Introducing RealityServer

Overview

Dramatic improvements in the graphics capabilities of a wide range of user devices including mobiles, and the development of cloud services has opened up many new business opportunties for the deployment of high-quality 3D content over the internet. For companies with large investments in 3D content it means new opportunities to streamline product development processes and enable more effective collaboration for geographically dispersed design teams, engineers and suppliers.

The RealityServer platform has a component architecture that is designed to seamlessly integrate into your existing processes and infrastructure. RealityServer is "multi-user" by design. The extensible web services APIs enable you to easily develop interactive, possibly collaborative web services applications to satisfy for example, improvements in internal design processes with geographically dispersed teams of designers, engineers, and suppliers. For customer applications, it is possible to offer a higher level of performance and visual quality on a wide range of devices that connect to the internet. The only requirement is a browser. No plugins are needed. Because the web services APIs are written in native C++, performance at runtime is extremely responsive. And you can take advantage of large scale, cloud-based resources to store data, render and share images, and perform collaborative tasks.

The RealityServer platform was designed to satisfy common requirements of companies that are looking for new, efficient, and effective ways to re-use and share 3D content:

  • Managing 3D data sets:
    • Support for very large 3D data sets: RealityServer uses a distributed system to load and manage 3D content and aggregate multiple datasets.
    • Security for the original 3D assets: 3D data stays on the server. only images are sent to clients. RealityServer-based applications serve small rendered images that can be viewed on a browser. No special plugins are required.
    • Support for a wide range of client devices: Small images are served, which means that RealityServer-based applications can support light-weight, low-powered, and mobile clients. Small images are easy share which facilitates collaboration and evaluation tasks.
  • Rendering:The RealityServer platform offers a range of state-of-the-art renderers to support a wide range of quality and performance requirements. Depending on your rendering requirements, renderers can provide accurate visual analysis of light and physically correct portrayal of complex lighting effects such as reflections. Results are visually accurate.
  • Application Development:
    • Command-based application development: RealityServer offers a well-defined set of high-level commands for loading, manipulating, rendering and delivering 3D content. Because rendering results can be difficult to comprehend and interpret, API commands can support zooming, cross-section views, and changes to lighting conditions, materials, and geometry for example.
    • Extensibility: In addition to the core set of commands shipped with RealityServer, support is provided for writing user commands that suit your application requirements. More general support for adding additional client protocols, authentication, and new events is also provided.

The capabilities of the RealityServer plaform, together with new cloud technologies and services, and advances in graphics support for client devices offer you new opportunities for developing compelling applications that truly engage your customers.