Los Angeles, CA -- Imagination Technologies announced its ground-breaking Caustic Visualizer viewport plug-in for Autodesk Maya 2013. Imagination will be demonstrating Caustic Visualizer’s highly interactive full-frame performance on the new PowerVR low-power ray tracing hardware reference platform.

Imagination’s Caustic Visualizer family revolutionizes the performance and functionality of the interactive visual look development process by making ray-traced photorealistic rendering, from the start, an integral part of the content creation work flow.

Caustic Visualizer is built entirely on the Imagination PowerVR OpenRL platform. Through OpenRL’s highly optimized CPU implementation, Caustic Visualizer can deliver an interactive photorealistic viewport experience on a CPU-only desktop that was previously only possible in competitive solutions based on expensive quad-GPU hardware configurations.

Furthermore, when coupled with OpenRL running on the new PowerVR ray-tracing hardware reference platform, Caustic’s Visualizer software can deliver true full-frame (1024x1024) resolution imagery up to 15 photorealistic frames per second, without the need to de-res the image or add significant noise during interaction.

Says Tony King-Smith, VP marketing, Imagination: “Visualizer delivers great performance on a CPU, but with OpenRL capable hardware acceleration, shown at SIGGRAPH as a licensable reference design, it is nothing less than ground-breaking.”

Chip Stearns, GM, Caustic Professional says: “Imagination is creating an expanding portfolio of hardware and software solutions bringing ray tracing capabilities to a broader range of markets, from the desktop to, ultimately, mobile and embedded. We are delighted both with the release of Caustic Visualizer for Maya, our first product for artists and designers on Autodesk platforms, and with the development of our hardware solutions. Working in collaboration with our partners, we look forward to introducing further products based on PowerVR ray tracing technology, OpenRL, and the Brazil SDK, that will set new standards for visual design productivity.”

Inside Caustic Visualizer

Caustic Visualizer gives artists a new way to interact with content created in Maya, using an interactive, fully ray traced viewport, complete with accurate global illumination, shadows and reflections. By providing users with high-quality real time visual feedback from the earliest stages of modelling, potential issues with the look of a scene can be identified and resolved much earlier in production, minimizing the need for time-consuming preview renders.

Gavin Greenwalt, senior artist at Straightface Studios, says: “Interactive ray-tracing will do for rendering, what ZBrush did for modelling. I've tested and tried just about every preview tool that's been released; Caustic Visualizer for Maya is the first solution that I can actually use in production. It is so rapid I can leave the ray-traced view open all the time now, which has revolutionized my workflow. I can't imagine going back to trial and error now.”

Developed using Imagination’s PowerVR Brazil SDK and fully utilizing Imagination’s PowerVR OpenRL™ ray-tracing API, Caustic Visualizer plug-ins are designed to offer complete platform independence - so no matter what operating system or hardware configuration an artist uses, these plug-ins will provide a consistent, high quality, easy to use interface and workflow.

Caustic Visualizer for Maya 2013 is now available to users as a free download via the company's open beta program.

Leading ISV partners are also developing plug-ins for popular tools using the PowerVR Brazil SDK. Robert McNeel & Associates, which is developing the Neon plug-in for its popular Rhinoceros product, has already seen unprecedented interest for the Neon beta plug-in, thanks to the performance of the OpenRL and Brazil SDKs.

Key features of the Caustic Visualizer Maya plug-in include: