Cities are big complex 3D models and take time to create (model) and render. Various procedural generation concepts have been explored over the years and although some worked in limited or special cases, no one has found the holy grail of realtime city generation. Researchers at Nvidia have experimented using AI as a possible tool. By running video of a … Read more
Ray tracing, as everyone knows, is a simple algorithm that can totally consume a processor. But how much a given processor is consumed is an unanswerable question because it depends upon the scene and of course the processor itself. So, approximations have to be made, and parameters fixed to get a consistent comparison. Then it’s left to the buyer to … Read more
In the process of preparing our 2019 Ray tracing and Rendering report, we have searched for all the ray tracing programs and suppliers we could find. The report is about geometry-based ray tracing and does not embrace field, optical, audio, or other non-3D (virtual or real) ray tracing applications or software. We have identified 71 raytracing programs from integrated to … Read more
Last year Autodesk abandoned its Stingray game engine product. Part of the reason the company decided to can Stingray, the game engine they developed and created from technology acquired with Bitsquid in 2014, was because Autodesk saw their customers ignoring Stingray and using Unreal or Unity. Autodesk realized it made more sense to go to where their customers were rather … Read more
Hexagon AB continues its aggressive expansion into new markets with the acquisition of Belgian CAD software developer Bricsys. Founded in 2002, Bricsys introduced its flagship product BricsCAD as an AutoCAD competitor and that is still the company’s largest base of users. However, the company has a talented team of developers and has added on new products and expanded the BricsCAD … Read more
Epic Games has released Unreal Engine 4.21, an update that ups the ante on Epic’s newfound religion around wireless and also adds considerable power for collaboration and non-gaming applications, especially CAD. For game development, Epic wants you to know the new release enables you to “work smarter, create faster, and produce world-class results with Unreal Engine.” Speed improvements include … Read more
SPECworkstation 3, an all-new version of the benchmark formerly known as SPECwpc, was released on October 31. It is developed and maintained by the SPEC Workstation Performance Characterization (SPECwpc) group, which includes AMD, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Intel, Lenovo, and NVIDIA. Users can download the benchmark free of charge from the SPEC website. Five years in the making The first version … Read more
Just in case you are new to my ramblings, and passions, allow me to tell you about my background and interests. I am an avid game player, specifically AAA FPS single player. I am also a ray-tracing lover, having been involved with it since 1979. And, I am computer graphics advocate, sometimes expert, and always a promoter. Computer graphics (CG) … Read more
We confidently tell ourselves technology works when it disappears. Perhaps the biggest AI shift will slip in right under our noses. In fact, maybe it already has in the form of voice interaction. As evidenced by fruitless arguments with Siri, voice can be among the most frustrating interfaces when they don’t work. But several long-term relationships with Alexa prove that … Read more
Micron Technology, in its 40th year and flush with new revenues from the huge amounts of memory being used by data centers, AI, gaming, visualization, etc., announced at the new event, Insight ’18, its future plans that include support for AI startups and developers. Micron staked out its position as being at the front of several technology transitions and highlighted … Read more
PlantSight combines the real world and digital information to provide a digital twin for plants. (Source: Bentley Systems/Siemens) Bentley Systems and Siemens have teamed up to demonstrate the kind of future enabled by cloud-based computing. PlantSight, a digital twin tool for plant management is a cloud-based tool for plant management built on technology from both partners and it provides … Read more
Xilinx held its annual Xilinx Developer’s Forum (XDF) in San Jose at the ritzy Fairmount hotel. The place was packed and rightly so because Xilinx had a lot to say. Best known for its FPGA, which its stuck in all kinds of systems and machines, the company has building a broad and deep infrastructure for the past three years beginning … Read more
