Q:Please tell us about yourself. How did you get into 3D graphics and how did you end up with ART?


My background is in video. Starting in medical videos, I moved on to corporate/ promotional videos and TV commercials. I worked mainly as a writer/director, but also produced and edited. For seven years I was based in Hong Kong where I started a 3D graphics company with some colleagues. The company ? Virtually Real Ltd. was initially designed to provide content for my video business. We based the company on 3D Studio R3. In this way we were able to offer reasonably good graphics at low cost. It wasn?t long before the company took off and I soon abandoned video for 3D. Virtually Real was one of the first companies in Asia offering high end 3D graphics to be based on the PC and 3D Studio.

At that time I realized that 3D graphics could be created very efficiently on generic computers, the problem was in the rendering ? too much time spent working on the scene to make it render OK, and the reliance on general purpose processors for rendering was always a big problem.


Q:What`s inside the RenderDrive?


The driving force behind RenderDrive is the AR250 processor. This processor was designed by ART to perform the task of ray tracing. In this way RenderDrive performs the highly computationally intensive process of ray tracing in silicon, and allows us two principle advantages ? image quality and speed.

The AR250 will soon be replaced by the AR350 our next generation processor, which will be between 3 and 5 times faster.


Q:Can you give us some info about future models, and how far the company will take the technology?


We are working on plans for several products based on our ray tracing processors. The next product will be the RD5000, based on the AR350 processor. RD5000 will be between 3 and 5 times faster than the current RD2000. In many cases RD5000 will provide ray traced quality images at scanline speeds.


Q:Will any of the technology be considered for real-time application?


Real-time is currently way off on the horizon. We have a long way to go to bring real-time ray tracing to the market. It is, however, one of ART? s goals.


Q:Tell us about the ARC250 chip?


The AR250 was developed by ART in 1997. The AR250 represents a new class of graphics processor - the photorealistic rendering chip. Unlike other graphics chips that use simple `painter` algorithms to generate images, the AR250 uses the physically-based ray tracing algorithm to generate images of very high quality. The AR250 is the first processor to use ART`s dedicated ray tracing architecture, giving unrivaled rendering performance.


Q:Give us an idea of the power of each chip, use a general purpose CPU as a reference for rendering purposes.


It is very difficult to give an accurate assessment of relative performance as it depends on so many variables. Perhaps one of the most useful rendering comparisons was performed by Viewpoint Digital using an model of a Harley Davidson Motorcycle. With this they compared RenderDrive against 3D Studio MAX?s native raytracing renderer. The scene rendered on RenderDrive in 40 minutes, in MAX it was 18 hours, 46 minutes. The RenderDrive image was fully ray traced, while the MAX scene was only partially ray traced.


Q:Is the RenderDrive upgradeable?


RenderDrive software, which includes the firmware for RenderDrive and the plug-in software for the 3D application, is upgraded regularly. Owners of RenderDrive who subscribe to our extended warranty program receive these upgrades regularly at no extra charge. For the upcoming release of RD5000 we are offering a free upgrade for people buying RD2000.


Q:Other than 3DSMAX, A/W and Renderman, what other applications will be supported in the future?


We have a long list of applications we want to support in the future. Currently, however, we are concentrating on the release of RenderMan and Maya interfaces, as well as continuing to improve our MAX interface. It is our goal for RenderDrive to be a high quality generic renderer for all major 3D applications. To that end we will continue to develop interfaces and encourage third parties to also develop interfaces for RenderDrive.


Q:What is the greatest number of RenderDrives that you guys have put together and what was the resulting performance level?


We have tested RenderDrive in many configurations of "farms". Basically, any amount of RenderDrives can be used at the same time. Multiple RenderDrives work in a classic networked rendering mode, i.e. each RenderDrive renders a frame in turn. In this way, for example, a 10 RenderDrive "farm" will render an animation ten times faster than a single RenderDrive.


Q:$19,950 for the RD2000. Tell us why we should get a RenderDrive vs. say 20 or more general purpose computers for a renderfarm. For 20K, I can setup at least 20 dual CPU machines. Convince me otherwise. What do we get for that investment?



To go back to the Viewpoint example earlier, RenderDrive is around 28 times faster than the MAX ray tracer (although this figure can go up or down according the type of scene rendered). Obviously this means that RenderDrive is more economical than a render farm, but it also eliminates the space and reliability issues associated with large render farms.

The principle reason our customers buy RenderDrive is quality. The quality of image produced by RenderDrive is second to none. Normally high quality images are associated with long render times, this is not the case with RenderDrive.

Another reason to buy RenderDrive is the tools that we provide for the animator, these include: Area lights, which cast real soft shadows (no more shadow maps); camera based depth of field and lens effects; physically accurate materials ? real glass, metals, and shiny materials. Often we find that these tools alone are good enough reason for a customer to buy RenderDrive.

Having said all this there are clearly occasions where a render farm makes more sense. If you are interested in pure render speed and are happy with scan-line rendering quality, then a render farm will be more powerful than RenderDrive. The moment any ray tracing is introduced, however, RenderDrive will beat a render farm.

Q:Any chance of a low cost version? Such as an add on card instead of a full blown network rendering appliance? Or this idea would just plain not work?

We are constantly working on new products, and we are certainly aware of the need for a lower cost version of RenderDrive. An add-on card, however, would not pack the power of a full-blown RenderDrive. We believe that RenderDrive RD5000 provides the optimum price/performance. There will be additional RenderDrive products in the future, but the exact nature of them has yet to be finalized.


Q:What kind of performance gain are we looking at with the RD5000?


RD5000 will be between 3 ? 5 times faster than RD2000. Working on the Viewpoint example earlier this would suggest that RD5000 will be between 84 and 140 times faster than the MAX ray tracer. Of course, as I?ve said earlier, render times depend on the data being rendered, so these figures could be higher or lower according to the nature of the scene.


Q:If you could change one thing about the 3D graphics industry, what would it be?


Well, speaking from my position at the rendering end of the process I would like to see a much closer relationship between the vision of the animator and the final output. The animator needs to be able to create rendered images which exactly match the images in his/her mind, not only to improve the quality and scope of his/her work, but also to increase productivity. To do this we need to provide a scene building environment which is physically correct and free of workarounds, and a renderer that can produce a truly photographic result. At ART, of course, we believe that RenderDrive goes a very long way towards achieving this goal.