OpenVG gaining strong industry momentum as unique acceleration API for Bezier vector graphics; OpenVG 1.0 Conformance Tests and Sample Source immediately available
5th March, 2007 - GDC, San Francisco, CA - The Khronos™ Group announced today it has released the official OpenVG™ 1.0 Conformance Tests that can be used by vendors to certify that the rapidly increasing number of OpenVG implementations are compliant with the OpenVG specification. Products that meet the requirements of the conformance tests may use the OpenVG trademark to encourage reliable, cross-platform vector graphics interoperability. Additionally, Khronos announced today that it has placed its Sample implementation of OpenVG 1.0 into open source under an MIT license to further enable OpenVG implementers and developers to leverage this innovative, royalty-free open standard in their products and applications. The OpenVG 1.0 specification and Sample source are free for download at http://www.khronos.org/openvg/ and details of the OpenVG Conformance Tests can be found at http://www.khronos.org/adopters.
“The OpenVG Working Group is dedicated to expanding the OpenVG ecosystem and is today launching a comprehensive set of conformance tests and placing its sample implementation into open source,” said Andrzej Mamona, chairman of the OpenVG working group and design architect, AMD (NYSE: AMD). “AMD has a strong roadmap of dedicated hardware to accelerate scalable vector graphics and Flash®-like rendering with its handheld graphics processors and is working closely with handset manufacturers to bring these technologies to consumers.”
The OpenVG Conformance Test suite was developed by the OpenVG Working Group with HUONE in Korea acting as technical lead. The tests are available to any Promoter, Contributor or Adopter Member of Khronos for a fee of $10K which enables an unlimited number of OpenVG products to be certified as conformant to the specification and to use the OpenVG logo. Khronos provides full access to the test source for porting by implementers who upload the automatically generated test results to the Khronos web-site for peer review for 30 days before certification is awarded. The OpenVG Sample implementation is a software implementation of the specification that runs on a PC platform and has been used by the OpenVG working group to test and refine the specification. Although not tuned for performance, this open source implementation provides deep insights into the functionality of the OpenVG API.
“NVIDIA has been the implementer of the OpenVG Sample implementation and now we are pleased to place that work into open source to encourage the further adoption of the OpenVG standard,” said Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group and vice president of embedded content at NVIDIA. “NVIDIA is fully committed to support OpenVG on our range of GoForce application processors and mobile GPUs. We expect this innovative API to provide an order of magnitude more performance for vector-based players such as Flash and SVG compared to using OpenGL ES acceleration - at significantly less power and cost.”
“We are seeing a significant number of handset manufacturers implementing the OpenVG 1.0 API in next generation hardware, providing their future customers with compelling new interfaces, applications and functionality. To help these industry pioneers produce optimally performing products, we are pleased to see OpenVG conformance tests and Sample implementation as a source code format available immediately,” said Petri Talala, Futuremark’s vice president of mobile business. “Futuremark is committed to delivering world leading performance measurement tools for all relevant APIs and platforms including OpenVG 1.0. The combination of OpenVG Sample implementation, conformance tests and our benchmark VGMark 1.0 will help the industry build better performing OpenVG-enabled devices will lead to broader use of vector graphics applications by consumers around the world.”
“Support for OpenVG is key to effective acceleration of a wide range of vector graphics applications such as SVG players, Flash(TM) content, scalable User Interfaces and navigation,” said Tony King-Smith, vice president marketing, Imagination Technologies. “Imagination Technologies is committed to supporting OpenVG across its full range of MBX and SGX cores, and is shipping OpenVG drivers for its PowerVR MBX graphics cores today. We will be demonstrating a range of OpenVG accelerated applications at GDC 2007.”
“With our in-depth knowledge, gained through years of working in partnership with the silicon chip manufacturers, settop box (STB) vendors, as well as our own middleware and application authoring, NDS is in a unique position to help formulate and introduce new standards of performance to the TV viewing experience,” said James Field, director of technology, TV Platforms, NDS Group plc. “In becoming a member of the Khronos Group, we aim to share our expertise in the STB market and ensure that the OpenVG standard meet the demands of the next generation digital television experience in a way that is compatible with equipment manufacturers’ resources.”
About OpenVG
OpenVG defines low-level 2D operations based on Bezier curves to provide the industry’s only hardware acceleration layer for vector graphics - enabling graphics silicon to accelerate packages such as SVG and Flash for the first time. Vector graphics provide smooth and fluidly scalable 2D to create high-quality user interfaces, new-generation mapping and GPS displays, compelling games and ultra-readable text on small displays. OpenVG enables high-quality, interactive vector graphics at high extremely quality and very low power levels - ideal for small screen, battery-powered devices. OpenVG 1.0 is included in Khronos’ new OpenKODE specification that combines a set of native APIs into a comprehensive media stack specification for accelerating rich media and graphics applications.
About Khronos
The Khronos Group is a member-funded industry consortium focused on the creation of open standards such as OpenGL®, OpenKODE™, OpenGL® ES, OpenMAX™, OpenVG™, OpenSL ES™, OpenML™ and COLLADA™ to enable the authoring and acceleration of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms and devices. All Khronos members are able to contribute to the development of Khronos specifications, are empowered to vote at various stages before public deployment, and are able to accelerate the delivery of their cutting-edge media platforms and applications through early access to specification drafts and conformance tests. More Information at www.khronos.org.
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Khronos, OpenKODE, OpenVG, OpenMAX and OpenSL ES are trademarks of the Khronos Group Inc. COLLADA is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. used by permission by Khronos. OpenGL and OpenML are registered trademarks and the OpenGL ES logo is a trademark of Silicon Graphics Inc. used by permission by Khronos. All other product names, trademarks, and/or company names are used solely for identification and belong to their respective owners.