Imagination Update

 Game Developers Conference, San Francisco—We talked with Imagination Technologies about their latest developments and tools. The driving trends in the consumer electronics spaces are mapping well with the various products that Imagination offers.

The latest releases include new cores and development tools for software. The new product releases include the VXE384, a multi-standard, multi-stream video encoder, capable of all major HD and still image standards. In addition VXE384 supports resolutions up to 4Kx2K@30fps. The VXE384 adds an input scaler, capable of downscaling the incoming video data and enabling 4:2:2 input to 4:2:0 conversion.

For the software developers, a new SDK and greater integration with other creation tools like Maya and Max allows for editing in a window without needing to go to the editor. The tool integrates ray tracing and other analysis tools so developers can revert to a wireframe mode to simplify positioning and movement without having to wait for render. New functions in the Trace tool allow for processing cost estimation and crosslink to code and external compliers.

The latest version 2.10 PowerVR Insider SDK supports the development of applications using the Khronos OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0 APIs and includes: PVRShaman with post-processing support and enhanced shader profiling; ‘Introducing Print3D’, a new training course demonstrating the much more fine grained control now available in the Print3D tools; PVRTrace with recording and graphical scene analysis; PVRTune with optimized GUI and support for custom counters; PVRScope, a new performance analysis tool that enables developers to embed the power of PVRTune in their own software; and PVRTexTool and PVRTexLib with support for PVRTC2, the new texture compression format.

The PVRTC texture compression (TC) format addresses the accelerated in hardware on all PowerVR Series4 (MBX), Series 5/5T (SGX) and Series6 (Rogue) GPU cores. The new PowerVR Series6 ‘Rogue’ family, G6200 and G6400, are now available. PVRTC2 is the first major upgrade of this technology and adds a wide range of new features including:
o Improved image quality, especially for textures with high contrast, large areas of significant color discontinuity, or boundaries of non-tiling textures
o Better support for pre-multiplied textures.
o Support for arbitrary sized NPOT (Non Power Of Two) textures
o Sub-Texturing

Developers can join up, download the SDK for free and interact with the community through online forums at www.powervrinsider.com.