Sun Microsystems' 3D Graphics Accelerator Brings Professional Quality Graphics
to the Data Intensive Petroleum Industry Professional Graphics Launch Targets
Geo-Scientists and Other Power Users
PALO ALTO, Calif., Apr 18, 2000 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Sun Microsystems,
Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today expanded its line of graphics solutions by introducing
the Sun (TM) Expert3D graphics accelerator board for high-performance,
professional quality graphics with texture-mapping acceleration for the Sun
Ultra (TM) 60 and Ultra 80 workstations running on the Solaris(TM) Operating
Environment. The new Sun Expert3D graphics accelerator boards' texture mapping
memory and acceleration capabilities provide the performance, quality and
flexibility that are ideal for visualizing the richly textured seismic data used
in oil exploration. Expert3D is a major extension of Sun's complete line of
professional graphics products, and positions Sun as a clear leader in the
high-end graphics workstation market.
"With today's announcement, Sun has just removed another reason for customers to
buy an SGI box. Now, geoscientists can easily tackle even the most complex
projects with the level of visualization needed to do the job," said Jack
Herzog, director of energy industry sales for Sun Microsystems. "Sun establishes
a leadership position as a professional graphics solution provider for
real-time, interactive 3D visualization, rendering and animation."
"The Expert3D card is designed to allow individuals to have high-performance
graphics on their desktop without requiring us to do any modifications to our
internal software or to vendor software," said Rob Leslie, manager,
Interpretation Applications of Shell International, Exploration and Production.
"The graphics needs of the seismic world differ a lot from those of other
industries. We don't want to run a batch job, and then come back and look at a
picture. We need to look at large data volumes in real time. Any latencies or
hesitations with the displays, or with the rendering are distracting to the
interpreter. If they have a train of thought, and they're trying to understand a
data set, they want to be able to manipulate it, and interact with it real time.
Expert3D meets those needs."
Meeting the Need for Performance, Quality and Flexibility
The following leading petroleum ISVs in the oil and gas industry attest that the
Sun Expert3D graphic accelerator board has already begun to win significant
their acceptance in the oil and gas industry, where it meets an immediate need
for professional graphics delivering performance, quality and flexibility. To
help geo-scientists work more efficiently, for example, today's professional
graphics systems must be as fast as the speed of thought.
"Petroleum exploration probably is the most graphics-intensive industry in the
world today, bar none. Geoscientists need to visualize terabytes of data,
quickly," said Nicholas Purday, product manager for volume interpretation at
Landmark Graphics Corporation. "The geoscientist visualization systems literally
must be as fast as their speed of thought. Otherwise, there'll be great
frustration. By meeting this need for speed, Sun Expert3D actually will help
geoscientists work more efficiently."
Expert3D professional graphics also provide a high-quality visualization
capabilities that geo-scientists need to help improve their interpretation of
large seismic data sets.
"We believe our Sun system-based customers now have access to one of the best
applications out there for volume-based interpretation -- VoxelGeo G.O. The
Expert3D graphics board allows Paradigm an opportunity to work with a Sun
customer base that we didn't have access to before because it now supports the
large data sets and an application base for interpretation of those large data
sets," said Steve Goldsberry, corporate executive vice president for the product
business group at Paradigm Geophysical Ltd. "The image quality of this board
increases performance to a point where you can't help but see a significant
increase in the ability to look at large amounts of data. We at Paradigm
Geophysical have seen an increase in performance of 20 percent and more over
some of the best solutions currently existing in the oil and gas industry."
Additionally, Expert3D's multi-display support provides flexibility by enabling
applications to span multiple displays giving the user a much larger work area.
"Sun's Expert3D Card gives people the high-resolution images they require while
letting them see more data. This is of key importance in finding and producing
oil and gas," said Mark Passolt, visualization development manager for GeoQuest.
"Our focus for the Spring 2000 release of GeoViz, GeoQuest's 3D interpretation
and visualization application, is performance. The Expert3D Card, combined with
the software enhancements we've made, gives users a tremendous performance boost
and provides continuously interactive graphics on their desktop."
With Sun's Expert3D graphics accelerator operating on Sun's Ultra 60 and Ultra
80 workstations, end users can benefit from the performance quality and
flexibility that this high-performance, professional graphics board offers.
About Sun Microsystems
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision The Network Is The Computer(TM)
has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc., to its position as a leading provider of
industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and
allow companies worldwide to ."com" their businesses. With $14 billion in annual
revenues, Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web
at sun.com.
NOTE: Sun, the Sun logo, Sun Microsystems, SunStore, HotJava, Ultra and "The
Network Is The Computer" are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun
Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and in other countries. Netscape
Navigator (TM) is a trademark or registered trademark of Netscape Communications
Corporation.
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SOURCE Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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