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What is the maximum number of channels that can be handled by Visionmax?

	The maximum number of channels can be 254. The largest system that the Company has supplied to date has 33 channels.

Is the Company able to supply projectors and screens in addition to the basic configurations, and can the company handle complex system integration and installation on site?

	Yes. If required by the customer, VMIL will supply all of the required components. Site installation would normally be handled jointly with one of VMIL’s international partners.

Are there any restrictions on the type of projectors that can be used with VisionMax systems?

	No. VisionMax systems are completely independent of the projector and can work equally well with any available commercial products.

Are there any restrictions on the shape of the display screens that can be used with VisionMax systems?

	No. VisionMax systems have been used with planar, flexed, cylindrical and spherical screens in addition to more complex CAVEa type environments. Displays can be either front or rear projected.

Are there any restrictions on the size of the display screens that can be used with VisionMax systems?

	There are no restrictions on the size of the display as this is largely determined by the size and resolution of the projectors. We have installed a 12 meter wide flexed screen system and a 14 meter wide plane screen using the VM300P 3-channel configuration with LCD projectors. As it is theoretically possible to drive 128 projectors simultaneously, we can handle very large display installations.

Do VisionMax Systems support hardware channel synchronization?

	The active stereo models support hardware channel synchronization through channel lock and frame lock but they do not support 'per pixel' synchronization.

Do VisionMax Systems support Full Scene Anti-aliasing?

	Anti-aliasing is supported in some models but is dependent on the chipset that is used

Is there much of a performance hit when using full scene anti-aliasing?

	There is a performance hit but it is very much dependent on the complexity of the models in the dataset. The performance hit is generally 10 - 30%.

Are VisionMax systems supplied with integrated software?

	Yes. All VisionMax systems are delivered with integrated NOVA Infinity multi-channel visualization software that has been designed for implementing large-scale displays through the PC cluster method.

Is the same version of NOVA Infinity software supplied with all of the VisionMax systems?

	No. There are common features across all of the systems but the different models are supplied with different versions of the software. The common features, which form NOVA Infinity Lite (supplied with the VM1100 model) include: full compatibility with VRML97, OpenGL compliant, support for stereo display, support for 3D sound and various movie file formats in addition to 3D graphics. The standard VM3100P (passive stereo) and VM3100A (active stereo) 3-channel systems are designed for plane screen displays. The software includes the features listed above in addition to: multi-channel scene & interaction synchronization, seamless edge blending & channel overlap, channel & frame lock and easy configuration for multi-channel environments. Additional software modules are available for more complex configurations. These include: non-linear distortion correction for spherical and cylindrical screens; View correction for flexed and CAVEa displays; Support for input peripherals such as tracking systems; and, a plug-in SDK.

Do I need special hardware or projectors to handle, edge blending, distortion and view correction?

	No. The software handles these special features.

What image media are supported by NOVA Infinity?

	The software supports real time 3D graphics, TV, DVD, video and various movie file formats including AVI, MPEG and DIVX.

Can the software handle stereo movies from an external source?

	No. At the moment, the movie files have to be played from the hard disk. However, we expect to complete support for movies played from external sources in the near future.

Does the software support edge blending and distortion correction for all image media?

	Yes. However, movie files have to be played from the hard disk and are best played in AVI format.

What is the highest resolution that VisionMax systems can handle?

	For normal movie files, VisionMaxO systems can handle resolutions up to 1280 x 1024. There is no limit on the resolution of 3D graphics files as the projectors that are used with the system determine this. For Stereo movie files, the maximum resolution on a normally configured system is currently 1600 x 600 @ 30 frames per second. We are currently implementing new codecs and expect to be able to handle 2048 x 768 movie files by October 2003. However, by using two slave computers for one passive stereo channel, we would be able to run stereo movie files at 2560 x 1024 resolution.

Does the software convert ordinary movie files to stereo movie files automatically?

	No. The movie file needs to have both left and right channels. The software can then run the files with horizontal or vertical spanning.

How does the software handle the movie file synchronization?

	The slave computers are synchronized at start, pause and end-time with periodic modifications.