Project Pandora: cloud based rendering for 3ds Max using Nvidia GPUs

Imagine being able to render models in a snap when all you own is a low powered PC, laptop or tablet. Well, that’s cloud rendering. Send the model up to the cloud and back comes a shiny new render for you to show off to your colleagues and clients.

Autodesk’s latest Labs project, Pandora, does just that. With the help of graphics specialist Nvidia, 3ds Max models can now be rendered in the cloud. But instead of doing this on CPUs (Central Processing Units), Pandora’s cloud servers use Nvidia GPUs (Graphics Processing Units).

Read more…

Dell Precision R5500: Workstation performance in a compact package, all managed remotely with a thin client on the desk

If you happened to be in Seattle last week (sadly we weren’t) you may have come across an interesting demo featuring Siemens NX software and Dell’s Precision R5500 Rack workstation.

Dell showed how an engineer could remotely control an interactive, graphics intensive mechanical design session in Siemens NX over a LAN network using its Teradici-based rack workstation technology.

The main rationale for doing this is security (as only dumb pixel data ever leaves the data centre) centralised IT, and more flexibility as staff don’t have to work in a fixed location.

Read more…

The AMD FirePro V4900 may come in a small package, but is still capable of driving up to six displays thanks to AMD Eyefinity and DisplayPort 1.2 technology

The AMD FirePro V4900 is the latest edition to AMD’s family of professional graphics cards.

The entry-level board joins the mid-range AMD FirePro V5900 and V7900, which were launched earlier this year.

Despite its entry-level positioning the card isn’t light on features - 1GB of 128-bit GDDR5 should provide plenty of memory for most CAD workflows while enhanced AMD Eyefinity and DisplayPort 1.2 technology enables six-screen multi-display set ups, currently a unique selling point for AMD in the professional marketplace.

Read more…

Nvidia Maximus consists of a Quadro graphics card and a Tesla GPU compute board, tied together by a unified driver in a certified Nvidia Maximus workstation.

Ecce Maximus (behold Maximus), we proclaim, giving our best impression of having had a classical education.

We’re not talking about the resurrection of Russell Crowe in Gladiator here though, Maximus is a new (Graphics Processing Unit) GPU technology from Nvidia that the Santa Clara firm reckons will revolutionise engineering and visualisation workflows on workstations.

The concept is simple. Deploy two GPUs in a workstation instead of one. GPU ‘A’ is a Nvidia Quadro graphics card used exclusively for 3D graphics, while GPU ‘B’ is a specialist Nvidia Tesla GPU compute card reserved for complex rendering or simulation calculations. According to Nvidia, this solves a common problem in GPU compute workflows where software competes for GPU and CPU resources and one operation often wins out at the expense of the other. In such circumstances, the workstation can only work efficiently when performing linear workflows - design or simulate, or design or render, but never both operations at the same time.

Read more…

Dell Precision M6600: the first mobile workstation to feature 512GB SSDs

Solid State Drives (SSDs) are now seriously rivalling mechanical drives in the mobile workstation space. Dell reckons it’s the first mobile workstation manufacturer to offer 512GB (SATA3) Mobility SSDs. And with its Precision M6600 supporting up to two of these little beauties, plus a mini-card slot with up to 128GB, that’s over a terabyte of solid-state storage.

With such big capacity I feel hardcore CAD/CAM/CAE users can finally start to think about ditching mechanical drives in favour of faster SSDs. But while read/write performance is important, I think durability is key here. I’m sure I’m not the only clumsy fool who gets paranoid about losing hours, sometimes days of work with a single drop (no, I don’t back up every night). And while mobile workstations have drop protection built into their mechanical hard drives I still don’t feel as safe as I do with an SSD.

Read more…

Here’s a nice competition for budding designers. Dimension 3D printing from Stratasys is holding its eighth annual Extreme Redesign 3D Printing Challenge whereby it encourages students to submit an innovative new product design, a redesign of an existing product, or an original or redesigned work of art or architecture.

Dimension 3D Printing will award nine student winners either $2,500 or $1,000 (approx £630 or £1,600) or scholarships in the categories of Middle School and Secondary School Engineering, University Engineering, and Art & Architecture. Designs are awarded based on creativity, usefulness, part integrity and aesthetics. And there’s something for the educators – the instructors of the three first-place student winners will receive an Apple iPad for use in the classroom.

Read more…

With the new OpenCL compliant release,  structural and multiphysics simulations in Abaqus 6.11 can now been accelerated using a wide range of non-proprietary hardware platforms

Back in May 2011 Nvidia talked up new Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) compute capabilities in Simulia Abaqus 6.11, which made use of Nvidia’s proprietary parallel computing architecture, CUDA.

Now there’s some official news from AMD that simulations in the structural and multiphysics analysis software can also be accelerated by its GPU hardware. The new OpenCL compliant release of Abaqus 6.11 can use CPUs and GPUs from a range of hardware vendors including Intel, AMD (FirePro / FireStream) and Nvidia (Quadro / Tesla).

Read more…