jules@zen.UUCP (Julian Perry) (04/12/88)
I've just read about the HP-835 TurboSRX in 'eXchange' (a publication about
HP products) and am drooling over it. Wow - I want one. We currently have
a fully configured HP-350 SRX and are very impressed with what it can do
but this TurboSRX must really soak up the Watts (the normal SRX has 2 power
sockets (rated at 8 amps each)).
But ..... (now to the real point of the posting)
What the heck are:
"Multiple obscurable movable accelerated (MOMA) windows allowing
multiple windows (up to 32) to be created moved obscured and
simultaneously accelerated."
I'm sure I missed something in my somewhat limted education....but what
are 'accelerated windows'.
Jules [the well and truly awed]
P.S. For those who aren't in the know, the TurboSRX is like the normal
SRX (a real time solid rendering graphics system - 16 million
colours simultaneously, 16-bit Z buffering, multiple light sources,
surface shading and lots lots more) but with a speed increase of
3-10 times (just tell me how?) and loads more bits done directly
in hardware or microcode - radiosity, ray-tracing, Gouraud shading,
etc etc etc
--
IN-REAL-LIFE: Julian Perry
E-MAIL: jules@zen.co.uk || ...!mcvax!ukc!zen.co.uk!jules
PHONE: +44 532 489048 ext 217
ADDRESS: Zengrange Limited, Greenfield Road, Leeds, England, LS9 8DBdgs@hpfclm.HP.COM (Dan Schmidt) (04/16/88)
> HP products) and am drooling over it. Wow - I want one. We currently have > a fully configured HP-350 SRX and are very impressed with what it can do > but this TurboSRX must really soak up the Watts (the normal SRX has 2 power > sockets (rated at 8 amps each)). > > But ..... (now to the real point of the posting) > > What the heck are: > "Multiple obscurable movable accelerated (MOMA) windows allowing > multiple windows (up to 32) to be created moved obscured and > simultaneously accelerated." > > I'm sure I missed something in my somewhat limited education....but what > are 'accelerated windows'. MOMA window are windows into which the graphics acceleration of the hardware may be applied. On the SRX you can effectively only drive one graphics window whereas on the TurboSRX, 32 are supported. The microcode context switches for each window to run simultaneously. > > Jules [the well and truly awed] > > P.S. For those who aren't in the know, the TurboSRX is like the normal > SRX (a real time solid rendering graphics system - 16 million > colours simultaneously, 16-bit Z buffering, multiple light sources, > surface shading and lots lots more) but with a speed increase of > 3-10 times (just tell me how?) and loads more bits done directly > in hardware or microcode - radiosity, ray-tracing, Gouraud shading, > etc etc etc The ray-tracing is strictly a software extension that allows starbase to render an SRX database as a ray traced image. Radiosity is another software extension except in this case it is "hardware-assisted". Radiosity models the inter-reflections of diffuse light between surfaces of the environment. The strengths of the radiosity method are highly realistic lighting, shading, and shadowing effects, soft shadowing, and view independence. View independence allows a user to change his view at any time and not have to recalculate the radiosity effects. Other new features in the TurboSRX include: Quadrilateral Mesh and Triangle Strip primitives with up to 50K light-sourced polygons/second. Pixel Pan & Zoom and Frame Buffer Blending for imaging applications. Hardware Cursors to unload the CPU of cursor updates. 6th Order NURBS with Trimming (the SRX had 4th Order). Point and Outline primitives for PHIGS+ compatibility. Extended lighting support. 3-10X overall performance improvement over the SRX by simply relinking your software. (If you switch from polygons to meshes, however, you can get ~20X performance.) Dan Schmidt, Hewlett-Packard Graphics Technology Div., Fort Collins, Colorado {ihnp4 | hplabs}!hpfcla!dgs, 303-229-3734