Hewlett-Packard Co used the Siggraph show in Los Angeles to display some of the weaponry it will use to try and topple Unix graphics leader Silicon Graphics Inc from its perch. It includes the DirectModel visualization toolkit being developed with Microsoft Corp and high-performance Visualize PxFl graphics subsystem. DirectModel, said to enable developers to render large amounts of visual data at speeds 100 faster times than current performance levels, is being incorporated into Microsoft’s DirectX 6.0 multimedia application programming interfaces, which will ship with HP-UX and NT in September. The companies claim a further seven independent software vendors have committed to using the DirectModel toolkit in addition to the 17 announced back in May. A runtime environment for the toolkit is being distributed for HP, Microsoft, Silicon Graphics and Sun hardware.
