Orlando, Florida - July 20th, 1998 - At SIGGRAPH æ98 (Booth # 3700), Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. today released v2.2 of its award winning NuGraf Rendering System and PolyTrans software products. Coming in the 10th development year of Okino's software software (January 28th 1988-1998), this release marks the culmination of many development projects at Okino, including unique and innovative animation conversion amongst 3D Studio, Lightwave, Renderman &DirectX; full support for trimmed NURBS internally and in various import/export converters (IGES, Wavefront, Renderman and SoftImage); licensing of ACIS 4.2 SAT for importing & converting and viewing solid models; more import/export converters (ACIS SAT 4.2, OpenFlight, IGES 5.3, Renderware, Lightscape, Imagine and Detailer); native plug-in support for 3D Studio MAX 1.2/2.0/2.5 and multi-threaded ray tracing for NuGraf. NuGraf and PolyTrans are identical products except for the added rendering and visualization capabilities of NuGraf.
"Before NuGraf came along, I was unable to render my Pro-E models easily and so interactively as I do now with NuGraf," said Dean Amir Depay, Industrial Product Designer, IDE, Inc. "Now, with their new SAT translator, I can do the same for my AutoCad solid models as well. I have used many different rendering and translation packages. NuGraf is the easiest, most accurate and reasonably priced package available in my opinion, and their staff is committed to providing technical support, and to improving the product continually."
"The importance of a translator which allows the animator to move freely between platforms and 3D animation packages cannot be underestimated," said Tim Donnely, Lead Animator & Artist at Interplay Productions. "Animation translation software has been essentially non-existent until now. Okino has broken down the final barrier between packages: the Holy Grail of animation data conversion. Freedom!"
"Every once in a while a truly useful tool is introduced in the graphic market that has significant impact on the way in which we perform our business," said Peter-Josesph Kovach (3D Magazine Writer). "PolyTrans, by Okino Computer Graphics, is most certainly one of these products. PolyTrans is `the' premiere 3D conversion tool available today. The most critical aspect of a data conversion program is that although many of these programs claim to handle a large subset of these formats, they often handle only `most' of the capabilities of each format. PolyTrans has been designed to completely handle conversion of animation and texturing data even including the conversion of the texture files to the required/desired 2D format for the 3D format they are being converted to. A final aspect of this tool is the incredible depth of the software; if you are at all familiar with the complexity of many file formats, and the odd intricacies of them, you should greatly appreciate the time required to create a tool of this capability/magnitude."
"Version 2 of NuGraf and PolyTrans represent a milestone in 3D scene composition and conversion software," said Robert Lansdale, President & CEO of Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. "At Okino we have aggressively pursued and realized many developments for inclusion into this release, such as a state-of-the-art "animation conversion engine" and keyframe resampler/reducer algorithms, full double precision trimmed NURBS support throughout the software (with inclusion of two licensed NURBS toolkits), licensing of the ACIS SAT kernel for import and display of solid models, the addition of multi-threaded ray tracing to the tried-and-tested NuGraf rendering core, the release of our newly revised IGES 5.3 import/export converters, the release of the 3DS Studio MAX interface plug-ins, and many new import/export converter modules. These products now provide an unsurpassed combination of 3D file format support, animation conversion, bitmap conversion, scene composition tools and multi-threaded rendering capabilities all in a single package."
Notable features of the v2 release include:
PolyTrans & NuGraf, Industry Innovators
Okino's stand-alone PolyTrans Model Translator for Windows and SGI was released in August 1996 and has gone on to become one of the most acclaimed and respected 3D geometry translators. Okino's NuGraf Rendering System is the elder sibling of PolyTrans that includes, in addition to everything in PolyTrans, high-end scanline and multi-threaded ray tracing (for product visualization), material editing, bitmap and procedural texture mapping, texture projection methods, extended user interface and font editing. NuGraf received the "IEEE Technical Excellence Award" from IEEE CG&A Magazine in 1997.
Okino is generally recognized as the industry leading innovator in 3D data translation software. Recent and unique innovations include:
- "Load and Render" capabilities in which scenes can be converted from one package to another with high fidelity (such as from Lightwave to 3DS MAX or to SoftImage - just "load and render"),
- Animation conversion of object and camera keyframe data (including keyframe resampling and reduction),
- Integrated SoftImage database support (access SoftImage databases inside 3DS MAX, for example),
- Integrated trimmed NURBS support,
- Accurate texture and material conversions,
- Automatic 2D bitmap conversions amongst formats supported by each 3D data converter,
- Productive 2D and 3D batch converters,
- 3DS MAX native plug-ins (directly access all the PolyTrans functionality inside 3DS MAX),
- Full Microsoft Windows graphical user interface for scene manipulation and modification,
- A "Selector Window" for drag-and-drop hierarchy/scene modification,
- ... as detailed in the long What's New file.
