Surface Optics Corporation and NVIDIA Corporation Collaborate to Take 3D Graphics Technology to the Next Level of Realism
San Diego, CA (April 27, 2000) - Surface Optics Corporation (SOC) and NVIDIA Corporation today announced a collaborative effort to develop technology that will become the new standard by which realism will be measured in the 3D graphics marketplace. SOC will take its advanced, proprietary Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) technology and embody that into commercial-off-the-shelf software, hardware and databases that are optimized for the NVIDIA family of graphics processors.
The BRDF describes the directional dependence of reflected energy from a surface or material. BRDF is a fundamental optical property and varies from material to material. It describes the complex interaction of light with all objects in nature. Until recently, graphics hardware only supported the Phong lighting model in combination with Gouraud shading. These approaches are gross approximations to the BRDF and produce real-time computer graphics that bear little resemblance to reality.
SOC's suite of software tools, databases and hardware has been used to bring true physics-based realism to government, military and commercial non-real-time simulations for over 20 years. These products will now be available to the global marketplace. Utilizing SOC's advanced technology, the BRDF can now be implemented on most graphics processors currently on the market; however, NVIDIA's breakthrough per-pixel shading technology provides an optimized solution for implementing BRDFs in real-time.
This unique combination of software, data and support of BRDF in hardware creates the realism in next-generation computer simulations that the government, military, CAD, e-business and commercial gaming industries are desperately seeking. "BRDFs are a great way to represent radiance of a surface, basically how a material transfers energy. Software developers want a method to achieve photo-realistic effects. BRDFs allow very complex per-pixel shading effects to represent realistic materials in real-time," said Doug Rogers, Manager of Developer 3D Tools and Technology for NVIDIA.
About Surface Optics
Surface
Optics Corporation (SOC) is a 23-year-old, employee owned company
based in San Diego, CA. Building upon quantitative optical signature
analysis, SOC is known throughout the globe for its
BRDF technology, spectral and spatial characterization of materials,
high-fidelity multispectral/hyperspectral modeling and simulation of
targets and backgrounds (UV through radar), optical measurement
services, instrumentation design and manufacture, and coatings
design and application. For more information on SOC Technologies, please visit us
at our web site http://www.surfaceoptics.com/,
call 858-675-7404, or send e-mail to Leif
Hendricks.
About NVIDIA
The computing
industry recognizes NVIDIA as the global leader in advanced graphics
processing technology for mainstream platforms, honoring the company
with the most awards in the history of the PC industry. The
unmatched breadth of the NVIDIA product family enables gripping
multimedia experiences for the entire desktop computer market from
workstations to Internet-enabled appliances. In use by large
corporations, small-to-medium-sized businesses, and home-based
customers, NVIDIA products are the solutions of choice for the top
PC OEMs, add-in card designers, and system builders worldwide.
NVIDIA graphics processors deliver superior performance and crisp
visual quality for PC-based applications such as manufacturing,
science, e-business, entertainment, and education. For more
information, please visit the company's Web site at http://www.nvidia.com/.
Surface Optics
Corporation 11555 Rancho Bernardo
Rd. San Diego, CA
92127
Phone:
858.675.7404 Fax: 858.675.2028
copyright 1996-2001 by Surface Optics Corp.
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