VizWorld.com

A huge announcement from RTT today, as they state they will begin to integrate mental image’s iray and neuray, along with RealityServer, into their RTT PowerHouse and RTT DeltaGen products.  Already in use by several high-end automotive and aerospace agencies, the inclusion of mental images technology should elevate their visuals to new levels of realism.

“The integration of iray into our products is a logical continuation of our strategy. mental images’s state-of-the-art approach and the alignment of iray with our strategic hardware and middleware platforms fit perfectly with our high quality and performance standards here at RTT,” says Ludwig A. Fuchs, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of RTT AG. “Whether our clients are designing the aerodynamic body of a high-end sports car or promoting a special-edition jogging shoe, they will have the benefit of better image quality and faster workflows. We look forward to harnessing the power of CUDA GPUs for highest-quality results that will be generated faster than ever before.”

No surprise he would mention CUDA, as mental images is owned by NVidia now.  Read the full release after the break.

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Science iray, mental images, realityserver, rtt

Pushing the limits of the original date of “Late November”, NVidia & Mental Ray have released the RealityServer3 platform.  The free developer edition and documents are available online, along with some user testimonials:

“RealityServer could revolutionize marketing and sales via the web by enabling the world to interact with virtual products in a more realistic and unconstrained way. Our interactive 3D planner, which uses RealityServer, is what attracts customers to mydeco, and the immersive, real-life experience that RealityServer delivers is what will keep them engaged.”

-David Kelly

CEO of mydeco.com, a U.K.-based designer furnishing site.

No word on pricing unfortunately, but documents get very in-depth on how to use RealityServer with several systems like JavaScript, C++, and more,  including some huge system diagrams like this:

via mental images: RealityServer Platform.

Science mental images, nvidia, realityserver

Robert Oschler of ExtremeTech sat down with some of the higher-ups at NVidia and Mental Images and got the scoop on the previously-announced RealityServer product.  He was privy to a live demonstration (the same office-space used previously) and has some great comments on well it works.

Using shared meeting software to pump images from RealityServer to my screen, I saw in real time how a virtual room that existed only in silicon reacted to different combinations of lighting and materials. (See the video below for a demonstration.) The blinds were closed part way, then all the way. A different view of the room was chosen while the time of day was changed with a few mouse clicks, and then another click added a virtual table complete with chairs. After each change, the view changed in seconds to reflect the new choices and the resulting image looked so realistic, that when they showed me the first image at the start of the interview I told them I thought it was a photograph. Without the help of the remote server running RealityServer, each image would have taken my computer hours if not days to render.

Although, I think his article has a few errors (he says that the RealityServer Servers have a minimum 8 GPU’s per server, where I believe that’s a Maximum), it’s a good insight for anyone interested in the product.

via Ubiquitous 3D: Nvidia’s RealityServer. (Linked to the Print version, all on one page).

Graphics interview, mental images, nvidia, realityserver

Just received the official statement from NVidia and Mental Images regarding the RealityServer cloud-rendering solution.

The NVIDIA RealityServer platform is comprised of an NVIDIA® Tesla™ 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.”

Read the full release after the break, and be sure to check out the VizWorld Coverage.

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Graphics, Hardware mental images, nvidia, realityserver

Mental Images, creators of MentalRay, have just released RealityServer2.3, a web-based 3D rendering system based on Service Oriented Architectures (SOA).  All this means it’s a web-services framework allowing devleopers to integrate 3D visualizations via Flash or Silverlight, connected to a high-powered backend running RealityServer.

“We’ve built the core of our online 3D service around RealityServer,” said Alain Chesnais, chief technology officer of SceneCaster, a web service that enables users to design and share 3D rooms. “Working closely with the mental images team, we were able to quickly take advantage of several of the new features in RealityServer 2.3. We’re thrilled to be using it in our ‘My 3D Scenes’ application on Facebook and Friendster.”

via CGDigg: Your daily fresh CG news – MENTAL IMAGES : RealityServer 2.3.

Science mental images, realityserver, web