atari email archive

a collection of messages sent at Atari from 1983 to 1992.

Sho Graphics Press Release

(1 / 3)


The following press release was placed in several computer 
graphics publications prior to the SIGGRAPH '89 Conference.

        NEW 3-D GRAPHICS ENGINE FROM ATARI GAMES

           TO BE ON DISPLAY AT SIGGRAPH SHOW

MILPITAS, Calif., July 5, 1989 --  A new high-performance 3-D       
graphics engine, promising advanced capabilities at a fraction
of the cost of similar products, will be on display at the 
upcoming SIGGRAPH '89 Conference, July 31 - August 4 in Boston.

     The new graphics engine, dubbed ShoView, is under
development by Sho Graphics, a division of Milpitas, Calif.-
based Atari Games Corporation.  According to Rich Moore,
Vice President/Engineering, ShoView will compete with a
growing category of solid modeling engines designed for
CAD/CAM, architectural, simulation, video animation and
other sophisticated 3-D applications.  ShoView will operate
with an IBM PC and other IBM-compatible systems, Moore said.

     ShoView's impressive solid modeling performance allows
a wide variety of users to create more complex and highly
realistic 3-D scenes and images.  The power of the ShoView
architecture allows 1 million 3-D matrix transformations
per second, breaking major price/performance barriers.
In excess of 190,000 clipped and projected polygons per
second can be processed.

     In contrast to other systems, Gourand shading and
texture mapping are fully supported by the unique 
ShoView architecture without loss of frame fill rate.
Application programs can use a high-level 3-D graphics
library, allowing greatly enhanced levels of 
interactivity when dealing with complex 3-D objects
and scenes.

    ShoView will interface with any standard multi-
sync monitor having VGA line resolution, and displays
over 65,000 simultaneous colors from a palette of 16         
million.  Lighting is automatically calculated using
up to four independent white light sources.  Also,
each pixel has a 16-bit z buffer, and the system
features a double-buffered display screen and fast
screen clear.

Sho Graphics expects to ship small quantities of
ShoView systems to the field by fourth quarter 1989,
with full scale production and shipping beginning 
in first quarter 1990.  Specific marketing and
distribution plans have not been finalized, Moore
reported.  

     "Our overall plan is to bring a product to
market that will offer far greater processing
power and more advanced features for less than 
half the cost of other advanced graphics products
now entering the market," he said.

     Moore reported that Sho Graphics's primary
goals at SIGGRAPH will be to demonstrate ShoView
to industry insiders, as well as to continue the
process of encouraging software developers to
write new ShoView applications for other computer
systems and workstations via the HOOPS library.

     "Our basic message at SIGGRAPH will be that
we have developed a highly cost-effective hardware
solution which allows a broad range of applications
to tap the power of interactive 3-D graphics,"
Moore said.  "We believe this product offers an
extraordinarily high level of performance that 
will bring quality 3-D graphic capability to users
previously priced out of interactive 3-D graphics,
or those who were dissatisfied with existing systems."

     This year's SIGGRAPH conference is expected to
draw up to 30,000 visitors to Boston's Hynes 
Convention Center.  Sho Graphics will demonstrate 
ShoView in booth #2355.  In addition, the firm will
offer a hospitality suite, allowing software
developers and other interested conference-goers
a chance to meet with the ShoView development team
and company officials.

     Sho Graphics is a new division of Atari Games
Corporation, one of the world's leading video game
software and hardware developers, and is headquartered
at 675 Sycamore Drive, Milpitas, Calif., 95035-1110;
(408) 434-3700.  Atari Games Corporation is a
privately held company, is not affiliated with Atari
Corporation, and should be referred to as Atari Games.

             #      #      #      #

Repeat showing of the ShoView demonstrations from Siggraph 89

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	Very few people at Atari have had the opportunity to see the 
interactive, graphic demonstrations of the ShoView product that were presented 
Siggraph 89 in Boston earlier this August.  
	They will be on display in the central conference room of 675 Sycamore 
from 10 am until 12 noon:  

	Please stop in and take a look.  

		The Holy Grail/System3D/Sigma/ShoGraphics/ShoView team

ShoView Demo deschedule

(3 / 3)


	OOPS!!  No ShoView demo today.  
		I left out the date of the demo and   
		the ShoView demo has been delayed until further vaxmail notice.  
		(We hope to do it later this week.)

		The Holy Grail/System3D/Sigma/ShoGraphics/ShoView team
Message 1 of 3

Aug 10, 1989