Fusion-Io Yeams Up With Nvidia, Tweak and Thinkbox

Fusion-io, Inc. announced its participation in the SIGGRAPH 2011 international
conference on computer graphics and interactive technologies.

Fusion-io is
collaborating with a number of leading technology companies, including NVIDIA,
Thinkbox Software and Tweak Software to accelerate entertainment production by
demonstrating full resolution, real-time digital content creation for many of
powerful applications.

"Entertainment artists who use Fusion’s ioMemory
technologies can now spend more time creating and less time waiting for content
to load, playback and render," said Vincent Brisebois, Fusion-io Product
Manager. "Multiple SSDs configured in a RAID can provide basic throughput,
but struggle to provide the low latency required for delivering interactivity
in powerful content creation applications. By working with our innovative
partners NVIDIA, Thinkbox Software and Tweak Software, we are helping studios
and artists unlock their creativity. Now, not only can artists do more faster,
but with the flexibility offered by Fusion-io and our partners, studios can
focus on the artistry that separates good from great."

In the NVIDIA booth at SIGGRAPH, the Fusion-io video
wall showcases how Fusion ioMemory technology combined with the NVIDIA
QuadroPlex 7000 Visual Computing System provides the throughput necessary to
play 12 full HD(1080p) uncompressed video feeds simultaneously off a single
workstation with interactive graphics processing unit (GPU)-based color
correction. The video wall demonstration will be running on an HP Z800
workstation equipped with the NVIDIA QuadroPlex 7000 and Fusion ioMemory
modules.

"Working with Fusion-io, we’ve created an impressive,
large-scale visualization technology demonstration at SIGGRAPH for show
attendees," said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions
Group, NVIDIA. "By combining Fusion’s ioMemory technology with our
powerful QuadroPlex 7000, we’re demonstrating how to enable real-time color
correction and processing of a dozen simultaneous uncompressed HD video streams
– without being bottlenecked by disk speeds."

At Autodesk booth, Fusion ioMemory technology will
accelerate demonstrations of Autodesk Composite software, which is included in
the Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Maya and Autodesk Softimage software
applications. The Autodesk software packages feature integrated 3D modeling,
animation, rendering, and compositing tools that enable artists and designers
to quickly ramp up for production.

"Autodesk Composite software can be enhanced by
technologies like Fusion ioMemory to help artists see their visions come to
life more quickly," said Rob Hoffmann, senior product marketing manager,
Autodesk. "When 3D artists can
immediately see the impact of each tool and adjustment, their imagination is
freed to try new and innovative approaches to creative storytelling."

Fusion ioMemory will be also integrated into a Supermicro
SuperServer 8046B-6RF server in the Thinkbox Software Pacific Rim suite at the
Fairmont hotel. This system provides increased speed and efficiency in
demonstrations of Krakatoa, Thinkbox’s production-proven volumetric particle rendering,
manipulation and management toolkit. Krakatoa provides a pipeline for creating,
shaping and rendering vast quantities of particles at unprecedented speed to
represent natural phenomena like dust, smoke, silt, ocean surface foam, plasma
and even solid objects.

"We have clients working with billions of particles per
frame to create photo-real smoke, fire, water, creatures made of ink, and
photorealistic visualization of volumetric objects such as bones and skin. When
saving or loading those particles, we have found nothing faster than
Fusion-io," said Chris Bond, Thinkbox Software CEO and founder. "We
first tested Krakatoa 1.0 with Fusion-io. When we realized the potential of
ioMemory, we optimized Krakatoa 2.0 to take advantage of its capabilities, and
now our loading performance is an order of magnitude better."

Tweak Software will be utilizing ioMemory
technology from Fusion-io to accelerate its flagship RV software. RV supports
dual stream output for stereo playback, embeds audio in the SDI signal, and
takes advantage of RV’s flexible tools for review, editing, collaboration, an
notation and comparison of media. At SIGGRAPH 2011, RV will be demonstrating
its integration package that combines RV’s real-time playback with the
compositing abilities of The Foundry’s Nuke software and Fusion ioMemory. The
integration allows artists to save various iterations of their Nuke renders on
the ioMemory and then immediately play them back in real-time in RV.

"Artists get a big benefit by combining the blazing
fast memory technologies from Fusion-io with RV’s advanced image and sequence
playback abilities," said Seth Rosenthal, co-founder of Tweak Software.
"The ability to stream film-res, stereo, high-dynamic-range imagery on the
artist desktop or in the screening room gives artists immediate feedback so
they have more time to try new things and get better results. This is all made
possible by the remarkable data throughput and reduced latency offered by
Fusion-io."