After this brochure was published, newer CPUs such as the R10000 were released, as well as InfiniteReality graphics, etc. See the main SGI index for details of all later CPUs, graphics subsystems and products.

Onyx Real-Time Image Generation

(image: the generation of curved tracks requires high polygon capacities supported by Onyx RealityEngine2)

(image: special bonus! An original 1280x1024 screenshot from the same simulation, winner of the 1993 Visual Simulation award. Click on the smaller image to download the full-size version)

Because Silicon Graphics image generation solutions are based on open architecture, they support databases developed in multiple formats, including those of other major image generator manufacturers. A variety of database development tools that can run on the same hardware used for image generation are also available. Onyx is the first and only image generator able to support database interoperability without conversion. Currently over twenty database formats are supported.

Adding CPUs to the existing Onyx chassis and using the REACT extensions for real-time computing provides for host-integrated computer image generation - HI-CIG - a feature exclusive to Silicon Graphics. The HI-CIG concept is more than packaging. Tight integration of host-compute CPUs with the image generator on the same 1.2GB data bus enables high-performance mission functions, reduced transport delay, dynamic terrain, and powerful special effects, all coupled with a common development environment.

Onyx RealityEngine2, Multi-Channel Option, IRIS Performer, and REACT - commercial, off-the-shelf, open-architecture products for powerful, cost-effective computer image generation.

CORYS - Twin-Cab Driving Simulator for the London Underground Lts.

The London Underground carries millions of passengers to their destinations every day. Extensive training of the Underground's operators is vital to maintain safety. Traditional metro simulators have used video disk technology to create simulated out-the-window scenes. However, video disk technology can't reproduce emergency operating conditions, accurate visibility ranges, and interaction between trains. With the opening of the new jubilee Line extension, London Underground Ltd. selected CORYS of Grenoble, France, to build a twin-cab driving simulator for training operators.

(image: Photorealistic imagery like this is representative of all CORYS simulators)

CORYS has become a world leader in the development of railroad training systems based on computer image-generated technology. In addition to the London Underground project, CORYS has been awarded contracts for six simulators for the French railroad and one for the Belgian railroad. Silicon Graphics computer image generators have been at the heart of each win, providing high-performance, cost-effective graphics solutions.

MarineSafety International Rotterdam b.v. - Marine Research and Training Center

Rotterdam, the Netherlands, is the world's busiest seaport, so it is appropriate that the city is also the home of MarineSafety Rotterdam b.v., the world's premier marine simulator research and training centre. As the city develops infrastructure in and around the port, such as bridges crossing major waterways or widening of channels, many questions have arisen as to how these changes will effect the operation. As a part of overall risk management, extensive research and analysis services for the planning and design of ports and channels was needed. MarineSafety International Rotterdam b.v. was created to provide both maritime engineering and training.

(image: RealityEngine supports many dynamic effects necessary for marine simulation)

Paradigm Simulation's VisionWorks is currently being used with databases Paradigm developed with MultiGen. The simulator required advanced image generation features to represent marine effects like three-dimensional waves, traffic motion, towlines, drawbridge openings, and navigational lights. MarineSafety Rotterdam helps ship owners and managers, municipalities and government agencies, oil companies, importers, exporters, and transportation companies protect their investments in safety, cargo, and the environment.

Hughes Training - Railroad Visual Upgrade for Burlington Northern Railroad

Locomotive engineers, like pilots, require extensive training to gain the necessary skills and experience, but have never had access to the railroad equivalent of flight simulation. Until now. Hughes Training of Arlington, Texas, recently installed the first computer image generation (CIG) system for railways in North America at the Burlington Northern training facility, in Overland Park, Kansas. The system, installed on four TS-2 simulators from IIT Research Institute of Chicago, helps locomotive engineers meet the Federal Railway Association's certification requirements.

(image: Highly complex, dynamic visual scenes are made possible with the advanced graphics processing power of RealityEngine2)

Instructors now can vary the weather and time of day, manipulate signals, and simulate emergencies in highly realistic situations that were previously impossible to recreate. The Hughes system also supports other Onyx RealityEngine2 configurations for multi-channel displays, motion-based simulators, and higher update rates for rapid transit simulation. Hughes, IITRI, and Silicon Graphics have allowed Burlington Northern to take the lead in locomotive engineer training in North America.

