Now this is a great example of Eyefinity being used for the professional markets, and not just gaming (although I often do reference CAD and digital signage!).
The new Barco MXRT display controllers driven by ATI FirePro graphic cards allow clinicians to use three displays to view multiple images and corresponding data simultaneously. They can also
“Radiology professionals working with MRI, CT and Mammography medical imaging systems need multiple displays to review patient information and their images simultaneously, or review several large scans at once. While using more than one display is not a new concept for medical imaging, the ability to drive three large, high resolution 5 or 10 megapixel displays from one professional graphics card is” (i.e. holding the cost down, and keeping the technical issues at a minimum).
The Canon dome at ISE 2011 features three 7thSense media servers, each with a FirePro V8800 linked via a FirePro S400 synchronization module, to create a giant 3200 X 3200 blended fisheye movie. Ten Canon projectors create an immersive experience in the dome for the audience with a combined image that measures 9 meters across.
See the first image for how the projectors map and check out the video of the actual presentation.
This demo from the ISE 2011 show in Amsterdam, shows the Lang AG booth with an interactive 6-display video wall driven by an ATI FirePro V9800 with Eyefinity. creating a life-like high performance 3D aquarium. The interactivity (touch the screen and fish sense you and move to you like real fish) is enabled by radarTouch and a little AI program. The images looks compellingly real. The smal 6.5mm l bezel on the Sharp PN-V601 displays help complete the illusion.
For applications beyond an Aquarium, think about the company (Lang) showing it: Digital Signage.
This live demo from SolidWorks World 2011 shows manipulating a complex 17,000,000 triangle model in SolidWorks 2011 on a WYSE thin client. The remote Dell workstation host machine sports an ATI FirePro RG220 graphics card.
In other words, it is a demo of CAD cloud computing - including support for DX11 & OpenGL 4.1.
This card uses display compression and IP transmission. It compresses dual-display graphic data at the host and outputs it over a regular IP network to a remote thin client device. Also of note: it offers direct support for multiple virtual machines with multiple FirePro RG220 cards from a single system (i.e. running VMware or Parallels workstation).
The new $149 AMD FirePro 2270 is a low-profile, fan-less, energy efficient (15 watts max, 10 watts average), dual-display graphics card targeting financial and corporate markets. It supports OpenGL 4.1 and DX11.
The new $469 ATI FirePro V5800 is a CAD/visualization solution w/ 1GB GDDR5 memory that can drive two high-resolution 30-bit 5MP medical displays using dual link DVI. It supports OpenGL 4.1, DX11 and OpenCL 1.1.
At SolidWorks World 2011, Allen Bourgoyne, AMD’s FirePro graphics guru discusses the difference between consumer vs professional graphics (including some side-by-side comparisons), remote graphics for SolidWorks (i.e. cloud computing) and using multi-display technologies in SolidWorks, and . If you couldn’t attend the show, this is a video capture of his full 30 min presentation. It as captured from the side and form a distance, so make sure your volume is turned up and you are in a quiet space.
Below is a shot of AMD’s booth in the Partner Pavillion.
Formally know as the ATI Stream SDK, the latest v2.3 release of the GPU + CPU acceleration software development kit is now known as the AMD Accelerated Parallel Processing (APP) SDK. This new version adds support for the new line of Fusions APUs and the Radeon HD 6900 series. It also adds improved OpenCL 1.1 runtime performance to accelerate application performance using both the CPU and GPU.
Today, in conjunction with SolidWorks World 2011, AMD announced the new FirePro v8.801 unified driver with full compatibility for OpenGL 4.1 across the current FirePro line (V3800, V4800, V5800, V7800, V8800 and V9800), for Windows 7, Vista, and XP, as well as Linux. Details include:
Improved OpenCL interoperability for accelerating computationally intensive visual applications
Continued support for both the Core and Compatibility profiles first introduced with OpenGL 3.2, enabling developers to use a streamlined API or retain backwards compatibility for existing OpenGL code, depending on their needs
Easier porting between mobile and desktop platforms with full OpenGL ES 2.0 API compatibility
Ability to query and load a binary for shader program objects to save re-compilation time
Capability to bind programs individually to programmable stages for programming flexibility
Higher geometric precision with 64-bit floating-point component vertex shader inputs
Increased rendering flexibility with multiple viewports for a rendering surface
Support for new ARB extension introduced with OpenGL 4.1
In advance of the actual show, we got a sneak preview of the SolidWorks 2011 Ultimate CAD Chair - an ergonomic Eyefinity 3-display system powered by an AMD ATI FirePro V8800. The system was assembled by Jeremy Luchini and the Let’s Go Design team.
AMD has focused on the open standard, cross-platform OpenCL standard for GPU-Compute functionality with support for acceleration on both GPUs and CPUs (including embedded and hand-held devices). OpenCL allows the GPU to help the CPU do the computing or data crunching, to enable faster and more efficient processing.
SiSoftware has posted OpenCL benchmarks for GPU based acceleration and compared it to both CUDA and ATI Stream.
Using the latest OpenCL 1.0 Beta 4, the benchmarks show great results: performance parity with CUDA (in some cases OpenCL is faster) and 50% faster than native CAL/STREAM.
The take away conclusion: There is no reason not to port CUDA code to OpenCL now!
FireUser.com is a community resource for visualization, 3D, video and engineering professionals to learn about the latest acceleration and display technologies, discuss support issues, as well as influence the features and direction of the FireGL and FirePro accelerator line.
