sow@eru.mt.luth.se (Sven-Ove Westberg) (09/03/88)
We are going to build a CIM(Computer Integrated Manufacturing) laboratory
at the University. In this lab we need some powerful graphics to do
simulation and animations on. The main use will be presentation of
different calulation results.
The models used is very large > 10000 nodes some model may have
100 000 nodes in a finte element program and a lot of time steps.
* interpolate the geometry between the time steps
* interpolate at least 1 more parameter for each node (eg stress, temp..)
* shade with or without color fringes
* allow the user to manipulate the viewing parameters
* 24 bit framebuffer.
* Software selectable video output (eg. Highres/PAL/NTSC ) PAL is a requirment.
* All this in "real time" or as fast as possible
* Good NFS support.
* If it is addon hardware it is a great advantage if it can be added to a Sun.
What about this vendors:
Pixar, PixarII,
Rastertec,
Sun TACC has anyone used it yet?
Silicon Graphics,
Other vendors??
I would very much appreciate answers from vendors as well as users.
Some sort of price indication would also be good.
Sven-Ove Westberg, CAD, University of Lulea, S-951 87 Lulea, Sweden.
Tel: +46-920-91677 (work) +46-920-48390 (home)
UUCP: {uunet,mcvax}!enea!cad.luth.se!sow
ARPA: sow%cad.luth.se@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (only dumb ARPA mailers)
Internet: sow@cad.luth.se
Bitnet: sow%cad.luth.se@sekthsiegel@hc.DSPO.GOV (josh Siegel) (09/04/88)
In article <1203@luth.luth.se> Sven-Ove Westberg <sow@cad.luth.se> writes: >We are going to build a CIM(Computer Integrated Manufacturing) laboratory >at the University. In this lab we need some powerful graphics to do >simulation and animations on. The main use will be presentation of >different calculation results. > >The models used is very large > 10000 nodes some model may have >100 000 nodes in a finite element program and a lot of time steps. > >* interpolate the geometry between the time steps >* interpolate at least 1 more parameter for each node (eg stress, temp..) >* shade with or without color fringes >* allow the user to manipulate the viewing parameters >* 24 bit framebuffer. >* Software selectable video output (eg. Highres/PAL/NTSC ) PAL is a requirment. >* All this in "real time" or as fast as possible >* Good NFS support. >* If it is addon hardware it is a great advantage if it can be added to a Sun. > >What about this vendors: >Pixar, PixarII, >Rastertec, >Sun TACC has anyone used it yet? >Silicon Graphics, >Other vendors?? > >Sven-Ove Westberg, CAD, University of Lulea, S-951 87 Lulea, Sweden. Vendors?!? Ok... The vendors.... Rastertec (Taster Technologies): Add on hardware to sun. Has NeWS and X11 support. A C Phigs+ binding Starts at $45,000 and can go up to $100,000 which the addition of gap boards Between 120,000 and 1,000,000 3D vectors/sec depending on configuration. Don't know what the shaded polygons run... Comes out RGB and doesn't have plans on making a NTSC or PAL version as far as I know A far better product now then it used to be. They even have support for the alliant now. We have a 4 GAP version for our Sun and will get a multi-gap version for our alliant soon. TACC: Add on hardware to sun. Has suntools support A C compiler to compile into TACC machine language. Something like 40K but I might be wrong.. sucks a LOT of power... Comes out RGB... no plans for NTSC or PAL as far as I know. I saw it at the '87 NCGA show before Sun bought the company who made it. When I saw it at the '88 show, Sun still hadn't changed it a bit. When I talked to them last, they said they weren't gonna add NeWS/X support and in order to do anything at full speed, you have to program in TACC assembly. We ended up not buying one because nobody was up to wanting to use it yet. Silicon Graphics: It runs off of a MIPS CPU and uses the MIPS compilers. Has NTSC and PAL support Runs a BRAIN DAMAGED version of NeWS/X11. Starts pritty low and goes up VERY FAST (my 40/70GT was 100K) Runs System V/3... (if you like Suns.. you will hate this machine) Is quite a fast graphics machine AND a industry standard... Personally, I hate my SGI due to software/hardware problems. I can't stand the operating system and there are more bugs in it then I know what to do with. Unfortunitly, it is also the best machine for general software. Everybody supports SGI. If they would throw out their operating system and start again, it would be a good piece of hardware. They just went wrong with system V (uh.. a religious war over OS again?!?!). Pixel (AT&T): Add on to a Sun Starts at about 40K and goes up to 120K Runs no window system Has NTSC and they promise PAL soon. 840 Megaflops and 420 MIPS (I will explain...) Parallel processing. The Pixel is a Ray tracing engine. It uses a grid of 64 AT&T DSP chips plus two 9 DSP pipelines to get amazing speeds. The software library is also very similar to SGI's. Their are two libraries. A Piclib for normal drawings (not Ray traced) and a Raylib. We were at SIGGRAPH and showed hydrodynamic codes down on the DSP's. We were getting 30 to 40 Megaflops out of a 100K machine. Something to look at... -- Josh Siegel (siegel@hc.dspo.gov) I like using a C-47A "puff dragon" to go shooting beer cans with.
burzio@mmlai.UUCP (Anthony Burzio) (09/04/88)
In article <1203@luth.luth.se>, sow@eru.mt.luth.se (Sven-Ove Westberg) writes: > We are going to build a CIM(Computer Integrated Manufacturing) laboratory > at the University. In this lab we need some powerful graphics to do > simulation and animations on. The main use will be presentation of > different calulation results. > You should look at the Hewlett Packard TurboSRX graphics engine. I had the opportunity to compare various platforms running SDRCs' GEOMOD solid modelling program at SIGGRAPH two years ago, against HPs' then top of the line SRX. For the money, HP blew away such machines as the Apollo DN590Turbo, DECs' GPX boxen, and others. The TurboSRX is 3-10 times faster than the SRX, which we are getting as an upgrade. The computer itself is a 9000/350 and I have had no problems at all, including networking to VAX/VMS (Wolongong & Excellan), SUN, and ULTRIX. For people with ULTRIX, this is quite a statement :-) I plugged in the cartridge, selected which packages to install, and then the HP did it all... The best thing I like about HP, which firmed our decision, is their ability to upgrade their computers without charging you mucho-bucks for a basically new machine. For example, the upgrade to the TurboSRX is $15K and the 350- 370 CPU upgrade (~2-3x speed) is a $5K board switch. Trade in programs are available between model lines if necessary. Our HP platform (a 350 CPU (~3VAX MIPS), 16 MEG RAM, SRX graphics, 32 bit plane graphics,450MB disk, cartridge tape drive, LAN box, mouse, knob box (9 knobs), Various system programs (UNIX V, NFS, TCP, X Windows etc.) came in around $65K. The trick is to get a consignment sheet from your HP rep. This equipment is from HPs' demo rooms, but I have had no problems, and all equipment is covered like new equipment. A plug should be put in for the HP sales force. Our local Baltimore rep is EXTREMELY* quick answering my questions. He has been very helpful getting our system up and running in astonishing time (2 weeks from order!). Our DEC rep has not called me or returned my calls in over 3 months. Sometimes I don't see him more than once a year... I am a former VAX man who has been dismayed by a uVAXIII with disk running +100k. Try out the HP equipment, they are giving DEC a run for your money..... :-) ***************************************************************************** Tony Burzio * You want HOW much? Martin Marietta Labs * - Heard from DEC offices all over... Integrated Concurrent Engineering * *****************************************************************************