Posted on Wednesday, October 21 2009 @ 13:22 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
NVIDIA announced the RealityServer platform for cloud computing, this is a combination of NVIDIA GPUs and software that streams 3D applications to any web connected device.
NVIDIA RealityServer -- the culmination of nearly 40 collective years of hardware and software engineering by NVIDIA and mental images -- enables developers to create a new generation of consumer and enterprise 3D web applications, all with remarkable levels of photorealism.
Automobile product engineering teams will be able to securely share and visualize complex 3D models of cars under different lighting and environmental conditions. Architects and their clients will be able to review sophisticated architectural models, rendered in different settings, including day or night. Online shoppers will be able to interactively design home interiors, rearrange furniture, and view how fabrics will drape, all with perfectly accurate lighting.
The NVIDIA RealityServer platform is comprised of an NVIDIA(R) Tesla(TM) RS GPU-based server running RealityServer software from mental images. While photorealistic imagery has traditionally taken hours or days to create, this first-of-its-kind, integrated solution streams images of photorealistic scenes at rates approaching an interactive gaming experience.
"This is one giant leap closer to the goal of real-time photorealistic visual computing for the masses," said Dan Vivoli, senior vice president, NVIDIA. "mental images fully embraced the concept of GPU co-processing to enable Interactive photorealism anywhere, any time -- something that was science fiction just yesterday."
RealityServer software utilizes mental images iray(R) technology, the world's first physically correct ray-tracing renderer that employs the massively parallel CUDA(TM) architecture of NVIDIA GPUs to create stunningly accurate photorealistic images by simulating the physics of light in its interaction with matter. Because ray tracing is one of the most demanding computational problems, iray technology is designed to take advantage of the parallel computing power of NVIDIA Tesla.
"Everyone should experience the web the way they experience the world, in 3D," said Rolf Herken, CEO and CTO of mental images. "RealityServer offers extraordinary opportunities and far-reaching implications for businesses and consumers, enabling us to interact with 3D content in the form and manner that our brains expect."
