rendered with incredible accuracy. The demonstration features an SGI Onyx 3000 series system configured with 32 processors, six InfiniteReality® family graphics subsystems, 16GB main memory, 3TB of high-performance storage with over 1.5GB per second bandwidth and BARCO DLP projectors for a front-projected, blended, curved display. With new data navigation, display and distance collaboration capabilities, users of more than 570 Reality Center installations can seamlessly integrate complex data from diverse sources into the richest, most realistic decision-making environment available today. Visual Area Networking: Unveiled at the start of 2002, SGI's far-ranging vision for graphics access and collaboration provides universal access to advanced visualization. Visual Area Networking extends the benefits of advanced visualization, high-performance computing and high bandwidth data management to individuals wherever they are working and no matter what computing device they are using. Accessibility from anywhere through any means brings new dimensions to collaboration. Teams who need to share the same visualization to solve complicated, multi-dimensional problems can do so without having to travel to a single facility. Visual Area Networking Successes SGI customers are already putting Visual Area Networking into action in medical, manufacturing energy and sciences environments. The University of Manchester recently used Visual Area Networking in the operating room, when a surgeon was able to access an SGI® supercomputer from a laptop in an operating theater three miles away in Manchester Royal Infirmary. The surgeon was able to see 3D images of the very organ being operated on, and use them to plan each succeeding step in the operation. Early results indicate the potential for dramatically improving success rates on such procedures as the removal of cancerous tumors. Air Liquide, a global provider of industrial and medical gases, installed a new SGI supercomputer and SGI Visual Area Networking at its research and development center in Paris, France. Geographically dispersed teams at their desks in Paris and Chicago can access the power of high- performance supercomputing and visualization technology across the network, aiding the transition of research and analysis into gas development and production. MSX International is a leading supplier of engineering and technical services for automotive and other engineering intensive companies. They have over 90 engineers who perform CAE analysis in the U.K. alone. Visual Area Networking brings the power of an Onyx family systems-capable of handling the most intensive compute and visualization tasks-to each engineer's desktop, for unparalleled insight into difficult problems and creative solutions. At the same time, OpenGL Vizserver helps control costs by reducing the need for numerous expensive desktop graphics systems and the administrative overhead that goes with them.