Press Releases
2007-06-17
Mercury Computer Systems, Visualization Sciences Group, and NVIDIA® to reduce time to scientific discovery from hours to minutes
Mercury’s Avizo 3D™ Visualization Software uses NVIDIA CUDA™ High-Performance Visual Computing Technology to deliver unprecedented speed in pre-processing complex materials structures
Dresden, Germany, June 17 - Mercury Computer Systems (NASDAQ: MRCY) Visualization Sciences Group, partnering with the Institute of Condensed Matter Chemistry of Bordeaux (ICMCB-CNRS – National Centre for Scientific Research) integrated NVIDIA CUDA technology into the Avizo 3D visualization framework, tremendously reducing the time to pre-process very large micro-tomography datasets.
Long-time advanced users of the Avizo 3D visualization software, the ICMCB-CNRS leads highly demanding research projects that require the usage of high-performance techniques to visualize and quickly process very large amounts of scientific data.
Dominique Bernard, Research Director at the ICMCB-CNRS explains:“a typical materials analysis, using micro-tomography data, encompasses the segmentation of 3D images into regions that correspond to the various phases of a selected sample. As we work on 3D large datasets, the execution is slow in most casesand furthermore requires several passes. The integration of CUDA algorithms into Avizo enables an even higher quality and more concise image filtering. The simultaneous visualizationof the image evolution while it is being calculated enables us to adjustour numerous filtering parameters and obtain the results within an extremely shorter timeframe.”
Mercury Visualization Sciences Group leverages its high-end visualization framework combined with NVIDIA® powerful computational technologies to allow materials scientists to get their pre-processing results within a time scale that drops down from hours to minutes, as shown in the below chart:
By exploiting CUDA technology, Avizo™ 3D Visualization framework achieves interactive image segmentation where the progress of the segmentation can be tracked and influenced interactively, bringing much faster and highly-concise insight into raw image data.
This seamless interoperability between GPU computing and advanced visualization techniques makes Avizo “understanding-by-visualization” solution for researchers and scientists who are looking for on-the-fly computation coupled to interactive 3D visualization.
With today’s announcement of the new Tesla C1060 computing processors, this boost in performance is set to increase even further. The Tesla C1060 features double precision accuracy and, with 240 processor cores delivering 1 Teraflop per GPU, double the performance of previous generation products, Combined with double the on-board memory (4GB), the Tesla C1060 is helping the Mercury Visualization Sciences Group to handle and quickly process incredibly large and complex amounts of data.
For more information about Avizo™ and HPC-powered 3D visualization solutions, visit Mercury Visualization Sciences Group in stand #F01 at the International Supercomputing Conference 2008 (Dresden, Germany), visit http://3dviz.mc.com or contact Mercury at 3d_info@mc.com.
About About Avizo™, the 3D visualization framework
Avizo software is a powerful, multifaceted tool based on Open Inventor® by Mercury for visualizing, manipulating, and understanding scientific and industrial data. Wherever 3D datasets need to be processed, in materials and physical science, Non Destructive Testing, geosciences or engineering applications, Avizo offers abundant state-of-the-art features within an intuitive workflow and easy-to-use graphical user interface. For more information, visit http://3dviz.mc.com/avizo
About NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology
NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology is the world’s only C language environment that provides access to processing power of NVIDIA GPUs. It enables developers to utilize NVIDIA GPUs to solve the most complex computation-intensive challenges such as oil and gas exploration, financial risk management, product design, medical imaging, and scientific research. For more information, visit http://www.nvidia.com/cuda
About the ICMCB-CNRS
Of national and international fame, the Institute of Condensed Matter Chemistry of Bordeaux (ICMCB – National Centre for Scientific Research, Bordeaux University) is involved in the Solid State Chemistry, Materials Science, and Molecular Sciences. In 4 research areas – Energy, Functional Materials, Nanomaterials, Environment and Sustainable rowth -, the ICMCB researchers design, characterize, model, assemble materials of the future from the nanoparticle to the macroscopic crystal. The institute also includes about twenty shared facilities, and three resources centers. For more information, visit http://www.icmcb-bordeaux.cnrs.fr/
About VSG, the Visualization Sciences Group of Mercury Computer Systems
VSG is the leading provider of interactive 3D visualization software solutions, for the most demanding industrial and scientific applications including Large Data Management, data fusion, dynamic GPU computation, post-processing of multi-physics simulation, from desktop to augmented reality, from local rendering to remote visualization. VSG helps its customers succeed in geosciences, materials science, oil & gas, manufacturing, and engineering, supported by a world-class organization. Visit VSG at 3dviz.mc.com.
Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. is based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and serves customers worldwide through a broad network of direct sales offices, subsidiaries, and distributors. We are listed at the NASDAQ National Market (NASDAQ: MRCY), visit Mercury at www.mc.com.
Contacts:
Avizo is a trademark of Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. CUDA is a trademark of NIVIDIA Corporation. Open Inventor and OpenGL are registered trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries worldwide, used under license from Silicon Graphics, Inc. All other company and/or product names may be trade names, trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated.
Copyright © 2008 Mercury Computer Systems and NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved.