Caligari announces trueSpace 2.0 for Windows; Upgrade to 3D graphics and animation package provides enhanced realism and increased productivity.LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 8, 1994--Caligari Corp. (Mountain View, Calif.) Tuesday announced version 2.0 of trueSpace for Windows, a major upgrade to this powerful, award-winning 3D graphics and animation software which makes 3D graphics accessible to 2D illustrators and multimedia producers. trueSpace 2.0 features real-time solid rendering of 3D objects, 3D boolean operations Noun 1. boolean operation - an operation that follows the rules of Boolean algebra; each operand and the result take one of two values binary arithmetic operation, binary operation , field rendering for improved broadcast video quality, auto dimensioning and numerical entries for CAD and technical illustration, plus much more. Available in the first quarter of 1995, trueSpace 2.0 continues to carry a suggested retail price of $795. "trueSpace 2.0 represents a giant leap forward in the evolution of 3D modeling, rendering and animation technology," said Roman Ormandy, president and founder of Caligari Corp. "Our new integrated solid rendering is optimized to take advantage of the newest generation of 3D graphics chips. For the first time on the Windows platform, the user can interact with objects and scenes in a way that is matched to human perception." "trueSpace continues to serve the needs of the professional 3D artist who is looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a less expensive but powerful Windows-based alternative to DOS or workstation-based 3D animation programs," said Jack Strange, vice president of sales and marketing at Caligari Corp. "But even more significantly, trueSpace provides hundreds of thousands of users of 2D graphics and illustration software a clear and complementary migration path toward usable 3D graphics and animation." New Solids and 3D Accelerated Graphics Offering workstation-class modeling performance for the first time under Windows, trueSpace 2.0 enables the real-time rendering of 3D objects as solids. Wireframe An umbrella term for a general outline of some structure. For example, the rough design of Web pages may be called wireframes. See wireframe modeling. views are still invaluable for point-editing, but real-time rendering permits users to display objects as realistic solids, rather than as meshes, in either true perspective space or for reference in sub-windows. trueSpace's real-time solid rendering capabilities are further designed to take advantage of the new breed of 3D acceleration chips and graphics boards. 3D Booleans trueSpace 2.0 now offers advanced 3D boolean operations, including additive, subtractive sub·trac·tive adj. 1. Producing or involving subtraction. 2. Of or being a color produced by light passing through or reflecting off a colorant, such as a filter or pigment, that absorbs certain wavelengths and transmits or and differential set operations. Booleans enable users to build complex shapes quickly and easily by simulating the real-world effects of chiseling, drilling holes and fusing 3D shapes together. In version 2.0, Caligari has also optimized trueSpace's code for performance and smoother integration. New Video Rotoscoping Creating animated characters by tracing an action movie with real actors frame by frame. Performed via the computer today, rotoscoping was originally accomplished in the early 1900s by projecting each movie frame onto a frosted glass easel, from which the illustrator traced and redrew the and Field Rendering trueSpace users can now perform video rotoscoping through the enabled use of animated materials and textures on the surfaces of objects. Improving upon its broadcast video capabilities, version 2.0 provides field rendering, a technique which enables users to double the NTSC (National TV Standards Committee) The committee that developed the television standards for the U.S, which are also used in Canada, Japan, South Korea and several Central and South American countries. Both the committee and the standard are called "NTSC. and PAL standard frame rate from 30 frames per second (fps) to 60 fps. This capability, essential for professional videographers, enhances resolution and reduces flicker flicker: see woodpecker. flicker Any of six species of New World woodpeckers (genus Colaptes) noted for spending much time on the ground eating ants. . Other Tools for Realism trueSpace 2.0 includes a host of other tools that enhance realism and visualization. Version 2.0 features a motion blur tool which creates or replicates the human perception of an object or a whole scene in motion, as well as procedural textures An algorithmic way of describing a texture. Unlike a bitmapped texture, in which the texture is represented as a bitmap, a procedural texture describes the texture mathematically. , non-tiling natural textures of wood, granite and marble. Parameters such as roughness, scale and color are user-definable. Users can also modify the hyperfocal distance Noun 1. hyperfocal distance - the distance in front of a lens that is focused at infinity beyond which all objects are well defined and clear distance - the