Headline News
Maestro 3D Dental desktop scanner now available using OpenGL
Sep 05, 2008
Maestro 3D is a three-dimensional scanner for dental and desktop applications, open and integrable in third party CAD/CAM solutions, complete with S.D.K. (Software Development Kit). Maestro 3D control software and user interface are build using AGE3D Engine. AGE3D is based on OpenGL/Direct3D, it has been created for the development of 3D applications with particular attention to the rendering of 3D data and development of games.
'Tropics' demo shows capabilities of Unigine in DX9, DX10 and OpenGL
Sep 04, 2008
A new Unigine-powered ‘Tropics’ demo is released and available for download now. Key features of the demo are dynamic sky with light scattering, live water with a surf zone and caustics, special materials for vegetation, parallel split shadow map for the Sun, and real-time ambient occlusion. It supports all modern graphical APIs: DirectX 9, DirectX 10, and OpenGL, so users can make performance comparison. Both Windows and Linux version are available, plus there is a benchmarking feature in the demo.
Category: Applications • (0) Comments • Permalink
Archipelis is pleased to announce the availability of v2.0 of Archipelis Designer
Sep 02, 2008
The Archipelis company is pleased to announce the availability of the version 2.0 of Archipelis Designer. Archipelis Designer takes a different approach to creating 3D models by simply drawing its shape! Just draw the contour of the various shapes of the model (for example: the head, the body, the legs) and Archipelis Designer automatically merges them and applies textures. It is also possible to use a picture or photo as a background of the OpenGL viewport and follow the contours on it. Thus, very simply and in about ten minutes, it is possible to create realistic organic models and to export them in widespread 3D formats like VRML, 3DS Max, DirectX or Google Sktechup and moreover Second Life. An amazing feature automatically writes Open GL source code (in C language), ready to use & modify for developers. This brand new version 2.0 using OpenGL rendering is much faster, more accurate, can work up to 6 textures, handle 3D interactions, can export the result to the Second Life platform.
Category: Applications • (0) Comments • Permalink
Khronos posts OpenGL BOF slides from Siggraph 2008
Aug 18, 2008
Almost 300 developers and industry leaders gathered to hear the details about OpenGL 3.0. Feedback was positive - great functionality has been added to the specification and the mechanisms put in place to move the specification forward quickly. In particular, Blizzard’s insights into why OpenGL 3.0 met their commercial needs - and the fact that NVIDIA announced immediate availability of OpenGL 3.0 drivers drew rounds of applause.
Nick Haemel (AMD) blog post: OpenGL 3.0 - A Big Step in the Right Direction
Aug 18, 2008
With the SIGGRAPH OpenGL BOF now past, Nick Haemel from AMD has written a blog post about OpenGL 3 and the reasoning behind the choices made. “After testing an approach that would have a drastic effect on the API, requiring complete OpenGL application rewrites and not introducing any of the long awaited features modern GPUs are capable of OpenGL 3.0 takes two important steps to moving open standard graphics forward in a major way. The first is to provide core and ARB extension access to the new capabilities of hardware. The second is to create a roadmap that allows developers to see what parts of core specifications will be going away in the future, also providing the OpenGL ARB with a way to introduce new features faster.”
SIGGRAPH 2008 Student Volunteer program blogs on OpenGL-related news - Wed & Thurs
Aug 18, 2008
SIGGRAPH 2008 Student Volunteer program working with OpenGL.org and FireUser.com have posted thier final blog reports from the SIGGRAPH 2008 Conference and Exhibition.
Wednesday
- CUDA Quadro Plex 2200 D2 does real-time ray tracing
- Whisper quiet OpenGL workstations from AMAX
- DreamColor 30-bit display using Display Port
- OpenGL sessions make big impression
Thursday
- modo 302 has top notch modeling and unwrapping tools with real-time OpenGL rendering
- XSI’s ICE node-based programing enables visual programming of multi-threaded real-time interactive FX
NVIDIA SDK 10.5 Updated
Aug 18, 2008
NVIDIA has updated their SDK 10.5. This all-new collection of OpenGL and DirectX 10 code samples teaches developers how to make the most of GeForce 8 Series GPUs. The OpenGL and DirectX SDKs include a browser, clear code samples, detailed whitepapers, and videos.
Category: Developers • (0) Comments • Permalink
AsdGraph3D Excel Addin v1.2.1 freeware released!
Aug 18, 2008
AsdGraph3D is an OpenGL-based Excel Addin that plots 3D points, lines, line segments, surfaces or water-tight solids directly from user-specified cell ranges within MS Excel worksheets (of one or several open workbooks). Unlike other 3D plotters, AsdGraph3D works seamlessly within Excel, i.e., no flipping back and forth between Excel and a separate, disjoint 3D plotting package. Version 1.2.1 includes both AsdGraph3D Standard (freeware) and AsdGraph3D Professional.
