mental images Introduces iray Rendering Solution for 3D Graphics Application Developers

By DE Editors

mental images, an NVIDIA company, has introduced iray, which it describes as the first fully GPU accelerated, commercially supported, turn-key rendering solution. iray technology leverages NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) to deliver fast photorealism to designers, engineers, and consumers.

"With iray rendering technology, what used to take product designers, visual effects artists, and CAD users hours to render can now happen in a matter of minutes without compromising the quality and detail of the image,” said Dr. Jon Peddie, president, Jon Peddie Research. "The advent of iray is changing the face of this industry by increasing the standards in rendering efficiency as we know it."

iray technology speeds the creative process by enabling designers to accurately simulate their creations using materials and lighting that relate directly to the physical world. With tight integration with mental ray technology–which is used within design and creation tools from Autodesk, Dassault Systèmes, and Parametric Technology–iray rendering technology allows users to change the way they create synthetic images.

Using the GPU and NVIDIA CUDA parallel processing architecture, iray technology progressively refines an image until maximum detail is reached, providing a single process that combines interactive pre-visualization and final frame rendering.

iray rendering technology will be included with mental ray 3.8 starting in late November 2009 at no extra cost to existing customers and OEMs under maintenance. iray technology will also be available as part of RealityServer 2.4, the upcoming release of the 3D web application services software. A future iray Integrator Edition will allow independent software vendors to include iray technology within their own products, while future integration with the NVIDIA SceniX scene management engine will make iray technology accessible to all SceniX-based applications.

For more information, visit mental images.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.