SCOTTSDALE, AZ — Imagination Technologies has launched the PowerVR Brazil SDK V.1.0 ray traced rendering toolkit. Developed from the ground up to fully utilize Imagination’s PowerVR OpenRL API SDK, the Brazil SDK V.1.0 enables 3D graphics software developers to easily add high-level ray tracing functionality to their applications.
The Brazil SDK V.1.0 facilitates interactive photorealistic visualization or final-frame rendering, and eliminates the need to create similar technology from scratch or port to multiple independent hardware platforms.
“The PowerVR Brazil SDK v1.0 is a notable milestone in our plans for bringing high performance ray tracing capabilities to a broader range of markets from desktop to, ultimately, mobile and embedded,” notes Tony King-Smith, VP marketing at Imagination Technologies. “Our new OpenRL-based PowerVR Brazil SDK v1.0 delivers a comprehensive set of tools and capabilities, incorporating significant functionality inherited from the highly respected Brazil final frame renderer originally developed by Splutterfish. Since Caustic and Splutterfish engineers are both now fully integrated into our PowerVR visual IP engineering teams, we’re delighted to release this next product from our emerging ray tracing technology portfolio, which complements our existing PowerVR OpenRL API SDK.”
The Brazil SDK V.1.0 enables the addition of high-level ray tracing functionality to applications accelerated by the growing range of OpenRL renderers being developed by Imagination, including both software (running on x86 and x86-64 CPUs) and future hardware accelerated platforms. The Brazil SDK V.1.0 has already being utilized to create plug-ins for Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3DS Max, and Robert McNeel and Associates’ Rhinoceros.
The advantage of a fully interactive ray traced viewport over viewing scenes in a rasterized viewport (the traditional approach used by most CAD systems today) is the high degree of visual fidelity, which extends to lighting, reflections, shadows, etc. at the earliest stages of modeling and lighting a scene. This can substantially simplify the process and cost of content creation.
Key features in the Brazil SDK V.1.0 include:
- Full Customization: Provides complete flexibility to customize almost any part of the Brazil SDK V.1.0’s rendering components to match application-specific needs.
- Programmable Shaders and Materials: While many systems support only a fixed set of shaders, the Brazil SDK V.1.0 supports fully programmable shaders and materials. This results in the production of stunning, realistic images with flexible effects.
- Physically Correct or Flexible Rendering: While many rendering systems only support one type of rendering, either biased or unbiased, the Brazil SDK V.1.0 can be used to enable both physically correct and biased rendering.