OpenGL BOF went over well, no pitch forks seen
Aug 15, 2008
idr was here has a nice round-up on the OpeGL BOF. The author, Ian Romanick found “contrary to the /. reports, nobody was furious.” One commenter compares the release of OpenGL 3.0 similar to what KDE went through: “it’s a repeat of the business with KDE 4.0. KDE 4.0 was simply the finalization of the libraries and API’s so that application developers could start building their applications against a stable base.” As the dust settles, OpenGL 3.0 is looking a lot stronger than it did on day one.
SIGGRAPH 2008 Student Volunteer program blogs on OpenGL-related news - Mon & Tues
Aug 14, 2008
OpenGL.org and FireUser.com are working with the SIGGRAPH 2008 Student Volunteer program to give students the opportunity to blog about what they are seeing at the SIGGRAPH 2008 Conference and Exhibition. Below are OpenGL-related summaries from Mon and Tues.
Monday
- Stereoscopic 3D (available via Quad Buffering in OpenGL) has a huge presence at the show, particularly stereoscopic 3D for gaming and film / broadcast.
- HP and Dell and Lenovo all announce OpenGL-based 3D mobile workstations.
Tuesday
- Maya 2009 adds a new particle system that doesn’t require writing expressions. It also has a built-in stereo camera rig. Stereo 3D support is apparently being added to all Autodesk products.
- Two student took a tour of the AMD booth to check out OpenGL accelerated real-time lighting, the Radeon Froblin demo, and the new FirePro line.
SPECviewperf 10.1 to measure performance of apps using VBO
Aug 14, 2008
The upcoming SPECviewperf 10.1 will add the ability to measure performance for applications incorporating vertex buffer objects (VBOs) and the latest OpenGL shaders. The new SPECapc benchmarks will evaluate performance of Siemens PLM NX5, 3ds Max 2009, Maya 2009, and Lightwave 3D.
'Modern OpenGL: Its Design and Evolution' course at SIGGRAPH Asia 2008
Aug 14, 2008
The inaugural SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 conference in Singapore is sponsoring a half-day course on Modern OpenGL on December 13th. A long-time implementer of OpenGL (Mark Kilgard) and the system’s original architect (Kurt Akeley) explain OpenGL’s design and evolution. OpenGL’s state machine is now a complex data flow with multiple programmable stages. In this course, OpenGL practitioners can expect candid design explanations, advice for programming modern GPUs, and insight into OpenGL’s future.
Category: General • Developers • (0) Comments • Permalink
NVIDIA provides early OpenGL 3.0 driver now
Aug 14, 2008
Windows XP and Vista developers can now download a new beta NVIDIA driver for their GeForce 8 series (or higher) GPUs. This driver is aimed at developers to start coding to the new OpenGL 3.0 and GLSL 1.30 features. These features are not enabled by default. They can be enabled using the nvemulate utility, as described here.
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OpenGL 3.0 a solid first step to streamlining
Aug 14, 2008
The register has a good followup to the ‘firestorm’ centered around the recent release of OpenGL 3.0. In an interview with Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group which heads up OpenGL, shows great promise within a short time period. Trevett personally hopes OpenGL 3.1 can be delivered in six months’ time, as opposed to the two years it took to craft 3.0. In OpenGL 3.0 we have introduced a deprecation mechanism for the first time in OpenGL’s 16-year history. The deprecation mechanism will let OpenGL planners flag up features that’ll be removed from the next version of the 2D and 3D graphics rendering and visualization spec.
OpenSceneGraph 2.6 Released
Aug 11, 2008
OpenSceneGraph Professional Services announces the release of OpenSceneGraph 2.6, the industry’s leading open-source scene graph technology, designed to accelerate application development and improve 3D graphics performance. OpenSceneGraph 2.6 written entirely in Standard C++ and built upon OpenGL, offers developers working in the visual simulation, game development, virtual reality, scientific visualization and modeling markets, a real-time visualization tool that eclipses commercial scene graph toolkits in functionality, stability and performance. OpenSceneGraph 2.6 runs on all Microsoft Windows platforms, Apple OS X, GNU/Linux, IRIX, Solaris, HP-UX, AIX and FreeBSD operating systems. Updates include:
New osgWidget library for scene graph based graphics user interface elements (beta release).
KdTree support, with automatic KdTree generation on load and use of KdTree during line intersections which massively improves intersection speeds.
Precision improvements t!