Whether you are designing a component, integrating an assembly, or styling an entirely new automobile, the level of realism your CAD software enables, directly impacts your productivity throughout the design cycle. After all, the more realistic the materials you use and the rendered images are; the easier and faster it is to ensure a precise design that is also aesthetically pleasing.

But imagine visualising your designs without spending hours rendering and re-rendering them after every design change. With Nvidia Quadro FX workstation graphics solutions, not only can CAD professionals create ultra-high quality images that are accurate to the smallest design specification, but they can also render accurate materials, such as metals, plastics, rubbers, or cloth, in realtime. And they can interact with their fully shaded models in order to test design concepts and validate scenarios on-the-fly.

"Interactive materials represent a breakthrough for the CAD/CAM industry," says Philip Henning, graphics product manager, Axiz. "At the earliest stages a design engineer can view his model from every perspective and see how it will look as a finished product. Different materials can be tried, design alternatives can be explored, and potential errors can be caught - without expending the time required to render them offline."

Two factors make accurate realtime materials possible. One is the Nvidia Quadro FX architecture, which features 128-bit Nvidia IEEE floating-point precision providing a near infinite variation of colours, and 12 bits of subpixel precision to erase visual anomalies that cause models to 'spreckle' or 'crack'. The other factor that enables hardware-rendered realistic materials is Cg, a high-level, C-like programming language. Cg enables design engineers to apply sophisticated, realtime shaders (materials) to their models, as they are designing.

This means they can simulate a virtually unlimited range of physical characteristics, including lighting effects and physical surface properties, plus combine and modify them on the fly, making styling an integral part of the realtime design process.

"Our goal is to accelerate engineers' productivity," continues Henning. "With Nvidia Quadro FX, CAD/CAM users benefit from increased levels of realism that result in enhanced work efficiency, leading to fundamentally better designs and shorter production cycles."

The PNY Quadro FX range includes a three year warranty and is available from Axiz.

For more information contact Philip Henning, Axiz, 011 237 7000, philiph@axiz.co.za, www.axiz.com