CORDIS Archive

HIPER-KIDS (24285)

The objectives of the HIPER-KIDS project are:

• The development of a high-performance 3-D graphics rasterizer at 100 MPixels/sec, fully expandable by parallelization to 400 MPixels/sec.
• The development of a multimedia board for kiosk and consumer applications, incorporating both MPEG-2 real-time decompression and the Derissa rasterizer.
• The development of a pilot application in the field of car sales support, making use of the multimedia PC add-on board.

The main marketable results to be developed within the HIPER-KIDS project:

• The 3D rasterizer, of which four different versions will be made during the project's lifetime: a 66 Mpixels/sec version; a fully parallelizable 66Mpixels/sec; a 100 Mpixels/sec version; and its fully parallelizable counterpart
• The video decompression & 3-D rendering board, also in two versions. A first version incorporating only the 3D rendering capabilities and a second version integrating both the video decompression and the 3D capabilities.
• A multimedia kiosk incorporating the video decompression & 3-D rendering multifunction board.
• A sales support application for car distributors which will be used by Fiat in their daily business.

Market forecasts indicate that graphics market is undergoing a profound change as a result of the acceleration in the technology development that has been experienced in the last three years. Applications that were reserved not long ago to expensive, dedicated graphics platforms, can now be run in a conventional PC with an acceleration board. This is mainly due to the availability of high-performance rasterizers, which are the main building block for general purpose or dedicated boards.
On the other hand, no announcement of MPEG-2 decoders combined with a rasterizer has been made, but the appearance of new low-cost, high-performance rasterizers, together with the API unification effort made by Microsoft in the Windows 95 architecture, clearly point in the direction of combined boards, capable of handling video, audio, and 3D information. Two are the main advantages of using 3-D graphics technology as a sales support tool. First of all, it can contribute to reduce the workload of the sales personnel, since 20% to 50% of the time they devote to a particular customer is spent in "browse, look, hesitate" activities which, in fact, do not necessarily require the presence of the salesman. Kiosk systems allow to filter out a number of customers, and reduce the time devoted to the rest, since they satisfy the customer's need of browsing information without consuming salesmen time.
The second advantage of 3-D graphics sales support is that it is a way to increase the sales, by attracting new customers, and by helping them to make the purchase decision. This effect increases with the price of the goods, and with the degree of customisation they require. In particular, most effective experiences have been reported in house sales, especially in custom building.

Achievements:

• First version of the 66 MPixel/sec rasterizer chip is being tested, and it will be incorporated in the first version of the multimedia board, whose debugging and tests will begin in March 98.
• This first version of the multimedia PCI board will provide for low-cost 3D rendering acceleration for the consumer and professional markets.

Start date: March 1997
End date: March 1999

Project Coordinator:

Mr. Luis Caloto
SIP
Ronda de Poniente 6/2A C
28760 Tres Cantos
Spain
Tel: +34/1 814 11 00
Fax: +34/1 804 14 00
E-mail: lcaloto@sip.es

Partners:

SIP (Spain)
VITEC MULTIMEDIA (France)
MEMONDO Graphics (Spain)
FIAT (Italy)