Mental Images purchases 16-Processor SGI Origin 3400 systemAmsterdam 14 September 2001 Mental Images of Berlin, Germany, recently purchased a 16-processor SGI Origin 3400 server with 4GB system memory network interface cards and storage system. The modular OS-based SGI Origin 3400 server is currently being used as Mental Images's main platform for the development of its host and thread parallel software products, including the high-performance, photo-realistic rendering software mental ray and mental matter, proprietary, highly modular modelling technology. Users of Mental Images products include most of the leading visual effects and digital film studios, game developers and companies in the automotive and aerospace industries. Mental ray 3.0, the most recent version of mental ray, will be released commercially in October and will feature expanded capabilities developed on the SGI 2000 series and SGI Origin 3400 servers.
Mental Images and Incremental Images, a subsidiary of Mental Images, will also use the new SGI Origin 3400 system to further develop Reality Server, the interactive, scalable, server-based, multi-user 3D graphics platform for Internet and intranet applications. Those applications include, among others, remote wireless repair and maintenance using handheld devices; collaborative engineering, design and medical applications; and on-line interactive multi-user games.
"We needed a 64-bit large parallel system with at least 16 processors for debugging highly complex parallel codes. The flexibility of the SGI NUMA system architecture of the SGI Origin 3400 server enables us to use 64-bit MIPS processors now, and later on we will be able to use the Intel 64-bit processors that SGI is working on incorporating in a CPU module for the SGI Origin 3000 series servers. In addition, we believe that using SGI IRIX together with ProDev WorkShop, the sophisticated software development and debugging tool from SGI, is still the best development environment in terms of productivity gains for the initial development of such software as mental ray before the software is subsequently ported to all other supported platforms. Also, every night the SGI Origin 3400 server is used to compute several thousand images from as many well-defined test scenes using the most recent build of the software under development in an automated process to detect any regression and to evaluate performance gains", stated Rolf Herken, president and director of R and D, Mental Images.
An SGI customer since opening its doors in 1986, Mental Images developed its high-end mental
ray software predominantly on the SGI IRIX platform. Replacing an SGI 2000 series server, the
high-performance SGI Origin 3400 system easily integrated into Mental Images' heterogeneous
development and computing environment, which also includes several Silicon Graphics Indy,
Silicon Graphics Indigo2, and Indigo2 Extreme workstations; Silicon Graphics Octane and Silicon Graphics O2 visual workstations; and an SGI Origin 200 system.
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