3D artists working with Alias’ Maya software on Mac OS X can boost their ray-tracing speeds using a new PURE card from Cambridge, England-based ART VPS Ltd. The new card features a 66MHz PCI-X interface, 64-bit core rendering support, twice the number of dedicated processors as its predecessor and support for both Mac OS X and Windows. The new PURE card costs US$5,560, €4,420 or £2,899.
The new PURE card can support 3D image rendering larger than the screen resolution. It uses 16 dedicated AR350 ray-tracing processors, enabling images to be generated up to 35 times faster than with software rendering alone. The card works in conjunction with RenderPipe, a plug-in interface for Maya and Windows apps including 3ds max and VIZ. RenderPipe exposes advanced materials, lighting tools, radiosity, High Dynamic Range Illumination (HDRI) support, motion blur and depth of field.