Article: How does Order Independent Transparency Accelerate Creo 2.0

Order independent transparency or “OIT” in computer graphics programming terminology denotes any technique that can correctly render overlapping semi-transparent objects without having to sort them before they are being rendered. Rendering semi-transparent objects has always been a problem because the blending operation is order dependent: when a semi-transparent fragment is rendered, the underlying color (i.e. the background) is crucial for the final color to be correct. 

This article and accompanying white paper, explain how AMD implemented the OIT technique in PTC Creo Parametric 2.0. The technique uses standard ARB OpenGL 4.2 extensions like Atomic Counter and Shader Image load/store which enables access to texture buffer directly from the shader. The implementation allows for pixel accurate rendering of overlapping semi-transparent objects without having to sort them before they are being rendered, providing up to 9 or 10 times performance improvement when rendering transparency in Creo Parametric 2.0 versus blended rendering in PRO/Engineer Wildfire5.0.

AMD FirePro Development User Community: Share tips and best practices

AMD launched a FirePro Development user community for end-users, developers and AMD experts to share tips and best practices about the FirePro Vx800 and Vx900 graphic cards. The newly updated community page greatly improves users’ ability to ask questions and get answers on any FirePro related topic:

For example, here’s an interesting post just answered:

Question
I’m trying to solve a very specific problem. For this, I need to run 4 displays at 120Hz, and have the vsync for each trigger a quarter of a frame after the previous:
Display 0, start frames at 0s, 4/480s, 8/480s, ...
Display 1, start frames at 1/480s, 5/480s, 9/480s, ...
Display 2, start frames at 2/480s, 6/480s, 10/480s, ...
Display 3, start frames at 3/480s, 7/480s, 11/480s, ...

Now the question is, can I do this with one S400 and one or more graphic cards?

Answer
1: Yes, you can connect up to 4 GPUs to a single S400 board.
2: You can genlock multiple displays that are connected to a single GPU as long as the connected monitors are identical.
3: The accepted input range for the house sync is between 15 and 120 H

Top 10 Reasons to Attend the AMD Fusion 2012 Developer Summit

The AMD Fusion12 Developer Summit runs June 11-14, 2012 in Bellevue, Washington. At the summit you'll learn how to better leverage heterogeneous computing to advance your projects, see the latest advancements in OpenCL, C++ AMP, and Heterogeneous System Architectures.

Top 10 Reasons to Attend the Summit.

10 Ten tracks reflecting the topic areas you care about. Tracks include heterogeneous computing, cloud computing, gaming and consumer graphics, and more.

9 Keynotes packed with insights and never-before-seen demonstrations. Witness senior leaders from across the industry share what's next, now.

8 OpenCL tips and information from some of the industry's best. Learn how to leverage OpenCL to help unleash the full potential of your developments faster and more efficiently than ever.

7 Training you'll put into practice the day you return to work. More than 90 sessions packed with deep, content-rich data. Plus, pre-conference tutorials and hands-on labs.

6 Unmatched access to AMD technologists. AMD technologists present keynotes, teach training sessions and are ready to talk technology at the social events. Working at AMD would be the only other way to get this level of access.

5 Learn what the industry is doing. Come see the major players at AFDS. They present keynotes and lead technical sessions. Attending AFDS helps you better understand the marketplace and where the ecosystem is putting their resources so you stay competitive.

4 Your next partnership could start here. With more than 1,200 technologists expected to attend, there's no shortage of opportunities for you to strengthen current partnerships, refresh old ones, and start collaborating with future partners.

3 First to know. First to market. Attending AFDS gives you details on AMD's product roadmap. Your chance to lead the market begins here.

2 Venture capitalists will be participating. If you've got the next big thing, AFDS is your chance to meet some of the venture capitalists that help start-ups start, and keep small companies growing.

1 This is the center of the heterogeneous computing universe. If you're ready to use heterogeneous computing to redefine what your projects can do, to reset what you think technology will be like a decade from now, and reshape what consumers expect in every device they own, the technology and technologists you seek are at AFDS.

Learn more and sign up at amd.com/afds

Download and share a PDF of this Top Ten List

OpenCL & the Future of Desktop High Performance Computing in CAD: On-Demand Webcast + Slides:

The slides and webinar recording of ‘OpenCL & the Future of Desktop High Performance Computing in CAD’  is now available on-demand. DesignWorld and AMD hosted this heavily attended event.  It examines the details of CPUs and GPUs, explore their differences and similarities, and highlight the computing power they can provide. It will also look specifically at OpenCL, what it is, what it does, and how this new computing interface will change the way software developers create software and help end users fully realize the compute power contained within today’s modern desktop computers.

OpenCL v1.2 enables GPU partitioning, support for DSPs, enhanced OpenGL & DirectX integration

The Khronos Group today announced the public release of OpenCL 1.2.  The new release adds many new features including the ability to partition a device (i.e. a GPU) into sub-devices to allocate resources to high priority/latency-sensitive tasks, or effectively use shared hardware resources such as a cache. It also adds integration with specialized or non-programmable hardware and associated firmware, such as video encoder/decoders and digital signal processor.

