Innovative Industry Leaders Unlock Performance to Unleash Creativity in Digital Content Creation Tools Showcased at SIGGRAPH 2011

Fusion-io, a provider of a next-generation shared data decentralization platform, today announced its participation in the SIGGRAPH 2011 international conference on computer graphics and interactive technologies. Fusion-io is collaborating with a number of leading technology companies, including NVIDIA, Thinkbox Software and Tweak Software, to accelerate entertainment production by demonstrating full resolution, real-time digital content creation for many of the industry's most powerful applications.
“Entertainment artists who use Fusion’s ioMemory technologies can now spend more time creating and less time waiting for content to load, playback and render,” said Vincent Brisebois, Fusion-io Product Manager. “Multiple SSDs configured in a RAID can provide basic throughput, but struggle to provide the low latency required for delivering interactivity in powerful content creation applications. By working with our innovative partners NVIDIA, Thinkbox Software and Tweak Software, we are helping studios and artists unlock their creativity. Now, not only can artists do more faster, but with the flexibility offered by Fusion-io and our partners, studios can focus on the artistry that separates good from great.”

In the NVIDIA booth at SIGGRAPH, (#453), the Fusion-io video wall showcases how Fusion ioMemory technology combined with the NVIDIA QuadroPlex 7000 Visual Computing System provides the throughput necessary to play 12 full HD(1080p) uncompressed video feeds simultaneously off a single workstation with interactive graphics processing unit (GPU)-based color correction. The video wall demonstration will be running on an HP Z800 workstation equipped with the NVIDIA QuadroPlex 7000 and Fusion ioMemory modules.

“Working with Fusion-io, we’ve created an impressive, large-scale visualization technology demonstration at SIGGRAPH for show attendees,” said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions Group, NVIDIA. “By combining Fusion’s ioMemory technology with our powerful QuadroPlex 7000, we’re demonstrating how to enable real-time color correction and processing of a dozen simultaneous uncompressed HD video streams ‘ without being bottlenecked by disk speeds.”

At Autodesk booth #429, Fusion ioMemory technology will accelerate demonstrations of Autodesk Composite software, which is included in the Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya and Autodesk Softimage software applications. The Autodesk software packages feature integrated 3D modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing tools that enable artists and designers to quickly ramp up for production.

“Autodesk Composite software can be enhanced by technologies like Fusion ioMemory to help artists see their visions come to life more quickly,” said Rob Hoffmann, senior product marketing manager, Autodesk. “When 3D artists can immediately see the impact of each tool and adjustment, their imagination is freed to try new and innovative approaches to creative storytelling.”

Fusion ioMemory will be also integrated into a Supermicro SuperServer 8046B-6RF server in the Thinkbox Software Pacific Rim suite at the Fairmont hotel. This system provides increased speed and efficiency in demonstrations of Krakatoa, Thinkbox’s production-proven volumetric particle rendering, manipulation and management toolkit. Krakatoa provides a pipeline for creating, shaping and rendering vast quantities of particles at unprecedented speed to represent natural phenomena like dust, smoke, silt, ocean surface foam, plasma and even solid objects.

“We have clients working with billions of particles per frame to create photo-real smoke, fire, water, creatures made of ink, and photorealistic visualization of volumetric objects such as bones and skin. When saving or loading those particles, we have found nothing faster than Fusion-io,” said Chris Bond, Thinkbox Software CEO and founder. “We first tested Krakatoa 1.0 with Fusion-io. When we realized the potential of ioMemory, we optimized Krakatoa 2.0 to take advantage of its capabilities, and now our loading performance is an order of magnitude better.”

In booth #963, Tweak Software will be utilizing ioMemory technology from Fusion-io to accelerate its flagship RV software. RV supports dual stream output for stereo playback, embeds audio in the SDI signal, and takes advantage of RV’s flexible tools for review, editing, collaboration, an notation and comparison of media. At SIGGRAPH 2011, RV will be demonstrating its integration package that combines RV’s real-time playback with the compositing abilities of The Foundry’s Nuke software and Fusion ioMemory. The integration allows artists to save various iterations of their Nuke renders on the ioMemory and then immediately play them back in real-time in RV.

“Artists get a big benefit by combining the blazing fast memory technologies from Fusion-io with RV’s advanced image and sequence playback abilities,” said Seth Rosenthal, co-founder of Tweak Software. “The ability to stream film-res, stereo, high-dynamic-range imagery on the artist desktop or in the screening room gives artists immediate feedback so they have more time to try new things and get better results. This is all made possible by the remarkable data throughput and reduced latency offered by Fusion-io.”

For more information: www.fusionio.com.