Press Release:

BOSTON, Mass., August 3, 2006 - SPEC/GPC‘s OpenGL Performance Characterization (SPECopc) project group announced plans for SPECviewperf 10 during a press conference yesterday at the SIGGRAPH 2006 trade show in Boston. SPECviewperf 10 - the next version of performance evaluation software for systems running popular CAD/CAM, digital content creation, and visualization applications - is anticipated for release in the fourth quarter of 2006.

The SPECopc group expects that SPECviewperf 10 will include the following new features and upgrades: more

Here’s a bit more from yesterday’s meeting with SGI’s ever gracious Louise Ledeen and PipelineFX’s Eric Solituro, senior vp of engineering. Louise’s comment that SGI recently decided to re-enter the rendering business had caught me by surprise, so I wanted to give a little detail about that change of direction.

I thought SGI had left the rendering market for good, driven out by the low cost, off-the-shelf PCs and blade servers of the world.

But only a few months ago, SGI decided to have a go at it again. As mentioned in an earlier posting, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company was encouraged in part by the price/performance numbers delivered by its new Altix XE servers (based on Intel’s latest generation of Xeon dual-core processors). Also in the mix: the interest expressed by engineers at high-end facilities for pairing the cost effective hardware with software that could better handle batch queuing, distributed processing, and render farm management.

SGI feels that PipelineFX’s Qube! product can deliver that. more

Press Release:

Faster Rendering Speeds and Improvements to Modeling, UV Editing and Paint Tools; Free Full-featured Evaluation Version Now Available

Boston — Luxology®, LLC today announced the immediate availability of modo™ 202, a robust update to its innovative 3D modeling, painting and rendering software. Boasting a peak rendering speed that is over 40 percent faster than modo 201, modo 202 features performance gains, tool improvements and innovative extensions to its overall toolset to create an enhanced workflow for artists working in game development, film visual effects, video production, graphic arts and design visualization. Registered modo 201 customers can upgrade to modo 202 free of charge, and a free 30-day full-featured evaluation version is now available for immediate download from www.modo3d.com. more

Press Release:

BOSTON, MA — At the Siggraph 2006 Conference in Boston (booth 2629), Seefile Software LLC is unveiling new software that supports video and web animation file formats in addition to the photo and print formats previously supported. SeeFile‘s product for photo and print media has been praised in recent reviews by Seybold and Studio Photography and Design magazines, and was rated best of Show at the PMA 2005 conference by Shutterbug Magazine. The new 2.5 release adds video and Flash support, plus a number of additional features, and is being offered in new low-priced configurations for as little as $399, or $549 bundled with Mac hardware. An unlimited-user license for SeeFile 2.5, for corporate applications, is priced at $3,995. more