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NVidia + OpenGL + Linux
BJH writes "Saw this on Ars Technica - NVidia have announced their new workstation-class graphics board, and say that it's going to have OpenGL drivers for Linux. Check it out their press release for more information.
" The hardware looks really, really nice too.
Well, I can tell you some of the things that I have used or seen high-end graphics used for.
1. Visualization of the 3d structure of molecules. Many chemical reactions require an understanding of the fit between say a molecule and a zeolite in 3d. In order to visualize this in 3d I used an evans-and-sutherland graphics workstation with a mechanical shutter and jittering display image to project a 3d image into the space in front of my eyes. This type of application is big big big in the pharmacueticals industry. SGI has a very strong market share here.
2. Visualization of CFD simulations. Real-world work often requires a multi-dimensional projection of data onto a 2-d surface of large data sets - say flow fields obtained from computational fluid dynamics. Ideally you would like the ability to view the 3d time dependent result and rotate or pan the 3d field in real time. Most of the CFD work I have seen is done on HP or Sun workstations these days. Important in all sorts of places - example - modelling flows in an oil field, or in a tornado.
3. CAD/CAM. Computer aided design on a large scale. My brother is a wing designer for Boeing on the Joint Strike Fighter project. Boeing is doing all their airframe design in the digital domain now. This means preparing 3d models showing the actaul placement of every component in the airframe and determining it's mechanical performance.
Obviously this is important stuff - it's where the action is in the transferrence of science to every day life. I suppose the NVidia card may fit in the low end of some of these applications.
There have been a lot of posts so far on whether nVidia's code is open-source. nVidia created a hardware-enabled GLX driver that integrates with XFree86 3.3.x, and source is available (you can compile it yourself). However, the source is obfuscated to protect what they consider proprietary details about their cards.
XFree86 4 will be the thing to watch for GLX with integrated 3D hardware support; it looks to me like this is where nVidia is putting a lot of effort. Should be sweet!
--
Brent J. Nordquist N0BJN
A little bit of info at Thresh's FiringSquad
:)
It has some information about Quadro vs. NV10, and even some CAD-related benchmarks against cards like the GVX1.
Guess who won..
-Warren