property created by the space between two objects or points to achieve depth of field and determine which objects are in sharp focus and which are blurred. The ability to modify depth of field adds further "photographic" realism to trueSpace scenes. New Features for CAD and Design Applications With new features like auto dimensioning, trueSpace 2.0 is more productive for CAD and technical illustrations. Auto dimensioning creates and attaches dimension lines between any two vertices The plural of vertex. See vertex. on any trueSpace object. Significantly, the units of measurement Units of measurement Values, quantities, or magnitudes in terms of which other such are expressed. Units are grouped into systems, suitable for use in the measurement of physical quantities and in the convenient statement of laws relating physical quantities. always remain perpendicular to the user's line of sight regardless of the object's orientation in three dimensions. As objects are modified, the units of measurement are automatically updated to show the proper dimensions. trueSpace 2.0 also gives users the ability to assign coordinates for the location of objects in space. Numerical entries allow for the creation, location, rotation and translation of objects with CAD precision in point-edit mode. New Supported File Formats In addition to supporting 3D formats such as AutoCAD.dxf, 3D Studio, WaveFront Noun 1. wavefront - (physics) an imaginary surface joining all points in space that are reached at the same instant by a wave propagating through a medium wave front , Imagine and LightWave, and the import of standard image formats like .bmp and .tga, trueSpace now supports PostScript, Adobe Illustrator A full-featured drawing program for Windows and Macintosh from Adobe. It provides sophisticated tracing and text manipulation capabilities as well as color separations. Included is Adobe Type Manager and a selection of Type 1 fonts. , TIFF and .gif import capabilities, as well as FLIC FLIC - Functional Language Intermediate Code. An intermediate language used in the Chalmers LML compiler. ["FLIC - A Functional Language Intermediate Code", S. Peyton Jones <simonpj@dcs.gla.ac.uk> et al, RR 148, U Warwick, Sep 1989]. and JPEG JPEG in full Joint Photographic Experts Group Standard computer file format for storing graphic images in a compressed form for general use. JPEG images are compressed using a mathematical algorithm. export filters. Interactive 3D Viewer for Windows In a breakthrough move designed to bring 3D technology to the broadest base of graphics users, Caligari trueSpace 2.0 now includes viewSpace, a free, fully functional, three-dimensional viewer that enables any Windows user to view and interact with any 3D object or scene that can be imported via any trueSpace-supported format. Available now and downloadable via CompuServe, America Online See AOL. , the Internet or direct from Caligari, viewSpace allows users to explore and even "wander around" models or scenes in real-time, regardless of whether they have Caligari trueSpace or another compatible 3D graphics package installed on their computer. "In the past, PC applications costing thousands of dollars have produced walkthroughs or flythroughs of 3D models as linear 2D flics or videos that could be simply started, played and stopped. Sure, they're photorealistic Having the image quality of a photograph. , but they're still just `movies.' "But viewSpace is a first-generation `wander-through' product, where users can render, view and explore models freely, and stop at any point just to walk around and actually become part of the scene in real-time -- all for free," said Jack Strange, vice president of sales and marketing at Caligari Corp. "viewSpace is a breakthrough for the entire 3D graphics industry." Pricing and Availability Caligari trueSpace 2.0 will ship during the first quarter of 1995 with a suggested retail price of $795. The upgrade is $149 to current registered trueSpace users. Upgrades are free for customers who purchase trueSpace 1.0 after Nov. 14, 1994 until the product ships. About Caligari Corp. Caligari Corp. is a leading provider of workstation-class 3D graphics software for graphics, multimedia and video professionals using Windows. Award-winning Caligari trueSpace combines the real-time direct manipulation of 3D objects and professional-quality output with an innovative icon-based interface. Caligari Corp. was founded in 1986 as Octree Software initially developing 3D applications for the Amiga A personal computer series introduced in 1985 by Commodore. Amigas gained a reputation early on as advanced graphics and multimedia machines, and NewTek's Video Toaster application brought it to the forefront of economical, high-end video editing. . Caligari Corp. is headquartered at 1955 Landings Dr., Mountain View, Calif. 94043. Phone: 800/351-7620 or 415/390-9600. Fax: 415/390-9755. -0- Note to Editors: Caligari, Caligari trueSpace and viewSpace are trademarks of Caligari Corp. Other company and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. CONTACT: Caligari Corp.
Jack Strange, 415/390-9600
or
McLean PR
Kim Haas, 415/513-8800
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