San
Francisco, Calif. - Nvidia, inventor of the graphics processing unit
(GPU), and mental images, maker of rendering technologies, introduced
the Nvidia RealityServer platform for cloud computing, a combination of
GPUs and software that streams interactive, photorealistic 3D
applications to any Web-connected PC, laptop, netbook, and smart phone.
Nvidia RealityServer is reportedly the culmination of nearly 40 collective years of hardware and software engineering by Nvidia and mental images, says a representative. It enables developers to create a new generation of consumer and enterprise 3D Web applications, with remarkable levels of photorealism, continues the company representative.
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, with accurate lighting.
The Nvidia RealityServer platform is comprised of an Nvidia Tesla RS GPU-based server running RealityServer software from mental images. This 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," says Dan Vivoli, senior vice president, Nvidia. "Mental images embraced the concept of GPU co-processing to enable Interactive photorealism anywhere, any time -- something that was science fiction just yesterday."
RealityServer software uses mental images iray technology, a physically correct ray-tracing renderer that employs the massively parallel CUDA architecture of Nvidia GPUs to create accurate photorealistic images by simulating the physics of light in its interaction with matter.
The Nvidia RealityServer platform will be available November 30, 2009. Tesla RS configurations start at eight GPUs, and scale to support increasing numbers of simultaneous users.
A developer edition of RealityServer 3.0 software will be downloadable free of charge, including the right to deploy non-commercial applications November 30, 2009.