Date:   15 May 1989
Subject: TAAC Software Release 2.3

		Announcing TAAC Software Release 2.3
		------------------------------------

The Visualization Products Group of the Graphics Product Division
is pleased to announce Release 2.3 of TAAC Software.

TAAC Software Release 2.3 will begin shipping May 15, 1989.

This announcement contains information on product content, compatibility,
and documentation.

PRODUCT CONTENT


Release 2.3 is distributed as either an upgrade or a full install release
in one version for domestic and export.  The upgrade can be applied to any
TAAC-equipped Sun-3 running 3.x or any Sun-3 or Sun-4 system running 4.0.x.

Release 2.3 has the following features:

o New platform support

	- Sun-3/470 Deskside Workstation
	- Sun-3/480 Server
	- SPARCsystem 370 and 390 Deskside Workstations and Servers

o New software features

Advanced Rendering Toolkit and Library
--------------------------------------

This release marks the introduction of the Advanced Rendering
Toolkit (ART) for rendering photorealistic images of 3-D geometric data.
Target markets include many areas of MCAD including automotive and
aircraft design, as well as broadcast animation, molecular modeling,
and scientific visualization.

ART supports an advanced lighting model that includes specular highlights,
multiple colored light sources, and infinite, point, and spot
light source types.  It also supports texture mapping, bump mapping,
reflectance (environment) mapping, user-defined shading, translucency,
and antialiasing.

ART is script-driven and uses routines from the graphics library and
from the new advanced rendering library of high-quality shading
and rendering functions.

Host Callable Image Processing Library
--------------------------------------

The host callable IP library provides access to accelerated
image processing right from the host.  It allows programs executing on
the Sun host to call image processing functions that execute on
the TAAC-1.  The library includes arithmetic and logical operations,
morphological functions, Fourier transforms, geometric remapping
and filtering functions.

Volume Rendering Toolkit
------------------------

Voxvu--new with this release--renders volumetric data in volume clipping
or ray casting mode.  Voxvu replaces the cubevu and rayvu programs
from the 2.2 release and introduces these new features:
	- support for large volumes (up to 64MB)
	- limited support for 16-bit data
	- successive refinement (with both low and high
		resolution passes)
	- voxel editing
	- movie maker: voxvu can rotate a volume and generate
	  encoded frames to use with the 2bitmovie utility.

Host Procedure Calls
--------------------

A library of host procedure calls (a subset of SunOS system calls
and C function calls) has been included
on the release tape, although the library is unsupported in this release.
Functions include printf, fopen, gets, scanf, open, read, write, and close.
Print is especially helpful to speed up program debugging.

Miscellaneous
-------------

Other additions include:
	Math library: hyperbolic functions, vector port math functions
	Graphics library: routines for rendering terrain elevation data;
	   functions for building transformation matrices from
	   viewing parameters.
	Demo library: mapvu - 3D perspective views of terrain
	   described from a regularly sampled height field or mesh;
	   shaded wiggle - seismic shaded "wiggle traces";
	   ROI - region of interest histogram; manifolds -
	   display of complex surface forms.

COMPATIBILITY
This release completely replaces all other released code and
contains the latest version of the TAAC-1 C compiler and linker.
All existing customer code must be recompiled and relinked to
be compatible with this release.


DOCUMENTATION

Documentation for Release 2.3  consists of:

Manual Assembly (850-1381-04) which includes
	RTF, Release Notes and:
	TAAC-1 Software Installation Guide (800-2441-12)
	TAAC-1 User Guide (800-2177-11) + Change Pages (800-3712-10)
	TAAC-1 Software Reference Manual (800-3202-12)