News
RapidMind and RTT demonstrate real-time ray tracer running on the Cell BE at the IBM booth at SIGGRAPH
Boston, MA - August 1, 2006 - RapidMind Inc. is in the IBM booth (Booth #111) at SIGGRAPH in Boston this week, demonstrating automotive visualization with remarkable realism and interaction utilizing the Cell Broadband Engine™; (Cell BE) processor. This ground-breaking application is leveraging the RapidMind Multi-core Development Platform v2.0 which was released to beta customers in July.
RapidMind Inc. has been collaborating with IBM since January through a joint development agreement, where IBM is providing RapidMind’s technologists and engineers with access to the IBM Cell BE processor, and helping RapidMind to incorporate the Cell BE into its developing applications. RapidMind’s customers are then able to develop new applications using Cell BE that can support graphic intensive solutions for gaming, medical and automotive visualization.
RTT AG is one of RapidMind’s early customers and has just announced a high performance, real-time raytracer, RealTrace, as part of DeltaGen, the company’s software for complex 3D visualization. A leading global provider of visualization in the automotive, aerospace and consumer goods sector, RTT created the raytracer using the RapidMind Multi-core Development Platform. The application is being demonstrated on the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell BE), achieving excellent performance.
“We are very impressed by the performance of the Cell BE” said Ludwig Fuchs, RTT Founder and CEO. “RapidMind’s platform has enabled us to quickly demonstrate our groundbreaking RealTrace product on this unique multi-core processor.”
“Innovation is arguably the most important source of competitive advantage for any company,” said Sharon Nunes, Vice President Business Development and Strategic Growth Initiatives, IBM Systems & Technology Group. “By collaborating with RapidMind, we have been able to help them implement a technology innovation like the Cell BE into specific industry applications, which in turn helps RapidMind to deliver products and solutions to their customers faster through the joint collaboration.”
The Cell BE processor is designed for high performance. The architecture consists of nine processor cores on a single chip. One of the cores on the Cell BE is the IBM PowerPC® Processing Element (PPE). The other eight cores are processors tuned for high-performance on computationally heavy workloads in areas such as image processing, content generation, and scientific computation.
“Much of the Cell BE’s impressive performance resides in the eight specialized cores,” said Ray DePaul, President and CEO of RapidMind. “With the RapidMind Multi-core Development Platform, application developers are able to leverage this power with their existing C++ infrastructure without any detailed understanding or reference to the underlying hardware.”
Raytracing provides physically accurate support for effects such as reflection and refraction, which are not easily obtained otherwise. Since RealTrace was built using the RapidMind platform, running on this new processor from IBM was straight forward with the addition of Cell BE support in the upcoming RapidMind v2.0.
“We are excited to have an industry leader such as RTT using the RapidMind platform and changing the way commercial visualization is done,” said DePaul. “This demonstration shows that applications such as ray tracing no longer need to be done in an offline way, but rather can be performed real-time and interactively.”
About RapidMind
RapidMind provides a software development platform that allows applications to take advantage of a new generation of high performance processors, including the GPU, Cell BE, and other multi-core processors. RapidMind enables applications to realize the performance breakthroughs offered by these processors. For more information on RapidMind, visit www.RapidMind.net.
About RTT AG
Realtime Technology (RTT) is a worldwide leading supplier of 3D realtime visualization technologies and services for industrial applications in the automotive, aircraft and consumer goods industries. The company supports its customers not only during the design and developing phases regarding the virtual display of different product concepts (Virtual Prototyping) but also during the marketing and sales stages regarding the presentation of the products in all variants and with all additional options in the Showroom (Virtual Showroom), on the Internet, at fairs or at the Point of Sale.
Among the customers of RTT you can find Adidas, Airbus, Audi, Bertrandt, BMW, Dai Nippon Printing (DNP), DaimlerChrysler, Demag Ergotech, EADS, Fiat, Giugiaro, Inovo Design, Magna Steyr, Maybach, Mercedes, Opel, Porsche, PSA, Samsung, Schüco, Sony Ericsson, Thyssen Krupp, Toyota, Virtuelles Studio, Volkswagen and Volvo.
The supplier of 3D realtime visualization solutions looks back on a remarkable development with average annual growth rates of 50% over the last seven years. RTT employs around 150 people at eight locations. The company is based in Munich. Further offices can be found in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Paris, Brussels, Los Angeles, Detroit and Seoul.
RapidMind is a trademark of RapidMind Inc.
RTT, DeltaGen, and RealTrace are trademarks of Realtime Technology AG.
BladeCenter and IBM are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States or other countries or both.
Cell Broadband Engine is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.