Army Research Lab Places Order for New Perspecta Spatial 3D Platform From Actuality Systems.

Business/Technology Editors

Maryland Research Facility Will Explore Possible Military Role for

the Unique 360-Degree Domed Display

Actuality Systems, Inc., a leader in spatial 3D visualization technology, announced today that the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) in Adelphi, Md., has placed an order for Actuality's Perspecta platform and will be among the first to receive Perspecta v1.5, the spatial visualization platform just released last week.

Today's announcement was made during the company's West Coast Perspecta demonstration tour, which moves to Seattle later this week. The Army Research Laboratory provides a wide range of research and development support for the Army, Department of Defense, NASA, and a number of other government agencies.

The Perspecta platform has two components: a unique 360-degree spatial display and Perspecta system software. The platform enables users to render high-resolution spatial images that can be viewed from any angle as the user moves around the display. The ARL will also receive the Perspecta SDK, which is used for application development and migration.

"This is an important endorsement of the Perspecta platform and spatial image rendering," said Cameron Lewis, Actuality president and CEO. "The Army has been extremely encouraging during the development phase of the new release for first customer ship. Perspecta provides the Army with unique visualization capabilities; we're very optimistic about the possibilities for command and control as well as field operations."

Actuality will provide ARL with a fully configured Perspecta platform -- including version 1.5 of the Perspecta display, software, and rendering kernel -- integrated with an IBM IntelliStation M Pro graphics workstation and flat-panel display. The complete system will be mounted on a stabilized rolling cart along with a retractable keyboard and joystick so the whole unit can be easily rolled into any lab or meeting room for use by individuals or in group settings.

The Perspecta display illuminates a record 100 million volume pixels, or "voxels," throughout a full range of 3D locations within a transparent 20-inch diameter sphere. This is unlike 3D displays that require special stereoscopic goggles to simulate multi-dimensional imagery, or flat-screen monitors that render 3D data into flat 2D images. In addition, Perspecta's embedded graphics engine allows fully animated 3D imagery to be controlled and maneuvered from the customer's computer by rapidly computing the data required to project over 5000 images per second onto its rotating screen. The Perspecta display uses the company's Spatial Rendering Kernel, a collection of proprietary algorithms, which slice the user's 3D data into a format suitable for projection into spatial 3D.

More information is available at www.actuality-systems.com.

About Actuality Systems

Actuality Systems, Inc. develops, produces, sells, and licenses the Perspecta spatial 3D platform, a combination of hardware and software that permits 360-degree visualization, simulation, and collaboration. Founded in 1997 in Cambridge, the firm has received venture funding and now operates from offices in Burlington, Mass., north of Boston. Actuality's President and CEO is Cameron Lewis, who, in addition to executive roles at Netscape and PatientKeeper, developed the first anti-virus ASP service at McAfee.com, and headed up more than $400 million in mergers and acquisitions at MedicaLogic. The company's chief technology officer, Gregg Favalora, has been named one of the top young technologists by MIT Technology Review. Company chairman, Rob Ryan, was a founder and former CEO of Ascend Communications, Inc., which was acquired by Lucent in a deal valued at more than $24 billion.