Intergraph offers NT-based 3-D hardware
By J.R. Wilson
ORLANDO, Fla. - A new superwide 22.6-by-12.7-inch, 28-inch diagonal multisync video monitor with a 16:9 high-definition TV aspect ratio, rack-mountable 3-D graphics workstations, and a Realizm V25 3-D graphics accelerator (OpenGL) are available from Intergraph Computer Systems of Huntsville, Ala.
Intergraph officials announced these new offerings at the Interservice/Industry Training Systems and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) in Orlando, Fla., as part of their effort to move high-performance simulation to the Windows NT environment.
The Realizm graphics card, for example, increases the texture-fill rate to 46 million pixels per second, using pixels that are trilinear interpolated, 32-bit true color, Gouraud-shaded, and Z-buffered to create real-time, high resolution, realistic scenes. Combined with the 1,920-by-1,080-pixel resolution of the wide aspect InterView 28hd96 monitor, users can create a far more complete "out-the-window" cockpit display.
At I/ITSEC, Intergraph set up a universal cockpit simulator with three 28-inch monitors to provide a continuous display of nearly 120 degrees.
The TDZ-41-/610 RAX workstation modules, with dual or quad 200-MHz Pentium Pro processors, can be embedded in existing 19-inch rack systems and include 10/100Base-TX Ethernet and an Ultra SCSI (SCSI 3) disk interface native on the motherboard and the ability to support more than two display screens.
Intergraph officials say they hope to place the new systems into a variety of applications, from military distributed interactive simulation, to visual prototyping, to all-around realistic scene immersion for visual walkthroughs of design environments, to virtual reality theaters in which images show on multiple surfaces inside a small room. For training, the company also is promoting the combination of TDZ RAX and Windows NT as "the ideal platform for construction of virtual reality visual simulation solutions, such as reconfigurable simulators."
