OpenGL ES Safety Critical API Gains Momentum as Diehl Avionik and Zandiant Technologies Join Khronos; OpenGL ES Demonstrations at the Princess Interactive User Conference in Germany

Business Wire, Sept 19, 2005

CLEARLAKE PARK, Calif. -- The Khronos(TM) Group is pleased to announce that major avionic supplier Diehl Avionik Systeme and Zandiant Technologies, a leading supplier in automotive navigation and telematics systems have become Khronos Contributing Members. Also announced today, visual simulation and virtual prototyping specialist Princess Interactive has become an OpenGL(R) ES Adopter in order to port to their INSIDES V4.0 virtual prototyping/virtual cockpit system. The INSIDES V4beta and several other Khronos Member product demonstrations will be presented at the Princess Interactive User Conference (PITECH 2005) in Germany later this month.

This news follows the announcement last month that Khronos released the first publicly available version of the Safety Critical Profile for OpenGL ES. OpenGL ES-SC 1.0 removes functionality from OpenGL ES 1.0 that is not required for safety-critical applications such automotive and avionics instrumentation displays, in order to minimize implementation and safety certification costs. OpenGL ES-SC 1.0 also adds functionality, such as display lists, that are required to support legacy and auto-generated display applications in this specialized market segment. Rapidly-emerging markets that require OpenGL ES-SC 1.0 include: cutting-edge automotive instrumentation; avionics displays that must pass the FAA-mandated DO-178B certification process; industrial applications such as power plant instrumentation, transportation monitoring and control; and real-time display of medical data requiring 100% reliability for surgery. Details about the specification are available at http://www.khronos.org/opengles/sc/.> "The defense and aerospace industry has traditionally relied on proprietary subset definitions of OpenGL, but manufacturers are now demanding open standard solutions to reduce development costs and shorten product development times," said Mr. Christian Below, vice president of Marketing and Business Development, Diehl Avionik Systeme GmbH. "By joining the Khronos Group and contributing to the specification, Diehl will help enable rapid and cost-effective development, deployment and maintenance of safety-critical systems."

"After the hard work put into OpenGL ES-SC by all of the working group members over the past three years, it is wonderful to witness the incredible response that we have had since its formal release at Siggraph this year," said Bruce Stockwell, senior OpenGL developer at Seaweed Systems and chair of the OpenGL ES Safety Critical working group. "We are excited to welcome new members and adopters in key markets such as aerospace, defense and automotive. We invite interested parties to come to PITECH to see demonstrations of real applications running under an OpenGL ES-SC compliant implementation."

"Earlier in 2005 Diehl Avionik selected ALT's DO-178B Level A certifiable OpenGL ES driver to be deployed in new aircraft cockpit display systems, and Freescale selected ALT's OpenGL ES driver and GT3D Development Kit as the solution to support their 2D/3D graphic requirements in automotive/telematics display systems," said Chris Brady, CEO of ALT Software. "ALT encourages all companies in automotive and avionics graphics design to get involved with the Khronos Group and help ensure that the OpenGL ES-SC continues to foster more rapid development and deployment of cutting-edge telematics solutions."

"Quantum3D's IData Human Machine Interface (HMI) development suite offers tool-based, cross-platform solutions for OpenGL ES platforms, from low cost devices through safety-critical DO-178B avionics," said Ross Smith, Quantum3D president and co-founder. "IData with its optional 3D scene management and digital map modules is the natural choice for the next-generation of advanced HMI applications for first responders, military, medical, automotive, and industrial automation HMIs. Quantum3D is committed to supporting OpenGL ES and the Safety Critical profile to further these key industry technologies."

Khronos Presentations & Demos at Princess Interactive User Conference

Khronos members 3Dlabs, ALT Software, Fraunhofer, NVIDIA, Quantum3D, Siemens and Seaweed Systems will demonstrate cutting-edge OpenGL ES based products at the Princess Interactive User Conference in Madgeburg, Germany, September 29 and 30th. More information: http://www.khronos.org/news/events/#princessinteractive

About Khronos

The Khronos Group is a member-funded industry consortium focused on the creation of open standard APIs such as COLLADA(TM), OpenGL ES, OpenMAX(TM), OpenVG(TM), OpenSL ES(TM) and OpenML(TM) to enable the authoring and acceleration of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms and devices. All Khronos members are able to contribute to the development of Khronos API specifications, are empowered to vote at various stages before public deployment, and are able to accelerate the delivery of their cutting-edge media platforms and applications through early access to specification drafts and conformance tests. Please go to www.khronos.org for more information.