Elan & XS Graphics Subsystems

IRIS VME Series

The driving force behind the IRIS VME Series Elan & XS Graphics Subsystems is a sophisticated set of programming routines called the IRIS Graphics library (GE). Programmers can access more than 450 GL functions to build realistic, interactive 3D images. Features include:

• Industry standard X/Motif support

• Define objects in any convenient coordinate system before modifying them using powerful, easy-to-use 3D transformations

• Access a broad array of input devices - including mice, keyboards, digitizing tablets, track balls, space balls, joysticks and data gloves - in a uniform fashion

• Basic 2D & 3D drawing modes

• Hidden-surface removal, anti-aliasing

• Transparency, Gouraud shading, Reflection mapping

  
  

Because all IRIS VME Series products are 100% binary compatible with the full line of SGI RISC workstations, you can choose from among thousands of exciting 3D application packages from hundreds of vendors. These include:

• Scientific visualization

• Virtual reality

• Aircraft & vehicle simulation

• Image processing

• Visual application development environments

  
  

The IRIS VME Series Elan & XS Graphics Subsystems bring Silicon Graphics' highest performance desktop graphics to VME format systems. Packaged in industry standard 6U VME format, the Elan-V, XS-V and XS24-V graphics are easily integrated into your company's products. These graphics systems allow you to add interactive visual realism to your application, this enables creating and manipulating realistic, full-color, 3D images in real time. Because its 100% binary compatible with all SGI's workstations, Elan-V & XS-V and XS24-V graphics provide a common environment for your development and target systems.

Typical Applications

Medical Imaging: Integrated into MRI or ultrasound scanning equipment, enables medical personnel to reconstruct and manipulate body images in real time.

Control Room Displays: Compact rack-mountable system provides high-resolution display of aircraft test data, radar tracking, or industrial controls.

Aircraft & Vehicle Simulators: Elan-V's advanced 3D graphics, can display dynamic air & ground views with other vehicles, scenery & heads up display data.

IRIS VME Series Elan V, XS24-V & XS-V Graphics Subsystems

Advanced Graphics Functionality

• Multiple lighting source effects:
  • Spot lighting

  • Eight light sources

  • Two-sided lighting

  • Ambient, diffused and specular effects

• Fog and haze effects

• Alpha blending

• Anti-aliased RGB lines and points

• Texture mapping

• Depth cueing, dithering, stenciling

• Soft shadow and depth of field

• Sub-pixel positioning

• Stereo graphics

  
  

Screen Refresh Rate                     60Hz / 72Hz
Overlay/Underlay Window ID Planes       4 overlay / 4 underlay
Screen Resolution                       1280 x 1024 pixels
Color maps                              Two (4096 colors each)
Software Pixel DMA Transfers
 8 bit/pixel                            30 Million/sec
 32 bit/pixel                           12 Million/sec
Screen Clear                            8 milliseconds
IRIS GL Display Modes                   RGB double buffer
                                        RGB single buffer
                                        Color index double buffer
                                        Color index single buffer


                      XS-V/XS24-V    Elan-V
# VME slots           3              4
Z-Buffer              Optional       Standard
Color Planes          8/24           24
2D Lines/sec (1)      250K           1 Million
3D Lines/sec (1)      250K           1 Million
Polygons: (2)		
 Flat No-Z, TMesh     80K/sec        350K/sec
 Gouraud Z, TMesh     60K/sec        225K/sec
 Gouraud Z Quads (3)  25K/sec        100K/sec
3D Points/Transforms  250K/sec       1 Million/sec
Characters            100K/sec       200K/sec

1. 10 pixel, connected, arbitrarily rotated
2. 50 pixel triangles, arbitrarily rotated
3. Filled 10x10 pixels, 4-sided, independent
   quadrilaterals, arbitrarily rotated

UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T. Ethernet is a trademark of XEROX Corporation. X-Window is a product of the Massachusetts Institute of Technolgy. Silicon Graphics, the Silicon Graphics logo, and IRIS are registered trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc. Geometry Engine, IRIS Graphics Library, Personal IRIS, IRIS Indigo, IRIS Explorer, IRIS CODEvision, Elan, XS, XS24, IRIS VME Series, Indigo Lite, and Embedded Workstation are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc. Specifications subject to change without prior notice.

Typed up by Ian Mapleson (mapesdhs@yahoo.com) on 22/Nov/98
Original Document Code: OSG-ELANXS-DS (4/92)