Caustic Graphics Gains Momentum for CausticRT Development Platform

Caustic Graphics recently announced that Lightwork Design, Robert McNeel & Associates, Realtime Technology AG (RTT AG), Right Hemisphere and SplutterFish have all agreed to port their interactive raytracing applications to the CausticRT™ platform, showing strong momentum early on behind the world’s only massively accelerated raytracing system for achieving breakthrough levels of quality in interactive, cinema-quality 3D computer graphics. Thus, for the first time, artists and designers will be able to take advantage of raytraced rendering throughout their entire work flow that is both computationally fast and economical. In addition, the company will be giving its first public demonstrations of CausticRT at SIGGRAPH 2009, August 3 – 7 in New Orleans.

CausticRT is based on a breakthrough algorithm that organizes incoherent rays into a data flow that takes advantage of the full computational power of CPUs and GPUs. It includes the CausticGL API that enables developers to simplify the creation of ray tracing renderers and provides a hardware abstraction layer for accelerated performance on multi-core CPUs, GPUs, and specialized ray tracing hardware.

“In just a few short months, developers have discovered the benefits of using Caustic’s raytracing technology over traditional rastorization techniques to create photo-realistic images built with their very own renderers,” said James McCombe, co-founder and CTO of Caustic Graphics. “I think their customers will also be amazed at the high quality of rendered images they’ll be able to create in a much shorter amount of time.”

“In addition to the significant rendering speed improvements afforded by CausticRT, we’re pleased that Caustic Graphics are proposing to standardize the CausticGL API,” said Robert McNeel, CEO of Robert McNeel & Associates. “For the first time, ray tracers can be developed more easily at a level of abstraction that is comparable to OpenGL for rasterization.”

David Forrester, CEO at Lightwork Design commented, “As early adopters of this technology, we’re really excited about our partnership with Caustic Graphics as we believe their product has the potential to offer real value to the marketplace. We see this collaboration as a key development in the state-of-the-art technology incorporated within Lightworks and invite people to watch a demo of this technology on our booth at SIGGRAPH.”

CausticRT on Display at SIGGRAPH
At SIGGRAPH 2009, the company will also have the CausticRT on display in the following locations:

• Caustic Graphics booth (#2026) – CausticRT will be on display for developers to get full demonstrations.

• Autodesk, Inc. booth (#2201) – Caustic’s technology will be featured as part of the Autodesk Design Visualization presentations shown at SIGGRAPH. The CausticRT platform will be showcased as part of a fully ray traced, interactive virtual walk through of a trellis structure designed by the architecture visionary Greg Lynn, rendered with the Brazil™ interactive renderer implemented in Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design 2010 software..

• Lightwork Design booth (#2635) – Caustic will be featured in a new Lightworks application – Lightworks Artisan, which is due to be unveiled at SIGGRAPH. The Caustic demo will demonstrate multi-core working and will also illustrate the performance improvements possible using Caustic.

• Robert McNeel & Associates booth (#2030) – CausticRT will be featured in a plug in for Rhino, featuring interactive raytracing.

“We’re excited to see the momentum Caustic Graphics has had over the past few months, and are happy to have them feature as part of our Design Visualization presentation at this year’s SIGGRAPH,” said Chris Ruffo, Design Visualization Industry Manager for Autodesk Media & Entertainment. “It’s important for architects and their clients to have a good understanding of what a project will look like before it’s built – and CausticRT offers a great amount of realism at interactive speeds.”
About CausticRT

CausticRT includes the CausticOne™ graphics accelerator card, and the CausticGL™ programming API. CausticGL is a programming API based on OpenGL. CausticOne is an optional co-processor that works with CausticGL. It unlocks the ability of your GPU/CPU to efficiently shade and allows it to render stunning 3D imagery up to 20 times faster than it can today. A supporting SDK includes documentation, access to the support portal and knowledgebase, and a one-year subscription to hardware and software updates, as well as technical support. For details go to http://caustic.com/caustic-rt_intro.php.

Caustic Graphics, creators of CausticRT, is reinventing raytracing and changing how interactive cinema-quality 3D graphics are produced, used, and enjoyed. Caustic’s customers currently include Lightwork Design, Realtime Technology AG (RTT AG), Right Hemisphere, and Robert McNeel & Associates. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and funded by angel investors. For more information, please visit www.caustic.com.