VISUALIZATION

BOULDER, CO -- The BP Center for Visualization, offering advanced visualization capabilities for a variety of business and research sectors, has chosen SGI(TM) (NYSE: SGI) technologies to power its state-of-the-art facilities. The center, opening today at the University of Colorado at Boulder and made possible through a $10.6 million gift from BP last fall, features an Immersive Visualization Environment (IVE), consisting of a 12x12x10-foot screened space. Using SGI(TM) Reality Center(TM) visualization solution technologies, the IVE projects high-powered computerized images, allowing scientists and engineers to interact with a natural or artificial environment by viewing it close up and from different angles, manipulating data in real time. ``SGI is our platform of choice for high-resolution graphics and immersive visualization because of its superior graphics, which are balanced with real-time computation and response,'' explained Dr. Geoffrey A. Dorn, executive director, BP Center for Visualization. ``SGI delivers the high image quality and real-time management and display of large volumes of data demanded by not only oil and gas but other industries such as medicine and aerospace. In particular, SGI's capacity for real-time computation using multi-CPU environments and the power and flexibility of multiple graphics pipes are crucial to our research and development.'' ``SGI is proud to be a corporate affiliate and member of the BP Center's Advisory Committee,'' said Dr. Eng Lim Goh, SGI chief technology officer. ``It's exciting for us to join in creating a new kind of multidisciplinary research center, one that will shape the direction of future immersive technologies and collaborative applications development. Research into visualization being conducted here will have substantial benefits for companies across the widest spectrum of industries in the years to come.'' ``Since SGI opened the world's first Reality Center facility in Reading, England, in 1994, the concept has generated excitement in industry, academia and the media,'' said Bill Bartling, SGI director of global energy solutions. ``There are over 100 Reality Center facilities installed in the oil industry and over 500 installed across all industries globally. SGI will be working with the BP Center to increase further the effectiveness of these technologies.'' Reality Center facilities help users arrive at better decisions in less time, providing enormous cost savings while enhancing productivity. They are widely relied upon for real-time, highly interactive working sessions for: Design review and engineering Complex data analysis Critical and/or hazardous training Sales and marketing Scientific research and analysis Education and exploration Command and control operations They are ideal for the BP Center's multidisciplinary orientation, which includes such initial areas of focus as: Oil and gas-related applications Immersive environments and human?machine interfaces Aerospace applications Medical visualization Other potential application areas include: -- Urban planning -- Cognition and learning -- Microelectromechanical systems -- Facilities design and engineering -- Architectural engineering SGI equipment at the BP Center includes: -- SGI(TM) Onyx(R) 3800 visualization system (20 processors, 4 InfiniteReality3(TM) graphics pipes) -- SGI(TM) TP9400 Fibre Channel storage system (3.5TB capacity) -- Silicon Graphics(R) Onyx2(R) RealityMonster(R) workstation (8 processors, four InfiniteReality(R) graphics pipes) -- Three Silicon Graphics(R) Octane(R) workstations -- Silicon Graphics Onyx2 InfiniteReality workstation (4 processors, two InfiniteReality graphics pipes) -- Challenge(R) server (209GB of disk) -- 6 Silicon Graphics Octane workstations -- 2 Silicon Graphics(R) Indigo2(TM) workstations For information visit www.colorado.edu/Research/bpVisCenter