AITEC GmbH & Co. - The New Dimension in Driving Instruction

Flight simulators have vastly improved the economy, ecology, and safety of the airline industry. AITEC Gesellschaft fur Simulatorgestutzte Fahrerschulung mbH of Cologne, Germany, is in the process of opening a series of world-class simulator-based training centers in Europe to bring similar advantages to car and truck drivers. Building a simulator capable of providing adequate training requires sophisticated vehicle modeling and high-fidelity computer image generation. It is essential to generate proper physiological cues, speed and distance perception, realistic color, and photorealistic imagery at a fixed frame rate of at least 30Hz. Multiple channels are needed for the forward displays and for the rear view mirrors. And since many regional centers are needed to train large numbers of drivers, low cost is essential.

(image: The degree of realism provided by the intelligent traffic is unparalleled in the industry)

CTA, Incorporated - Flight Simulation for Pilot Training

Pilots in training need all the time they can get in the cockpit in order for flying to become second nature. CTA, Incorporated, of Denver, Colorado, has developed a Flight Training Device (FTD) and associated Computer-Based Training (CBT) courseware to assist Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) pilots in transitioning from general aviation aircraft to advanced commercial transport planes. The course consists of 10 hours of flight time, 32 hours of FTD time, and 80 hours of CBT.

(image: RealityEngine2 graphics provides a totally immersive synthetic environment for civil airline training.)

The FTD, designed to be certified to FAA FTD Level 5 specifications, includes the ability to navigate and fly anywhere in the continental United States. It offers low-cost training to pilots who otherwise would not have access to flight simulation. By the time Saudia pilots enter the cockpit of a real Lear35, the complete training experience provided by CTA with Silicon Graphics has prepared them for anything.

SBS selected two Onyx RealityEngine2 systems from Silicon Graphics as the image generators, each with four 150MHz R4400 processors running a multistage Performer GL software pipeline to achieve real-time image generation. The F-5 trainer's single-channel video is generated by a deskside Onyx system which also supports an air-to-air radar simulator. The B-212 simulator, mounted on a motion base, has three-channel video generated by a rack-mounted Onyx system, with Multi-Channel Option hardware for left, forward, and right out-the-window views. Both trainers use a Crimson system as the host computer, and Indigo workstations to run Instructor Operator Stations.

SBS chose Silicon Graphics systems over traditional turnkey image generation solutions to take advantage of the flexibility and control of solving trainer problems internally. With the IRIS Performer library as a foundation, SBS was able to create its own real-time application software. With its customized, advanced visual simulation system up and running, the Mexican Air Force can now be confident that its pilots are well prepared.

Wormald selected the Onyx supercomputer with RealityEngine2 graphics from Silicon Graphics for the out-the-window visual, weapons, and infrared systems with integrated host functions. The new visual system is composed of a partial-dome projection display driven by Onyx RealityEngine2, and visual software developed in-house. Additional Silicon Graphics CHALLENGE servers provide host computing and digital radar landmass simulation capability. Two Indy XZ workstations host the updated Instructor Operator Station.

The F-111C is Wormald Technology's first mission simulator project. Wormald is using Silicon Graphics' broad family of binary-compatible products to consolidate its avionics, Instructor/Operator Station, simulation, image, and database generation software skills. Wormald's years of proven experience integrating real-time systems and Silicon Graphics' open-architecture computer systems provide the right combination to integrate new development with legacy hardware and software into a trainer for today's F-111C pilots and navigators.

Onyx Technical Specifications

• A flexible, open architecture image generation system for flight, ground, space, maritime and virtual reality applications

  
  

• 1 to 6 high-resolution, non-interlaced (1280 x 1024) outputs/system

• Up to 18 independent channels per system with individual eyepoints

• Up to 3 graphics pipelines per system

• Up to 320 million anti-aliased, trilinear mip-map textured, pixels per second fill rate per 4RM graphics pipeline

• Up to 7.8 million displayable pixels per system

• Redefinable display line rates

• Separate NTSC or PAL composite video output standard

• Multi-channel capability in deskside and rack chassis

  
  

• Up to 32-bit Z-buffer - fully integrated with anti-aliasing

• Coplanar surface support

• Texture decal support

  
  

• Over 9000 polygons/pipeline @ 30 Hz

• Polygons textured, anti-aliased and Z-buffered

• Up to 27000 polygons/system @ 30 Hz

  
  

• Photomap texture

• 4MB texture capacity standard

• Programmable texture map sizes from 2 x 2 to 1024 x 1024 texels

• Trilinear mip-map capability standard

• 3D texture

• Detail Texture

• Sharp Texture

• Up to 380 128 x 128 mip-mapped textures

• From 4 to 48-bits per texel

• Lighting and smooth shading blended with texture

• Dynamic texture projection

• Environment mapped texture

  
  

