Cycles has a split OpenCL kernel since Blender release 2.75. The OpenCL Split Kernel now supports nearly all features. Only Correlated multi jitter is missing. Read the full report.

Although this backend is still a work in progress, many core features are implemented, allowing real OpenCL applications to be run. This backend allows us to run SPIR-based applications on NVIDIA devices, such as SYCL codes compiled with Codeplay’s ComputeCpp compiler.

AMD announced a dual-GPU graphics card designed for professionals: the Polaris-architecture-based Radeon Pro Duo. Built on the capabilities of the Radeon Pro WX 7100, the Radeon Pro Duo professional graphics card is designed to excel at media and entertainment, broadcast, and design and manufacturing workflows, delivering outstanding performance and superior flexibility that today’s creative professionals demand. The new GPU supports OpenCL 2.0, OpenGL 4.5 and Vulkan 1.0.

In December last year, Imagination announced we were the first to submit an OpenVX 1.1 conformant implementation. In this blog post, we will show how our work has developed since then on one of the first implementations of the Khronos OpenVX 1.1 API as well as the new and very first implementation of the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) extension that goes along with it.

The GPU Technology Conference (GTC2017) will be running from May 8-11 this year in San Jose Convention Center. This year will see many sessions related to Khronos Technology including OpenCL, OpenGL, OpenVX, Vulkan and WebGL. NVIDIA has just added more sessions to their schedule. Check a list of Khronos related sessions on the Khronos site, or visit the NVIDIA GTC site to see all sessions.

Recently the developer ecosystem team at Samsung conducted a survey to elicit responses from developers on the tools that they are using currently on various platforms (desktop and mobile) and across APIs. The results are now posted online.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. announced that the Cadence Tensilica Vision P-Series DSPs are the first imaging/vision DSPs to pass Khronos Group’s conformance tests for the OpenVX 1.1 specification. Application developers can now take advantage of Tensilica Vision P5/P6 functionality without detailed knowledge of the hardware architecture and still achieve high performance. This enables faster development of computer vision and imaging applications on Tensilica Vision P-Series DSPs being deployed in applications processors for mobile, automotive, drone, security, augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) and other markets. Read the full press release.

On the “Ashes of the Singularity” forums, Stardock has announced Vulkan support is mostly complete, coming in June. “However, it won’t be until June before it’s released as there is a ton of compatibility and optimization work to be done given the game’s popularity as a benchmarking tool for high end graphics.” Linux support is still up in the air.

Don’t miss this year’s OpenVX Workshop at Embedded Vision Summit. Khronos will present a day-long hands-on workshop all about OpenVX cross-platform neural network acceleration API for embedded vision applications. We’ve developed a new curriculum so even if you attended in past years, this is a do-not-miss, jam-packed tutorial with new information on computer vision algorithms for feature tracking and neural networks mapped to the graph API. We’ll be doing a hands-on practice session that gives participants a chance to solve real computer vision problems using OpenVX with the folks who created the API. We’ll also be talking about the OpenVX roadmap and what’s to come.

CreateJS introduces introduce StageGL, a feature-rich WebGL renderer for EaselJS. It removes restrictions, boosts performance, and adds filter support.

Unigine Corp has publicly confirmed that they expect to have Vulkan support later this year, “Vulkan support is in the roadmap for the engine this year.” Read the complete story.

Tomorrow is the last day you may purchase tickets for IWOCL at the reduced pricing. Register soon.

Phoronix posted about the newly revised OpenCL.org website: “The folks behind StreamComputing BV are looking to strengthen the OpenCL compute ecosystem by improving the documentation and code samples as well as better overviews for those wishing to learn this Khronos compute standard.” Learn more about OpenCL.org on Phoronix or on StreamComputing.

With Blender 2.79, OpenCL support has improved and should be closer to parity with Blender’s CUDA capabilities. The OpenCL Cycles renderer has shorter render times by up to 50% in some cases, tiles are now seen updating while rendering, support for SSS and volume rendering, optimized transparent shadows, and various fixes.

The Portable Computing Language (POCL) has issued a new release of their open-source CPU-based OpenCL implementation. This new version of POCL continues relying upon LLVM and with this release adds support for LLVM/Clang 4.0 and 3.9.