Imagination previews Brazil 3.0 Beta running on OpenRL at SIGGRAPH 2011

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09 August 2011

Vancouver,Canada, 9 August 2011: Imagination Technologies, aleading multimedia and communications technologies company, is showing withpartners the first examples of a growing portfolio of solutions based onthe new Brazil™ 3.0 beta interactive ray tracing renderer, built usingImagination’s ground-breaking Caustic ray tracing technologies including theOpenRL™ API, at SIGGRAPH 2011 in Vancouver Canada (Booth 129, August 9-11).

Imagination isdemonstrating the beta version of its powerful new rendering engine, calledBrazil 3.0, to address the next generation of high quality fully interactiveray traced rendering across a broad range of markets from CAD and industrialdesign through to gaming and cinematic quality content creation. Brazil 3.0embraces the features and capabilities of a world class renderer, but introducesfully dynamic geometry support enabling full rendering and manipulation of raytraced rendered objects on the fly.

Brazil 3.0 is acompletely new renderer implementation, designed from the ground up forreal-time, interactive high quality visualization. Thanks to the speed ofBrazil 3.0, users can now edit everything in a scene on the fly – includinggeometry, lights, materials and shaders - enabling truly interactive real-timehigh quality ray tracing-based visualization.

Brazil 3.0 isbuilt using OpenRL, Imagination’s ray tracing API that it intends to promote asan open industry standard. OpenRL is designed to work on any graphics hardware,including Imagination’s forthcoming Caustic Professional ray-tracing boardlevel solutions.

Brazil 3.0builds on the success and renowned capabilities of the Splutterfish Brazil RSbatch-based rendering system, one of the industry’s most highly respected andwidely recognized cinematic quality renderers. Brazil RS is still used by manyindustry leaders today more than ten years after it was first conceived.

When Brazil 3.0is released, artists and designers who have built up libraries of shaders andmaterials based on Brazil RS 2.0 maps and materials will be able to use them inBrazil 3.0, creating a convenient path for users wishing to migrate from theBrazil RS 2.0 renderer to Brazil 3.0 based solutions.

The Brazil 3.0SDK beta enables Caustic Insider ecosystem partners to develop plug-ins to anytool environment or other application. Partners are using the Brazil 3.0 SDKbeta to start developing plug-ins to create fully integrated viewports withinwell-known tool environments, delivering high quality ray traced imagery in atruly interactive environment for the first time. It has been integrateddirectly into the 3D viewports of many of the industry's most popularindustrial design packages, including Autodesk® Maya® and Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2012,and Robert McNeel & Associates Rhinoceros®. 

Now artists and designerscan create and visualize concept models right within their favorite modelingtool, eliminating the necessity and burden of exporting scenes to a third-partydesign visualization package. Several examples of these plug-ins will bedemonstrated at SIGGRAPH 2011 on Imagination’s booth.

The Brazil 3.0SDK is based on OpenRL, the only ray tracing API that is fully deviceindependent and can leverage multiple compute devices simultaneously. Builtusing similar paradigms to those used in the Khronos family of OpenGL ES,OpenGL and OpenCL APIs, OpenRL has the unique ability of supporting dynamicgeometry by updating its acceleration structure to account for transformations,and vertex modifications to any model within the scene.

Expertpresentations will take place through the day at the SIGGRAPH 2011 Exhibitionon the Imagination booth #129, showing the benefits of interactive visualizationin CAD and creative content creation applications, including demonstrations ofreal time ray-traced viewport rendering with fully dynamic geometry tomanipulate the rendered object on the fly. 

The Brazil 3.0SDK beta programme is open now to all software tools developers. Contactcausticpro@imgtec.comfor more details.

Editor’s Notes

(1)  Splutterfish, CausticGraphics and Imagination Technologies

Splutterfish, developers of the Brazil RS2.0 renderer, was acquired by Caustic Graphics in 2009. Caustic Graphics wasacquired by Imagination Technologies in December 2010.

(2)  Brazil 3.0 SDK(Beta)

The Brazil™ 3.0 SDKis a real-time, fully interactive ray tracing-based renderer suitable for awide range of 3D graphics applications. It is based on OpenRL, which enables itto be highly interactive, rendering photorealistic scenes as well as being ableto be accelerated using chips containing Caustic ray tracing technologies. Imaginationwill be releasing the production version of Brazil 3.0 SDK in Q4 2011. Brazil3.0 is a rich, full production renderer that is easy to use yet delivers highquality product visualization. It features a smooth migration path for existingBrazil RS 2.0 users, who will be able to migrate easily their Brazil RSshaders, materials and other assets to Brazil 3.0.

(3)  OpenRL API 1.0(Beta)

OpenRL™ (OpenRay Tracing Library) is the world's first device-independent API for writingray tracing applications across a wide range of graphics hardware devices fromAMD®, Intel®, and NVidia®, as well as Imagination’s Caustic Professional boardsand other platforms incorporating Caustic ray tracing technology in thefuture.  Imagination will be releasing theproduction version of the OpenRL 1.0 SDK in Q4 2011.

(4)  Caustic ray-tracing technology

Caustic raytracing technology is changing how interactive cinema-quality graphics will beproduced, used, and enjoyed. The technology uses a unique, patented approachwhich fundamentally changes the performance and cost metrics for productionquality ray-traced images without cutting corners for quality or functionality.Future generations of Caustic ray tracing technology will be ultimately integratedwith Imagination’s PowerVR GPU IP cores, delivering a price/performance level thatis set to change the world’s perception of the cost and accessibility ofreal-time, cinematic quality ray tracing.

About Imagination Technologies

ImaginationTechnologies Group plc (LSE:IMG) – a global leader in multimedia andcommunication technologies – creates and licenses market-leading multimedia IPcores for graphics, video, and display processing, multi-threaded embeddedprocessing/DSP cores and multi-standard communications and connectivityprocessors. These silicon intellectual property (IP) solutions forsystems-on-chip (SoC) are complemented by platform level IP and services, astrong array of software tools and drivers and extensive developer andmiddleware ecosystems. Target markets include mobile phone, handheldmultimedia, home consumer entertainment, mobile and low-power computing, andin-car electronics. Its licensees include many of the leading semiconductor andconsumer electronics companies. Imagination has corporate headquarters in theUnited Kingdom, with sales and R&D offices worldwide. See:www.imgtec.com.

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