AMD has been the leader driving OpenCL as a cross-vendor, non-proprietary solution for accelerating applications on CPU, GPUs and APUs. Congratulations on the release of v1.2 which will offer better performance and more flexibility for heterogeneous computing and multi-core architectures.

Streaming webcasts of keynotes from AMD Fusion Developer Summit

If you can’t attend the AFDS, you can at least watch the live keynotes:

AMD Welcome Keynote: Phil Rogers, AMD
Tuesday, June 14, 8:30am - 9:30am PDT

Keynote: Jem Davies, ARM
Tuesday, June 14 12:45pm - 1:45pm PDT

Keynote: Herb Sutter, Microsoft
Wednesday, June 15 8:30am - 9:30am PDT

Keynote: Graham Brown, Corel
Wednesday, June 15 12:45pm - 1:45pm PDT

Keynote: Eric Demers, AMD
Thursday, June 16
10:30am - 11:15am PDT

AMD gDEBugger OpenCL and OpenGL debugger for CPUs and GPUs in heterogeneous platforms

I guess I missed the news that AMD bought gDEBugger back in Oct 2010.  Today AMD announced the new AMD gDEBugger release which provides developers with the ability to debug OpenCL kernels, running on AMD GPUs, and step through their source code while examining kernel variables and data. This product, which is a plug-in designed to work with Microsoft Visual Studio, includes all of gDEBugger’s previous features and capabilities.

This may seem like esoteric technical news, but gDEBugger has been the leading tool for real-time code optimization with OpenGL developers, and now for OpenCL. This should dramatically speed the development of OpenCL applications.

OpenCL vs. CUDA/STREAM Benchmarks

AMD has focused on the open standard, cross-platform OpenCL standard for GPU-Compute functionality with support for acceleration on both GPUs and CPUs (including embedded and hand-held devices).  OpenCL allows the GPU to help the CPU do the computing or data crunching, to enable faster and more efficient processing.

SiSoftware has posted OpenCL benchmarks for GPU based acceleration and compared it to both CUDA and ATI Stream. 

Using the latest OpenCL 1.0 Beta 4, the benchmarks show great results: performance parity with CUDA (in some cases OpenCL is faster) and 50% faster than native CAL/STREAM.

The take away conclusion: There is no reason not to port CUDA code to OpenCL now!

ATI Stream v2.2 SDK brings full OpenCL 1.1 support using both CPU and GPU

AMD announced the release of the ATI Stream v2.2 SDK with full OpenCL 1.1 support using both CPU and GPU.  The new SDK release also delivers expanded support for operating systems, compilers, and additional hardware.

The interesting non-technical parts from the official press release: “Availability of the ATI Stream SDK v2.2 with OpenCL 1.1 support is a great example of how CPU and GPU technology continues to mature and usher in next-generation computing experiences, where voice, touch, gesture and facial recognition capabilities are common, everyday features,” said Patricia Harrell, director of Stream Computing, AMD. “The enhancements in the ATI Stream SDK v2.2 are especially important due to the support for OpenCL 1.1, which is integral to the forthcoming AMD Fusion family of APUs. These tools allow the developer community to take advantage of heterogeneous computing architectures both today and tomorrow.”

AMD releases desktop OpenGL ES driver for accelerated WebGL plug-in-free 3D content on the web

AMD today announced the first OpenGL ES 2.0 driver for desktop computing environments specifically to support the WebGL standard for plugin-free 3D content on the web. Apple (Safari), Google (Chrome), Mozilla (Firefox), and Opera (Opera) are the current browser contributors/supporters of the WebGL standard.

The new driver also enables software developers to use desktop PC equipped with Radeon or FirePro graphics (as opposed to embedded systems) to create applications based on OpenGL ES 2.0 for smartphones and tablets e.g. iOS4 and Android devices. This will make it easier for developers to port software applications between PCs and handhelds,  avoiding exclusive use emulators or translation layers to get OpenGL ES 2.0 code up and running.

The beta OpenGL ES 2.0 driver is available now and will be supported on all currently available AMD graphics products introduced since 2008, including ATI Radeon desktop, ATI Mobility Radeon, and ATI FirePro professional graphics cards

Updated 11 am Jul 26:  From Stumbling Ahead blog:
This is not an emulator or some sort of layer on top of OpenGL, but a full implementation of OpenGL ES accessed through EGL. Why is this important? How will this make your PC experience better? There are three reasons.

First, OpenGL ES on all modern AMD graphics desktops gives developers a unified environment. Game developers can write one 3D pipeline that can run on an HTC Evo, an Apple iPad, and on desktop and laptop PCs.

Second, this change will make web experiences faster and richer in the immediate future. WebGL is based on OpenGL ES. Web browsers will be able to use OpenGL ES directly on AMD hardware instead of having to translate every call to some other API first.

Third, mobile developers can create mobile content first directly on a PC without having to wrangle with SDKs or emulators to make sure their code functions correctly on OpenGL ES. This makes developers lives easier and speeds up the whole development process.

Look for OpenGL ES to make a big impact in bridging the gap with mobile devices and making 3D graphics more accessible.