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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / AUGUST 18, 2003; VOL. 2 NO. 33
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Breaking News -
General:
Singapore University, SGI Unveil
New Reality Theater
SGI and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore announced the
opening of the NTU Reality Theater, Southeast Asia's first virtual reality
center for institutions of higher learning. A joint project between NTU and
SGI, the facility will enhance collaborative research in biological and
medical science, scientific visualization, virtual engineering, civil
contingency planning, education, and digital media.
"Several NTU research centers are conducting leading-edge work in computer
graphics, scientific visualization, simulation and animation," explained
Associate Professor Tony Chan, director of the Center for Advanced Media
Technology (CAMTech). "The Reality Theater will enhance their capability and
the quality of their work. NTU strives to be the best academic institution
within a world-class education system, and this addition will be a further
step in that direction."
The Reality Theater will be made available to all NTU faculties for
teaching
and research and will also be available to external enterprises and government
agencies for relevant applications and projects. CAMTech, a joint research and
development center between the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics of
Darmstadt, Germany, and NTU, will manage the theater.
"It is an honor to play a role in helping NTU reinforce its position as an
innovator among Southeast Asian universities," said John Kan, Ph.D., managing
director at SGI. "If a single picture can speak a thousand words, imagine the
educational benefits students can reap from a 3D environment. SGI has had
extensive experience in setting up Reality Center facilities and produces
powerful systems able to easily manipulate the large data sets which virtual
reality centers routinely utilize."
The Reality Theater provides seating for up to 91 participants. Powered by
a
16-processor SGI Onyx 3800 visualization system, it provides a powerful
collaborative computing environment within which users can engage in such
activities as interactive, real-time engineering and design review, data
analysis, critical training or command-and-control operations.
"SGI is the leading vendor for high-performance computer graphics and
visualization," said Professor Chan. "We can now visualize multi-gigabyte,
high-resolution data and show both researchers and students topics and
concepts that could never have been shown before. As an educational tool, the
Reality Theater will definitely enrich the classroom learning experience with
a new dimension."
"The possible uses of an SGI Reality Center facility are only limited by
the
imagination," SGI's Kan concluded. "The realistic environments it provides
make it easier for researchers to visualize solutions, from medical
breakthroughs to crisis simulations to urban planning. It can also help
preserve our heritage by reconstructing ancient sites in 3D for future
generations."
SGI is working with NTU to implement a Visual Area Network, SGI's anytime,
anywhere, any-device visualization solution enabling interactive,
collaborative analysis of enormous amounts of information. Through Visual Area
Networking, researchers can now share large visual data sets with peers on
other continents in real time, bringing the global research community together
in exciting new ways.
When completed, this will be Southeast Asia's first Visual Area Network to
be
implemented in a university environment. Collaboration will eventually become
worldwide as NTU works with other universities around the world with similar
SGI Reality Center facilities, thus enhancing the connection between
Singaporean research teams and their international peers.
The Reality Theater joins the ranks of other prestigious institutes using
virtual reality centers for research and development functions. SGI has helped
to develop more than 600 virtual reality centers around the world, including
the Creative Application Development Center in Malaysia's Multimedia Super
Corridor, the U.K. Cosmology Grid, Kyoto University's Institute for Chemical
Research and the UCLA Visualization Portal. More information about these
projects can be found at
www.sgi.com/visualization/onyx/3000/ip/success.html.
For further details about SGI Reality Center facilities, visit
www.sgi.com/realitycenter/,
and for details on SGI's involvement with universities and research
laboratories around the world, visit
www.sgi.com/go/research.
About SGI
SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is the world's leader in high-
performance computing, visualization and storage. SGI's vision is to provide
technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative
breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain
surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate or enabling the
transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing
the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering and creative users.
SGI was named on FORTUNE magazine's 2003 list of "Top 100 Companies to Work
For." With offices worldwide, the company is headquartered in Mountain View,
Calif., and can be found on the Web at www.sgi.com.
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