SGI's new Virtual Reality strategy

The strategy announced today reinforces SGI's Virtual Reality Initiative, announced in July 1998, which seeks to promote the broader adoption of virtual reality technology and make it easier to use in practical applications throughout many industries including manufacturing, government, science and education.

The SGI Reality Center 1000D and 2000D desks are typically used in science and research for analysis of computational fluid dynamics, physics and biochemical research and biomedical simulation. Within manufacturing, these products are ideal for computer-aided engineering and data visualization, small assembly engineering design, assembly optimization and training simulations. Government departments use virtual reality desks for battlefield visualization and mission planning.

In early 2000, the company plans to offer an SGI branded three-channel, flat screen, rear-projected display. Featuring Barco projectors, the display will provide an extremely bright image with a resolution of more than 5.5 million pixels in monoscopic mode and more than 3.6 million pixels in stereoscopic mode. The new SGI Reality Center wall solution will display sharper and crisper images from any viewing angle for viewing by 15 to 20 people.

In addition to offering complete virtual reality solutions, SGI also offers extensive services to help customers design and implement immersive visualization facilities. The SGI Consulting team works closely with customers and display vendors to ensure successful systems integration and to help implement cost-effective visual computing solutions. SGI Consulting successfully designed and installed integrated group visualization facilities for the world's leading automotive and oil companies.

The Reality Center 1000D desk is based on the Fakespace Mini WorkBench. This transportable virtual model display system is small enough to use in a standard office or conference room. It features a 31-inch by 28-inch, high-contrast visualization screen that adjusts from nearly flat to a 60-degree viewing angle. The Reality Center 1000D desk comes with StereoGraphics® CrystalEyes shutter glasses for stereoscopic visualization, and a pair of tracked PINCH gloves, which allow participants to use their hands to manipulate three-dimensional computer-generated images. The head-tracked system corrects stereo image perspectives in real time. The Reality Center 1000D desk will also include the VLIB software library from Fakespace Labs, which facilitates custom software development.

The SGI Reality Center 2000D desk is based on the Fakespace Systems ImmersaDesk R2, previously marketed by Pyramid Systems. It is a larger-scale transportable system, suitable for group viewing, which fits through a 33-inch doorway and quickly deploys to a 3.5 foot by 4.5 foot angled screen. It enables interactive stereoscopic application development and implementation as well as presentation display. Developed by the University of Illinois at Chicago, Electronic Visualization Lab, it allows intuitive and direct data manipulation with the use of a tracked hand-held wand. Also included with the Reality Center 2000D desk are five pairs of StereoGraphics CrystalEyes active shutter glasses, including one with an integrated tracker to enable continuously corrected stereo image perspectives in real time.

SGI Reality Center desks are powered by the Onyx2 workstation, which simultaneously computes and processes 3D graphics, imaging and video data in real time. Its industry-leading feature set includes clip mapping, texture paging, volume rendering, anti-aliased full-frame HDTV display, multiple visual display channels and a variety of tools for managing video, audio and advanced user interface devices.