ELSA GLoria Graphics Boards Deliver Hardware Acceleration for AutoCAD R14 and 3D Studio MAX 2.0

ELSA Extends High-Performance Graphics Solutions for AutoCAD R14, Autodesk Mechanical Desktop 2.0, and 3D Studio MAX

NDES (Booth #6270 & 6926), Chicago, IL - March 18, 1998 - ELSA, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) today announced three product-specific software solutions for the award-winning GLoria™ family of professional graphics accelerators-POWERdraft for AutoCAD^® R14 and Autodesk^® Mechanical Desktop 2.0; ELSAview 3D for 3D visualization in AutoCAD^® and MAXtreme for optimized hardware acceleration in 3D Studio MAX^® R2.

These high-performance products further extend ELSA GLoria's lead as the professional graphics accelerator of choice for AutoCAD and 3D Studio MAX. ELSA POWERdraft for AutoCAD R14 and ELSAview 3D will be demonstrated at NDES, Chicago, March 16-19, 1998.

POWERdraft - the only hardware-accelerated graphics driver and utility set for AutoCAD R14 - builds on ELSA's early solutions for AutoCAD to deliver superior performance and an easy-to-use navigational interface for AutoCAD users. POWERdraft's display list technology and hardware acceleration enables a performance leap of up to 4x beyond standard AutoCAD R14 drivers, according to the relevant benchmark tests. The Cockpit navigation interface allows simplified movement through CAD drawings and offers zoom and pan functionality. POWERdraft's MultiView feature can save up to 100 different 2D and 3D views as icons that can be reactivated with a mouse click.

ELSA MAXtreme is a specialized driver for 3D Studio MAX version 2.0, which achieves considerable performance gains in combination with ELSA GLoria graphics boards. Advantage in comparison with the standard drivers: The ELSA solution combines the positive characteristics of HEIDI and hardware-accelerated OpenGL^®, providing the user with a well-balanced acceleration for all areas of use. Especially with large textures, the productivity gains of the driver guarantee fast and smooth drawing operations. The ELSA MAXtreme driver is also optimally suited to use with multiprocessor computers.

ELSAview 3D is a real-time 3D editor and viewer which is tightly integrated with AutoCAD R14, R13 and Autodesk Mechanical Desktop. The latest release of ELSAview 3D provides an extended light source editor, a new materials editor, a dynamic depth slice editor, clipping functionality and improved navigation for model walk-throughs and fly-throughs. The new ELSAview 3D also adds support for Magellan™ 3D controllers from Logitech^®. ELSAview 3D can be used as a stand-alone application to read and write Open Inventor™ and VRML formats.

Quotes

"ELSA is committed to providing the highest-performing software solutions to accelerate third party professional graphics software," said Thomas Neubert, vice president of marketing and sales at ELSA. "These new products will increase the productivity of our customers working with professional graphics products from Autodesk and Kinetix."

"POWERdraft and ELSAview 3D from ELSA are excellent complements to AutoCAD and Autodesk Mechanical Desktop," said Dominic Gallello, vice president of the mechanical market group at Autodesk. "These new hardware accelerated solutions will offer Autodesk customers even greater power and performance for their professional design and interaction needs."

ELSA Software Advantage

Through the ELSA Software Advantage, customers can take advantage of a wide array of unique, high-performance drivers and utilities to enable GLoria accelerator boards to achieve maximum 2D/3D graphics performance. ELSA leverages its 16 years of experience in CAD and high-end graphics to create high-quality drivers to accelerate professional applications such as AutoCAD or 3D Studio MAX.

ELSA's custom drivers and tools are available to customers free-of-charge and are standard components with every ELSA GLoria graphics board. The latest drivers are available online from the ELSA Web site http://www.elsa.com, and are regularly updated on the ELSA WINNERware CD-ROM.

ELSA Information

ELSA Inc. is a subsidiary of ELSA AG, a stock company based in Aachen, Germany. Founded in 1980, ELSA has built a world-class reputation in high-performance 2D and 3D graphics solutions in addition to a wide-ranging ISDN and videoconferencing product family.

The ELSA logo is a registered trademark of ELSA AG. All names mentioned may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.