sobiloff@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (Blake Sobiloff) (07/18/89)
I'm sure most of you folks probably don't read MacUser magazine, so here's an illegal copy of a short article that appears in the August issue: 3-D In, 3-D Out by Salvatore Parascandolo At the recent National Computer Graphics Association (NCGA) show in Philadelphia, Tektronix showed a jaw-dropping hardware/software package called CAChe (computer-aided chemical modeling). CAChe is a molecular- modeling program with 3-D input control, stereo 3-D output, and exceptional speed. If you work with molecular management, those features should excite your; even if you're not a chemist, you may be interested in the hardware components of the system, which can be used separately for a variety of leading-edge applications. First let's consider the 3-D pointing device. Face it: When it comes to 3-D freedom, the mouse and trackball are quite limited. The Tektronix device looks and works much like a trackball, but the ball sits in a shallow cup so it can be grasped and turned in any direction. It has three entirely programmable mode buttons. In the demo system, the buttons were in rotation, translation, and scaling modes in any or all of the three axes. The ball is a serial device, which means it's widely compatible. Tektronix is planning an Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) version for release in late 1989, but no price was announced. The heart of the molecular-modeling system is a Motorola 88000-based application coprocessor board. This 20-megahertz pipelined reduced- instruction-set-computer (RISC) processor is key to the system's speed. Tektronix has also developed FORTRAN and C compilers for developing applications that exploit the 88000 board. The board, called the ImPact Coprocessor for the Macintosh II, is available for $10,495 for a basic configuration with a 32K data and instruction cache (upgradable to 48K) and 2 megabytes of RAM (upgradable to 32 megabytes). The $995 Software Development Toolkit runs under MPW and includes a symbolic debugger, an assembler, a C compiler, and interface libraries for access to the full Mac II Toolbox; the FORTRAN compiler and additional libraries are optional. For live stereo 3-D, Tektronix's stereo frame-buffer board fits in a Mac II and drives a liquid-crystal, stereo frame shutter that convers the monitor's screen. The unit is flicker-free and transparent to the naked eye, but it reverses the polarity of the emerging screen's image at 120 hertz, which provides each eye with a left or right view at 60 hertz per eye. The viewer wears cross-polarized glasses so that each eye sees only the image meant for it. The board is double-buffered, capable of showing two frames while two others are being updated. The 3-D viewing system is not currently sold separately, but it wouldn't hurt to write or call Tektronix about it at P.O. Boxx 500, Beaverton, OR 97077; (503) 627-7337. ---------------- Just thought that this seems like an extrodanary advance for chemical scientists as well as computer-users in general. Now if I could only get my hands on one... :-)! Blake -- ******************************************************** * Blake "Hey, where's *MY* fancy .signature?" Sobiloff * * sobiloff@thor.acc.stolaf.edu * ********************************************************