gfield@rivendell.UVic.CA (Glen Field) (03/06/91)
Some folks in one of the labs here would like to do some solid object
modelling. The machines under consideration for doing said modelling
are;
(i) Sun Sparc 2 with GS graphics accelerator.
(ii) Silicon Graphics IRIS workstation.
(iii) NeXT Cube with the NeXTdimension board.
The next seems competitive in price/performance ratio. My concern is
the availability of graphics software. Sun and Silicon Graphics both
have implementations of PHIGS. Is PHIGS or something comparable available
for the NeXTdimension card.
Thank you.
Glen Field gfield@rivendell.uvic.caeps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (03/06/91)
In article <1991Mar6.012537.611@sol.UVic.CA> gfield@rivendell.UVic.CA (Glen Field) writes: > Sun and Silicon Graphics both >have implementations of PHIGS. Is PHIGS or something comparable available >for the NeXTdimension card. Our Long Beach sister campus is supposedly working on this (see the current edition of _NeXT on Campus_). [But where's RenderMan???] -=EPS=-
barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) (03/06/91)
In article <1991Mar6.012537.611@sol.UVic.CA> gfield@rivendell.UVic.CA (Glen Field) writes: >The machines under consideration for doing said modelling > (i) Sun Sparc 2 with GS graphics accelerator. Scrap that. I've never seen any software that actually uses the GS board, even when it exists. I had a Sparc I with GS for a year, and it never sped up any graphics I did (NCSA Image, Mathematica, GKS). In fact, Sun eventually told us the current version of the OS didn't have the right hooks to automagically accelerate graphics. Though they said a later version of the OS (which may be available now) did. I don't know---I only drive NeXT these days. > (ii) Silicon Graphics IRIS workstation. Your best bet for power and existing software. Cost is a bit stiff though. > (iii) NeXT Cube with the NeXTdimension board. Will be hot when it comes online and the software is in place. Definitely will be the price/perf leader. But I think it lacks software definitely---it lacks hardware too! (I.e. it doesn't exist yet, so there has been little time to develop for it.) Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet)