LightWork Design announces LightWorks 7.3
New technology and performance enhancements for world’s leading rendering
engine!
SHEFFIELD, UK (24 July 2003) – LightWork Design, the world’s leading
supplier of rendering solutions for developers of advanced 3D computer
graphics software, has today announced the imminent release of LightWorks
7.3 and the immediate availability of a pre-release version – giving their
customers early access to the latest technology in LightWorks.
This latest version of LightWorks builds upon the product’s success in the
industry by adding significant new features, including:
Cross-platform, plug-in shaders
A major feature of this latest release is support for cross-platform,
plug-in shaders written in the advanced, industry standard LightWorks shader
language. Users of LightWorks-based applications will be able to add
LightWorks plug-in shaders directly into the applications they use without
requiring recompilation of the software. Plug-in shaders written in the
LightWorks shader language can be run on any LightWorks platform – Windows,
Macintosh and all UNIX machines – and can work within any LightWorks-based
application.
The new plug-in shader technology is encapsulated inside the secure LWA
format to allow shaders to be distributed directly to users for importing
into their applications, giving users faster access to even more
sophisticated materials, lighting and other visual effects.
The new plug-in shaders have full access to the advanced LightWorks shading
infrastructure, including unique features such as A-cubed shader
anti-aliasing, and work seamlessly across the range of rendering
technologies in the LightWorks solution, from hardware-assisted rendering up
to the highest quality software rendering.
Easy-to-create LWA-Enabled applications
LightWorks 7.3 also makes it significantly easier for customers to make
their applications LWA-Enabled, thereby giving their users access to the
growing number of industry-standard, real-world archives available for
download from www.lightworks-user.com. New features related to LWA-Enabled
include:
* Shader sealing: Automatic handling of private shader parameters for
Core API customers
* Generalized shading model and shading pipeline: Customers can
replace or augment the LightWorks shading pipeline for complete
customization and ease in making highly customized LightWorks-based
applications LWA-Enabled.
* New LWA archive taxonomy: A standard taxonomy and structure for
materials and other entities inside the LWA, including attributes that are
specific to applications or manufacturers that are publishing their data in
LWA format.
* Entity templates: Advanced attribute inheritance for LWA entities,
speeding up authoring time and reducing data size.
* Updated LWA format, based on an internal XML representation for
future extensibility and including full compression of the LWA stream that
significantly reduces the size for LWA files.
Performance increases
On top of that, LightWorks 7.3 incorporates performances increases of up to
40% in a range of features, including considerably faster IIR rendering that
uses less memory – for seeing instant photorealistic updates when editing
materials, ray-traced reflections, lights and other effects.
RPC and Real-time for Macintosh
As recently announced, version 7.3 of LightWorks also includes
cross-platform support for RPC files and LightWorks Real-time for the
Macintosh platform.
For more information about LightWorks 7.3, RPC support and LightWorks
Real-time for Macintosh see www.lightworkdesign.com or visit the LightWork
Design booth, 3431, at SIGGRAPH.
About LightWork Design
LightWork Design is the world’s leading supplier of rendering solutions for
developers of advanced 3D computer graphics software. Established in 1989,
LightWork Design has continually developed LightWorks to provide customers
with innovative and market-focused solutions for the creation of powerful
and easy-to-use rendering applications. Renowned for its physically
accurate visualization of real-world objects and environments, LightWorks is
the ideal choice for applications targeted at the AEC, Automotive, Graphics
and Industrial markets. LightWorks is supplied as a complete solution which
includes the SDK, support, training and consultancy services, to give
customers fast and efficient access to leading-edge rendering technology,
resulting in shorter development cycles, faster time-to-market for new
products, and lower software development costs.
LightWorks is embedded in over 80 software applications and used by more
than 1 million users worldwide, far more than any other renderer.
Applications that incorporate LightWorks include: Alibre Design from Alibre,
ArchiTrend from Fukui Computer, Pro/CONCEPT, Pro/DESKTOP and Pro/ENGINEER
Wildfire from PTC, Cobalt from Ashlar, Configura and InstantPlanner from
Configura Sverige AB, DigiD from Nihon Unisys, form.Z from auto-des-sys,
ICEM Surf from ICEM, IX Design from ImpactXoft, Madric from CPU,
MSC.visualNastran from MSC Software, Presenter 3D from Digital Immersion,
PowerShape from Delcam, solidThinking from Gestel, ThinkReal from Think3,
trueSpace from Caligari, Unigraphics NX from EDS, VectorWorks from
Nemetschek NA and products from many other major CAD vendors.
For more information, please contact:
rona.treeby@lightworkdesign.com
or go to:
www.lightworkdesign.com or www.lightworks-user.com
LightWorks and the LightWorks logo are registered trademarks of LightWork
Design Ltd.
LWA, LWA-Enabled and the LWA-Enabled logo, Interactive Image Regeneration,
IIR, A-cubed, Feature-Following Anti-Aliasing and FFAA are all trademarks of
LightWork Design Ltd. All other trademarks, images and logos remain the
property of their respective owners.
Copyright of LightWork Design Ltd. 1990-2002, 2003.