Cheap CAVES from HP

Palo Alto, 29 September 98 A few years ago, immersive environments like the CAVE were scarce and very expensive. They allow design teams to virtually walk through their entire life-size product before the physical prototypes are built. HP now drives the prices for fully immersive environment below the US$ 500.000 mark with its new HP VISUALIZE Center that includes three HP VISUALIZE J2240 workstations configured with VISUALIZE Center, software and integration kit; and a Panoram GVR-120, Immersive Visualization System (6.5 x 2 m cylindrical screen). Smaller work group editions were also announced.

Hewlett-Packard debuted a powerful new family of immersive-visualization solutions that can enable entire project teams -- locally or globally -- to immerse themselves in their data to optimize product development and scientific visualization. These solutions allow design teams to walk through an entire, life-size virtual vehicle, airplane, building or molecule, for example; interact with this data; and resolve design flaws in real time before physical prototypes are built.

HP VISUALIZE Center and HP VISUALIZE Workgroup are targeted for large discrete manufacturers in aerospace, automotive and related industries that are facing intense global competition and extreme cost pressures. Additionally, scientific research, electronic design and telecommunication industries can benefit from these large-scale, high-resolution environments.

The environemnt incorporates HP Distributed 3-D Single Logical Screen, a technology that allows three synchronized workstations and three graphics pipes to drive any OpenGL application, resulting in a seamless environment with 4.8-million-pixel resolution. These systems also drive 3-D stereo graphics across the wide-field display.

In the US, the HP VISUALIZE Center costs $460,000. It includes: Three HP VISUALIZE J2240 workstations configured with three HP VISUALIZE fx6 texture accelerated graphics pipes, 3GB RAM, six 9GB Ultra SCSI disks, CD-ROM, VISUALIZE Center license, software and integration kit; Panoram GVR-120, Immersive Visualization System (6.5 x 2 m cylindrical screen)

The HP VISUALIZE Workgroup 3-D costs $ 298,600 and includes: One HP VISUALIZE J2240 workstation configured with three HP VISUALIZE fx4 graphics cards, 1GB RAM, two 9GB Ultra SCSI disks, CD-ROM VISUALIZE Workgroup license, software and integration kit; Panoram PanoWall 36, Power Wall (3 m x 31 m, rear projection)

The HP VISUALIZE Workgroup 2-D is available for $274,300 and includes: One HP VISUALIZE J2240 workstation configured with three HP VISUALIZE-EG graphics cards, 1GB RAM, two 9GB Ultra SCSI disks, CD-ROM, VISUALIZE Workgroup license, software and integration kit; Panoram Workgroup ViewStation (3 m x 31 m)

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