From: prasad mdr (vrmdr++at++netscape.net)
Date: 02/26/2000 10:43:02
Hello Roessler,
Performer is a very powerful visual simulation API on SGI high end platforms.
In perticular it makes sense if your application needs best performance from a
system like ONYX. It is also available on Linux but not on NT. If your
application is a vis app i.e more of terrain data with lots of textures e.t.c
, Performer is strongly recommended along with ONYX. A cheaper version is on
LINUX. Performer also supports close to 40 visual simulation database
loaders. It has no CAD data loaders though.
Optimizer is targetted at MCAD people. It has lots of MCAD flavour. If your
application is about loading dense MCAD data and trying to achieve good frame
rates, then Optimizer is for you. It does not have any Vis database loaders
for FLT , DWB e.t.c. It does have third party SDRC, CATIA loaders.
We have developed our application for CAD and CAE data viewing and analysis
both in Performer and Optimizer. i.e in Performer on SGI systems and an
equivalent one in Optimizer on NT. Ofcourse, we wrote our own CATIA
translator to take CATIA models into Performer application. Oue experience is
that, Performer is more matured while Optimizer has to go a long way/.
However , we are using Optimizer's excellent simplication alogithms to create
and reduce the polygonal count and once we optimize the models, we are using
our Performer based application to view and study the models. We also
generate stereo views of our CADdata in our performer application and
integrated Crystal Eyes and HMD with ascension magnetic tracker.
Our experience is that, Performer gives better performance and is a better
tool for VR applications whethe it is CAD or vis sim apps. Optimizer's edge
is its simplification tools. I hope those Optimizer's simplification
algothims will be made available in Performer soon.
Hope this helps...
prasad
Andreas Roessler <andreas.roessler++at++iao.fhg.de> wrote:
Hi - we are currently consulting in a European research programme. The
objective is the development of specialised VR-system from scratch. Output
devices will be HMD & stereo projection including a CAVE.
The people who are responsible for the software prefer to use Optimizer
because of the availability on NT.
Has anyone a more detailed comparision between Performer (which we are using
for years) and Optimizer, e.g. in terms of performance?
Thanks in advance,
Andreas Roessler
__________________________________________
Head of Competence Center Virtual Reality
Fraunhofer IAO
http://vr.iao.fhg.de
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