Siggraph report: video software headed for DTP - ACM Siggraph show

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Sept 15, 1994 by Paul McDougall

In 1989 Adobe's John Warnock won a Siggraph award for PostScript, his computer Program that turns digital files into complex printed images.

Since then, PostScript has become desktop publishing's dominant language, revolutionizing prepress and making rich its author. But despite the accolades, few really grasped the program's import during its early years.

Developing a benchmark

That's the kind of show ACM Siggraph is even the meaning of its acronym - Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics - is almost impenetrable). The featured technologies, such as virtual-world modeling programs, 3D scanners and holographic systems, are not going to change publishing and prepress today or even tomorrow, but, like PostScript, will eventually have an impact.

"We're still trying to figure out how to make money from all of this," says exhibitor Cammie Browning, president of Digital Connectivity Inc., an Atlanta-based systems integrator that targets the photographic, presentation and prepress industries. "But it will happen."

Indeed, what may ultimately have been the most important event during the show's week-long run last month in Orlando presages new money-making tools for ad agencies, magazines, and service bureaus: A subcommittee of the National Computer Graphics Committee announced it is developing standard language and techniques to benchmark the performance of UNIX- and Windows NT-based computers running applications compiled with a form of GL (Graphics Library), the native graphics language for high-powered Silicon Graphics workstations.

The creation of the Open GL Performance Characterization subcommittee could eventually encourage developers of sophisticated RGB imaging programs - like those used in medicine and entertainment - to version their software for print applications. Currently, most such developers write strictly for Silicon Graphics workstations, giving them little incentive to throw in the ability to separate to CMYK for color Printing, since SGI isn't a big name in prepress.

But the release of published standards, say experts, may encourage a good portion of SGI's users to opt for less expensive boxes like Windows NT-equipped computers - they'll have hard data that could indicate some of the lower-end machines' abilities to match their larger UNIX cousin. "Standards and compatibility are most important when it comes to determining the growth of particular segments of this industry," says Dr. Peter Bono, vice president and managing director at the Fraunhofer Center for Research in Computer Graphics. The Providence, Rhode Island-based think-tank currently is working with Brown University and others to help bring mass market publishing to the Internet.

Increased PC purchases, the thinking goes, may lead developers to port SGI applications to PCs. And once a video morphing program, for instance, has been adapted for the PC, it begins to make economic sense for RGB developers to embrace CMYK, and thereby open an entirely new market with minimal investment.

This is not just theoretical. At Siggraph, London-based 5D, known in the prepress industry for its Jaws RIP, announced a print version of its TMorph3 image and warping animation program, which Paramount Studios has used to wow moviegoers. "Many people have told us that they would buy this program if it was available in CMYK," says 5D marketing director Steve Clement-Hayes. "So we thought, 'Why not? Most of the work is already done, anyway."'

A formula for success

Hyperwarp3, as the package is labeled, is currently shipping only for SGI, TMorph3's native platform. But, with OpenGL and other factors pushing PCs further along into what was once strictly workstation territory, company insiders confirm that a Windows NT-version is on its way. "At this point, we don't want to tie our future strictly to the future of Silicon Graphics," notes one source at 5D.

As for the program itself, Hyperwarp3 is a package that "Spy would love," says 5D's Hayes. The $1,500 program lets users bend, twist and distort images simply by dragging and dropping. The results are astonishing - in one Siggraph demo, product managers added Death Becomes Her style effects to a standard headshot in a period of about 30 seconds to one minute.

The program is also remarkably open - it works with any of 17 image file formats, including TIFF, Targa, SGI, PostScript, Sun Raster, and CompuServe GIF - and at 16 bits-per-channel, offers its users an impressive dynamic range.

5D is confident that program will literally sell itself. Clement-Hayes says that even without a major marketing effort that "word of mouth" should be sufficient to ensure the software's commercial success.

Indeed, Hyperwarp3 may give magazines and ad agencies a new, inexpensive way to create splashy graphics, and as PCs get demonstrably closer in performance to their pricier workstation rivals, observers say more software will make its way downstream from high-tech industries such as aerospace and engineering.