Being based on Okino's "3D Rendering & Geometry OEM Toolkit", PolyTrans & NuGraf have the unique ability to convert a much richer level of 3D content, including full retention of native geometric data (n-sided meshed polygons with recursive holes and separate index arrays, trimmed NURBS, bicubic patches and quadrics), smoothing data (vertex normals), (u,v) texture coordinates, bump mapping information (tangent vectors), lights, cameras, all texture projection methods, rich material attributes and import/preview/export of all varieties of animation data (Euler, quaternion, TCB, Bezier, linear, etc).
Notable users of Okino's software include Acuris, ATI, Disney, DPS, Dreamworks, EDS, HP, Hughes, Infobyte, IBM, Intel, JPL, LEGO, MIT Media Labs, PIXAR, REM Infographica, Westwood Studios and major 3D game development companies such as Acclaim Entertainment, Broderbund, Electronic Arts, Interplay, Lucas Arts, Microprose, Namco, Sierra Online, Stage 22, Virgin Interactive, Virtual World Entertainment, Williams/Bally/Midway and many others (more are listed at http://www.okino.com/conv/users.htm).
Supported Import and Export File Formats
Okino's NuGraf & PolyTrans programs support the following extensive list of 3D formats: 3D Studio, 3D Studio MAX (via native plug-ins), ACIS SAT 4.2, Alias PolySet, Apple 3DMF (Quickdraw-3D), DirectX, DXF, Fractal's Detailer, IGES 5.3, Imagine, Lightscape, full Lightwave, OpenGL C Code, OpenFlight, POV 2.0/3.0, Pro/Engineer .SLP, Renderman RIB, Renderware, SoftImage .hrc models and scene databases, Solid Edge v4 (v5 presently via IGES), StereoLithography .STL, Strata StudioPro, trueSpace, USGS DEM, Vistapro, VRML 1.0/2.0 and Wavefront OBJ (both polygons and NURBS). The converters have been developed by Okino Computer Graphics over a period of 10 years and are complete implementations of their respective file formats. Quality and extent of implementation, over quantity of formats, is Okino's primary driving force behind the development of these converters.
Applicable WEB pages
Available Through VARsThe following are pertinent pages on the Okino WEB site relating to this press release:
NuGraf and PolyTrans are available through a number of Value Added Resellers (VARs) in the design, CAD and multimedia markets. The products are also available directly from Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. Fully functional demonstration versions (with minor limitations) are available through Okino's Internet WEB site at http://www.okino.com/nrs/demos.htm (NuGraf) and http://www.okino.com/conv/demos.htm (PolyTrans).
Product Pricing
To locate an authorized VAR or for customer inquiries, please contact Okino Computer Graphics at (905) 672-9328 or toll free at (888) 3D-OKINO (1-888-336-5466).
System Requirements
NuGraf and PolyTrans operate efficiently with Pentium®-based computers equipped with Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 95, 16MB or 32MB of RAM, a SVGA video card, and a hard disk with 25Mb of available space. 3D hardware accelerators are supported for Windows 95 and NT but are not required.
Company Background
Headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Okino Computer Graphics specializes in the development of 3D photo-realistic rendering, visualization and model translation technology. This technology is currently used within Okino's NuGraf Rendering System product, its PolyTrans data translation program (and byproducts) and its NuGraf Developer's 3D Toolkit. For more information on Okino Computer Graphics, please call 905-672-9328 or visit Okino Computer Graphics' Internet WEB site at http://www.okino.com.
Documents Available Electronically
Attention editors. This document, as well as screen snapshots and related documents for the Press (in Word for Windows format) can be obtained electronically by visiting http://www.okino.com/press/magpics.htm.
NuGraf and PolyTrans are registered trademarks of Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. Okino is a trademark of Okino Computer Graphics, Inc. Microsoft, Windows and SoftImage are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.
Editorial Contact:
Robert Lansdale
Okino Computer Graphics
T: (905) 672 9328
F: (905) 672 2706
Email: lansd@okino.com
WEB: http://www.okino.com