Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!ogicse!milton!hlab
From: jet@karazm.math.uh.edu (J Eric Townsend)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: Real-time raytrace -- get serious!
Message-ID: <1991May16.224525.24363@menudo.uh.edu>
Date: 16 May 91 22:45:25 GMT
References: <1991May15.050715.28438@milton.u.washington.edu> <1991May16.
Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu (Human Int. Technology Lab)
Organization: University of Houston -- Department of Mathematics
Lines: 28
Approved: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu


In article <1991May16.055359.2823@milton.u.washington.edu> rodent@netcom.
COM (Ben Discoe) writes:

>but when people are spending $4000 to $6000
>on fancy MacIIs and Amiga3000s to get the raytracing-power of 15-20

I don't know if there's a similar product for the Mac, but there's
at least one European firm selling transputer boards for the Amiga
including a raytracing engine that can deal with various input formats.

fyi,

25Mhz A3000's are on sale for < $3000 right now...  All you need is
the front manual page from a CBM computer (from the Vic-20 to the A2000).

I'm currently doing raytracing work on an ipsc/860 (not intended
to be realtime).  One of the real problems is the bandwidth of the
images.  You wann drop 15fps 4 bitplanes minimum NTSC to an Amiga for display?
(15*750*400*4)/8=2,250,000 bytes a second.  That's just under
the maximum node-to-node communications rate in the i860, and
you still haven't dealth with putting all the data together into
a single image (and I don't have an iPSC<->Zorro III card to bridge
the Intel machine and my Amiga :-).

--
J. Eric Townsend - jet@uh.edu - bitnet: jet@UHOU - vox: (713) 749-2126
Skate(UNIX || Amiga);