CLOUD

SAN DIEGO, CA -- TGS, Inc., a leader in the development of object-oriented developer toolkits for 3D graphics today announced the availability of Open Inventor™ Version 3.1. This latest release includes: improved octree view frustum culling, improved reliability of Render caching for multiple render threads, improved performance by converting large single primitives into visually equivalent sets of smaller primitives that can be individually culled while requiring no increase in memory usage, MPEG generation allowing users to render a sequence of images directly into MPEG format movie file, optimized render cashing for improved performance, optimized capability to compute normals, compatibility for Visual C++ 7.0, Improved and updated documentation, integration of the dialog master functionality for generating simple platform independent dialog boxes, optimization of remote rendering functionality, and example codes for CAVELib, VRJuggler, and QT. A complete list of capabilities of Open Inventor 3.1 is available in the release notes. TGS offers extensions to Open Inventor allowing developers to "mix and match" the capabilities they need to address their visualization requirements, creating a developer’s toolkit that is customizable to the individual developer’s specifications. The extensions offered include Volume Rendering (VolumeViz), Multi-Pipe Rendering, Terrain Visualization (TerrainViz), Data Visualization (DataViz, formerly included in 3D-MasterSuite), Hard Copy (formerly included in 3D-MasterSuite), Solid Modeling (SolidViz), and Special Effects (FXViz). Also included in the Open Inventor 3.1 release are updates to the extensions offered by TGS. These include major releases of the VolumeViz Library, TerrainViz library, DataViz library, Multi-Pipe library, and adds the new extension for special effects, FXViz. TGS has reorganized this version of Open inventor and its extensions to provide a more powerful and more integrated development environment. In the 3.1 release, TGS is now packaging all the extensions into one install giving the user of the libraries exposure to the entire functionality offered by TGS. "We focused our development efforts toward improving the usability of OpenInventor in a variety of application areas including immersive visualization, collaboration, volume rendering, data visualization, terrain visualization, and the implementation of special effects within applications", says Michael Heck, CTO at TGS, "The added capability in the 3.1 release will allow us to satisfy the visualization requirements of our clients with Open Inventor that were previously not addressable." "Over the past year TGS has broadened the scope of visualizations applications that can now be addressed by Open Inventor from TGS, while at the same time improving the productivity of its users through added extensions and improved quality standards for the product offering," said Steve Lutz VP Sales and Marketing "We continue to strive to identify visualization requirements that can satisfied through added functionality in Open Inventor or by developing extensions that address visualization needs." This new release is available for client updates and evaluation at the TGS web site at www.tgs.com.