ART VPS Ltd, a leading developer of high quality high performance 3D visualization systems, has announced that it is using the Component Application Architecture V5 (CAA V5) from Dassault Systèmes to enable ART VPS’s innovative RenderDrive and PURE 3D visualization systems to be used by CATIA and ENOVIA customers. ART VPS recently signed a CAA V5 Adopter agreement with Spatial, a Dassault Systèmes company, to continue development with the architecture.

Utilizing CAA V5, ART VPS has developed software that integrates CATIA and ENOVIA with PURE and RenderDrive. The new interface software, called RenderPipe for CATIA, will offer efficient hardware-accelerated ray traced visualization from within CATIA® V5 and ENOVIA® V5 with ART VPS 3D rendering solutions.

The 3D visualization systems developed by ART VPS simulate the complex physics of the real world to create an image from a 3D CAD model. The results are indistinguishable from a photograph. Uniquely, ART VPS have implemented their physically based ray traced rendering within specialised 3D graphics hardware enabling images to be generated many times faster than with conventional software rendering.

"Visual realism is very critical in virtual product simulations. ART VPS visualization systems increase productivity in this area reducing cycle time in "design to market". Integrating this capability in the PLM is a tremendous added value. This is exactly what the agreement with ART VPS Ltd brings to our customers," said Jean-Luc Cuinier, R&D Manager for Advanced Rendering Applications at Dassault Systèmes.

"We welcome ART VPS as a CAA V5 Adopter and salute its efforts to expanding the global PLM enterprise through development of complementary V5 solutions," said Keith Mountain, Vice President of Marketing for Spatial.

ART VPS is currently looking for additional companies to apply to be a test site to provide feedback on the interface. RenderPipe for CATIA is compatible for testing with CATIA and ENOVIA V5R12 and requires Photo Studio 2 (PHS). No pricing or availability dates for RenderPipe for CATIA are being released yet, though ART VPS expects to begin testing RenderDrive with CATIA users in December. The RenderPipe for CATIA interface will join software plug-in interfaces for other CAD manufacturers’ products already available from ART VPS.

"High quality, physically-based, 3D visualization empowers the product lifecycle, from CAD office to product point-of-sale, through clear, unambiguous visual communication," said Craig Wareham, VP Marketing at ART VPS Ltd. "ART VPS solutions uniquely offer exceptional visual quality and accelerated ray tracing calculation, dramatically cutting the time and cost typically associated with the production of photographic-quality high-resolution images and animations. This has massive benefits for CATIA and ENOVIA users – with their demands for high quality, high performance, and the ability to deal with very large datasets – and we are pleased to extend the visualization and digital mock-up capabilities of these applications."

RenderPipe for CATIA – Plug-in to Higher Rendering Performance

RenderPipe for CATIA allows users to create photorealistic images and animations of a product design by driving ART VPS's PURE and RenderDrive 3D rendering devices from within CATIA V5 and ENOVIA V5 through the familiar Photo Studio workbench. Users can render the same Photo Studio solution interchangeably with the ART VPS renderer and the existing CATIA renderer.

However, the RenderPipe for CATIA interface, RenderDrive, and PURE products support certain settings and capabilities that extend the functionality of the standard solution whilst the dedicated ray-tracing hardware platform provides maximum photorealistic rendering performance.

RenderPipe for CATIA supports all Photo Studio Camera, Material, Animation, Sticker, Environment and Shooting controls and most Photo Studio Light controls are supported. All image output formats are supported and image data may either be 8-bit per channel quantized or 32-bit floating point.

RenderPipe for CATIA additionally provides an alternative interpretation of the standard Material parameters giving better photorealistic results with transparent and reflective surfaces.

PURE and RenderDrive – Hardware-Assisted Ray Traced Visualization

With PURE and RenderDrive, designers can employ and combine all the 3D rendering features that are traditionally expensive and time-consuming to calculate - such as multiple area lights, accurate motion blur and depth of field, secondary illumination, and physically based materials, lighting and camera properties. PURE is ART VPS’s rapid ROI, PCI add-in board 3D visualization solution that brings the company’s award-winning 3D rendering technology to all visualization and design professionals.

PURE renders images up to 16X faster than software-based ray tracing and can simultaneously deliver higher quality images through its silicon chip accelerated ray tracing architecture. Installed within a windows-compatible graphics workstation, PURE brings the power of a render farm onto a designer’s desktop.

RenderDrive is ART VPS’s family of high-end 3D rendering appliances – dedicated rendering servers specifically designed to tackle the most intensive of rendering jobs. RenderDrive offers maximum ray tracing performance, the largest scene data capacity, and is a shared network device to offer maximum resource utilization. With complex data, the RenderDrive RD5000 can deliver a rendering speed increase of up to 35X over software rendering – reducing the time required to render a single high-resolution image from 12 hours to just 21 minutes.

Applications of PURE and RenderDrive within the design and engineering industry already include digital design mock-ups of aircraft interiors used to assist clients with their Learjet purchase; virtual photographs replacing traditional photography in the production of dealer brochures and vehicle launch materials for Ford Motor Company; and the production of conceptual design images and animations for design exploration at a number of large FMCG packaging companies.