The real-time, fully interactive renderer works with a wide range of 3D graphics applications

LOS ANGELES, July 26 — SIGGRAPH 2010 — Caustic Graphics, the leader in accelerated ray tracing, today introduced Brazil for Developers, a real-time, fully interactive renderer for a wide range of 3D graphics applications. For the first time, developers will be able to incorporate the look and photorealism of Brazil directly into their 3D graphics applications, with the tremendous enhancement of real-time, interactive scene manipulation. The Brazil renderer was rewritten from the ground up to leverage Caustic’s OpenRL (Open Ray tracing Library) for standardized access to a wide range of graphics devices from AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA, as well as Caustic Graphics. Developers wishing to evaluate Brazil for Developers are invited to pre-register on Caustic Graphics’ website beginning today at www.caustic.com.
The company will be giving its first public demonstration of Brazil for Developers, by debuting a ray traced rendering plug-in framework for Autodesk 3ds Max, at SIGGRAPH 2010, July 27 – 29 in Los Angeles.  Its exponential increase in scene fidelity comes at no expense to the level of interactivity that artists and designers have come to expect from the fast, but visually inferior technique of rasterization.

"With the introduction of Brazil for Developers, SplutterFish are proving how real-time, interactive ray tracing is so much more effective over rasterization during the modeling or lighting of three-dimensional scenes," said James McCombe, co-founder and CTO of Caustic Graphics.  "Brazil for Developers allows for easy and flexible integration into new and existing application software, and affords the artist or designer with a very high degree of visual realism, at the earliest stages of 3D content creation."

"Caustic surprised the industry with OpenRL, the company’s open API for ray tracing.  Caustic is now ready to unveil the potential for OpenRL with the introduction of Brazil for Developers," said Dr. Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie Research, specialists in the graphics industry and technology.  "Brazil for Developers will enable customers to integrate the full-function renderer Brazil into their products as a plug-in.  With this development, Caustic is providing a new and very interesting alternative for developers looking for rendering technology."

Some quick facts about Brazil for Developers
    •    Provides a simple high-level API for rapid deployment, but allows unlimited customizability;
    •    Provides Modular, Object-Oriented design with C++ source code and documentation;
    •    Designed for complete interactivity with no noticeable delays for scene upload or reconstruction;
    •    Contains powerful and flexible geometry, material, lighting, and effects systems;
    •    Includes a suite of tools for debugging and tuning your renderer;

About Brazil

Brazil r/s was created by the original SplutterFish team, who are credited for taking the 3D graphics community by storm when they launched this first fully integrated renderer in 2000.  Subsequently Brazil r/s has become the gold standard for high-end production rendering for Autodesk’s 3ds Max and McNeel & Associates’ Rhino.  It is widely used by A-List studios for rendering in feature films, games development, architectural rendering, and other visualization applications.

About OpenRL

OpenRL (Open Ray Tracing Library) is the world’s first specification for writing ray tracing applications that have standardized access to a wide range of graphics hardware devices from AMD®, Intel®, and NVIDIA®, as well as Caustic Graphics.  In the past, developers were forced to program their ray tracing applications "to the metal" by writing to each specific device or accept "vendor lock-in" by using a proprietary closed standard that is limited to a specific subset of hardware. In direct contrast to these expensive and redundant coding methods, OpenRL is a cross-OS, cross-platform API that provides a flexible foundation upon which many different applications can be built.  It takes advantage of multiple heterogeneous compute devices simultaneously, so that all CPU, GPU, and RTU (ray tracing unit) cores are fully utilized during the rendering process. Interested developers can evaluate OpenRL by registering at www.caustic.com.

About Caustic Graphics

Caustic Graphics, the creators of the OpenRL framework specification, is reinventing ray tracing and changing how interactive cinema-quality 3D graphics are produced, used, and enjoyed.  Caustic’s customers currently include AfterCad, Autodesk, Strata, e-on, LightWork Design, Open Design Alliance, and Robert McNeel & Associates.  The company is headquartered in San Francisco.  For more information, please visit www.caustic.com
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