Subject:    -1- What is IRIS Performer?
Date: 13 Apr 1994 00:00:01 EST

  IRIS Performer is a software development environment that supports
  programmers implementing high performance graphics applications on
  Silicon Graphics products.  It offers both high level facilities for
  visual simulation and virtual reality tasks and an
  application-neutral high-performance hardware-oriented graphics
  toolkit.

  The outer application specific layer of IRIS Performer implements the
  tasks needed by visual simulation applications: it performs culling
  so that only potentially visable geometry is sent to the graphics
  hardware; it controls multiple display channels; it provides fast
  intersection tests with simulation databases; and most importantly,
  it orchestrates all of this in parallel with rendering on multiple
  processor IRIS systems.

  The lower-level rendering portion of IRIS Performer is designed for
  maximum performance: its efficient data structures reflect the
  details of CPU, cache, and memory system architectures; its tuned
  rendering loops convert the system CPU into an optimized data
  movement engine; and its optimized state management system optimizes
  hardware utilization.

  IRIS Performer provides a high-performance portability path across
  the Silicon Graphics product line. The low level library is
  implemented as a hardware-specific shared library, so applications
  based on IRIS Performer can achieve peak performance on graphics
  systems from Indy to RealityEngine2 without changes or
  recompilation.

  The product includes a programmer's guide and printed man pages, as
  well as on-line man pages, test and demonstration programs, and
  complete real-time visual simulation applications. These applications
  are provided in source form as an examples of how to build real-time
  simulation systems using IRIS Performer.

  And lastly, the distribution includes a wide variety of source code,
  demos, models, and utilities that have been provided by 3rd party
  vendors for your use.  We call these vendors "friends of Performer"
  and we encourage you to sample their wares.