• Up to 16 sub-sample anti-aliasing

• 8 or 12-bits per color component

• Lighting, shading, reflection, Z-buffering, anti-aliasing and translucency all combinable on same surface

  
  

• Database traversal, culling, and rendering

• Fade level of detail

• Overload management

• Fixed frame rate control

  
  

• Height above terrain

• Collision detection

• Range finding

• Line of sight

  
  

• Environment mapping

• Steerable light lobes

• Texture animation

• Articulation and geometry animation

• Custom programmable special effects

• Directional shading and lighting

• 8 Configurable light sources, with material properties control

• Full color interpolation on surfaces

• Lighting functions definable: ambience, diffusion, specularity, shininess, emissivity, position and color

  
  

• > 100 simultaneous moving models (6 DOF)

• All models Z-buffered and anti-aliased at sub-pixel level

  
  

• Fog, haze, clouds

• Tunable fog functions, spline fog

• Time of day

• Horizon glow
  

In synchronous mode:

• Min 33ms @ 60 Hz frame rate and 60 Hz refresh

• Min 50ms @ 30 Hz frame rate and 60 Hz refresh

  
  

• Standard 21" multisync monitor

• Real time analog and digital video I/O capability

• Selectable display resolutions from VGA to HDTV, including field sequential output

• Genlock synchronization standard

• Separate composite video output standard

• Video image transfer from disk to texture or frame buffer at real-time video frame rates

  
  

• Up to 4096 levels of translucency

• Alpha to coverage function allows translucency, Z-buffering and anti-aliasing simultaneously

  
  

• IRIS Performer: Simulation development library enables flexible and rapid application development

• Debug and performance tuning tools

• Developer Magic software development environment

  
  

• Raster-based round light point support

• Brightness and size vary with distance

• Independent light point fog control

• 3:1 trade off with polygons

• Directional lights

• Strobes, beacons, flashing and rotating lights

  
  

• Up to 24 multi-processing RISC CPUs

• 180 - 4325 SPECint92 and 177 - 4248 SPECfp92 (estimated with 250MHz R4400)

• REACT real-time system kernel

• 1.2GB/sec internal system bus

• Shared memory multiprocessor architecture

• 3 to 23 VME slots

• High speed disk and peripheral I/O support

• Up to 50MB/sec VME rate per VME bus

• Up to 5 VME buses supported

• Fast and wide SCSI-2 support at 20MB/sec per SCSI bus

• Up to 32 SCSI buses per system

• Up to 16GB of main system memory

• ADA language support

• Secure O/S - Trusted IRIX (Security level B1) available

  
  

• Support for correlated infrared, night-vision goggles, and radar

  
  

• Optional digital audio board

• Programmable audio library

  
  

For more information please call:

U.S. 1(800) 800-7441
Europe (41) 22-798.75.25
Asia Pacific (81) 3-54.88.18.11

Intercontinental 1(415) 933.46.14
Latin America 1(415) 933.46.37
Canada 1(905) 625-4747

Silicon Graphics World Wide Web Server:

URL: http://www.sgi.com/

Corporate Office

2011 N. Shoreline Boulevard
Mountain View, CA 94043
(415) 960-1980

Copyright 1995 Silicon Graphics. All rights reserved. Specifications subject to change without notice. Silicon Graphics, CHALLENGE, Indigo, and the Silicon Graphics logo are registered trademarks, and Onyx, Cosmo Compress, Crimson, IRIS Performer, Indy, REACT, and RealityEngine2 are trademarks, of Silicon Graphics, Inc. MIPS is a registered trademark and R4400 is a trademark of MIPS Technologies, Inc. VisionWorks is a registered trademark of Paradigm Simulations. RightView is a trademark of Hughes Training. SEOS Prodas is a registered trademark of SEOS. MultiGen is a registered trademark of MultiGen, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners. Train image courtesy of Hughes Training; underground driving simulator image courtesy of CORYS, seaport image courtesy of MarineSafety International Rotterdam b.v.; railroad image courtesy of Hughes Training; driving image courtesy of AITEC GmbH & Co.; cockpit image courtesy of CTA, Inc.; F-5 image courtesy of Camber Corporation; F-111C image courtesy of Wormald Technology; E2C training image courtesy of Contraves Simulation and Training Systems.