Subject: Silicon Graphics & Template Team On 3-D Web Viewer 04/05/95

From: [email-masked] (Administrator)
Date: 05 Apr 1995 22:21:53 GMT

(NEWS)(ONLINE)(LAX)(00005)

Silicon Graphics & Template Team On 3-D Web Viewer 04/05/95
MOUNTAIN VIEW CALIFORNIA, U.S.A. 1995 APR 5 (NB) -- Silicon
Graphics Inc. (NYSE: SGI) has announced it will "team up" with
Template Graphics Software Inc. to develop and distribute
WebSpace, the "first commercially-available three-dimensional
(3-D) viewer for the World Wide Web."

The companies will make WebSpace available for "all major" Unix
platforms, and for Microsoft Windows, Windows NT, and Power
Macintosh.

According to company spokesperson, Eileen Caetano, the viewer
works in concert with popular Web browsers including those from
Netscape Communications and Spyglass. With the WebSpace viewer,
users can play 3-D games and "fly through 3-D worlds exploring
cities, libraries, museums, tourist resorts and imaginary places."
Players can also inspect 3-D models of products in on-line
catalogs, and "visualize" information such as stock market trends 
in 3-D.

Caetano told Newsbytes the WebSpace viewer supports virtual
reality modeling language (VRML), an open, platform-independent
file format for 3-D graphics on the Internet. According to Caetano,
the viewer is "similar in concept" to the core Web text standard
hypertext markup language (HTML). As with HTML, VRML encodes
computer-generated graphics into a compact format for
transportation over the network. Using HTML, users can view the
contents of a file -- in this case an interactive 3-D graphics 
file -- and navigate to other VRML "worlds" or HTML pages.

Caetano added that VRML has the additional advantage of being
"infinitely scalable" enabling users to "navigate through virtual
worlds and approach objects, as greater levels and detail emerge."

According to Caetano, 17 companies and organizations have
announced their support for VRML-based 3-D graphics on the Web:
including: AccelGraphics Inc., Brown University, CERN, Digital 
Equipment Corp., Intergraph, NCD, NEC Technologies, net.Genesis 
Corp., Netscape Communications, Oki Advanced Products, San Diego 
Supercomputer Center, Spyglass, Tenet Networks, Viewpoint Datalabs
International Inc., the University of Darmstadt, Wavefront
Technologies, and 3Dlabs Inc.

The WebSpace viewer was developed with the Open Inventor object-
oriented 3-D toolkit. The technology is based on the industry
standard OpenGL application programming interface. Open Inventor
is said by developers to "dramatically simplify" 3-D graphics
programming. Template Graphics, is the licensee of the Open
Inventor toolkit that provides it for all non-Silicon Graphics
Unix, Windows, and Macintosh systems.

According to the companies, beta versions of the WebSpace viewers
will be available on the Web by the end of April. Non-supported
beta versions of the viewers are available electronically at no
charge. Online users can download beta software from several
public FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites on the Web including sites 
from Silicon Graphics and Template Graphics Software. If the user 
pays a fee of $49 they can get technical support from Template.

(Nick Anis/19950404/Press Contact: Eileen Caetano, Silicon
Graphics, 415-390-2036; Amy Ingram, 415-390-3780)

Sent via the Newsbytes BBS On The Internet at 199.86.32.158 3004