RAMTEK CORPORATION
1525 Atteberry Lane
San Jose, CA 95131
408/954-2700
FAX: 408/954-0118
Company contact:
Michael Tyler
Vice President, Marketing
Ramtek Corporation
(408) 954-2700
Agency contacts:
William Orrange
Janis Ulevich
levich & Orrange, Inc.
(415) 329-1590
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW 'MILLENNIUM' IMAGING SYSTEM FROM RAMTEK TURNS
UNIX WORKSTATIONS INTO IMAGE PROCESSING COMPUTERS;
CONNECTS VIA EITHER VME BUS OR SCSI INTERFACE
SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 7, 1990 -- A new system that can turn
a UNIX-based workstation into a powerful image processing system
suited for remote sensing, geophysical, medical and other
imaging-oriented applications has been introduced by Ramtek
Corporation.
The Ramtek Millennium is a high-performance, high-resolution
subsystem designed to accelerate the processing and visual
display of technical and scientific data. Millennium connects to
a UNIX workstation via either a VME bus or SCSI (Small Computer
System Interface) link, offloading the critical image processing
and visualization functions from the workstation.
Floating-Point Accuracy Vital to Scientific APplications
Millennium is designed for image processing applications
where mathematical accuracy is of paramount importance, according
to Jim Swanson, Ramtek president and CEO.
"UNIX workstations, designed and optimized for such uses as
computer-aided design and engineering, typically offer very
strong integer performance," Swanson said. "But they're less
than adequate in providing the floating-point performance which
is critical to computational fluid dynamics, medical research,
microbiology and other highly math-intensive applications."
Furthermore, he said, "workstations by themselves often lack
the large memory capacity essential to store and visualize the
real data used in these applications -- for example, satellite
images on storm front behavior used by a weather forecaster."
Millennium's high-speed architecture performs floating-point
calculations at the rate of 80 megaFLOPS (million floating-point
operations per second), and provides up to 16 megabytes of local
memory and 30-megabit-per-second local buses. This allows the
system to perform in a single operation Fast Fourier Transforms
of images as large as 1024 by 1024 pixels. Dedicated Millennium
hardware also accelerates other complex imaging operations such
as convolutions, histogram equalization, look-up table
manipulation and frequency domain filtering.
First System to Use Standard Image Processing Environment
Millennium incorporates the Imaging Kernel System (IKS)
software developed by the University of Lowell (Mass.), which is
fully compliant with the proposed ANSI standard Programmer's
Imaging Kernel (PIK). An object-oriented environment for image
processing, manipulation and analysis, IKS offers a rich, robust
tool set for the research scientist or third-party application
developer. An October 1989 agreement with the University of
Lowell allows Ramtek to market products based on IKS.
According to Swanson, "vendors have previously had to use
proprietary image processing solutions because no standard
existed in this area. Ramtek is the first company to introduce a
low-cost commercial imaging product incorporating IKS, which was
designed to address the need for a portable, device-independent
imaging environment." IKS features include geometric and
area-of-interest operations, intensity distribution, morphologic
operations and feature extraction.
In addition, Millennium can internally store and process
images of up to 2048 by 1024 pixels in its large frame buffer,
and can display images of 1280 by 1024 pixels in grey-scale or
color. A 60-Hz (non-interlaced) refresh rate provides a bright,
high-quality, flicker-free image.
Accelerated X Window System Performance
Millennium provides advanced graphics display capabilities
through the industry-standard X Window System, but at accelerated
performance levels made possible through the use of the Texas
Instruments TMS34020 graphics processor operating at 10 MIPS
(millions of instructions per second). Among available
operations are high-speed vector drawing, fast polygon
generation, pattern vectors and filled areas.
Acting as a high-performance X Window display server,
Millennium lets the user choose his preferred Graphical User
Interface (GUI) standard from among Motif, Openlook, NewWave,
DecWindows and others.
In addition, Millennium employs five independent look-up
tables -- as opposed to the single table in most workstations --
to maximize the usefulness of color map manipulation in
classifying imaging data. One look-up table is used exclusively
by the graphical user interface; the other four allow the user to
independently manipulate color in each window without negative
effects on the other windows.
VME and SCSI Intefaces for Connection to Any Platform
Two distinct connection methods allow Millennium to be used
with virtually any hardware platform, enabling the user to
standardize on image processing tools across his organization.
For workstations with VME bus backplanes, Millennium is
available as a three-board set that plugs directly into the
backplane.
For non-VME workstations, Millennium comes in a stand-alone
seven-slot chassis that uses an SCSI interface to communicate at
high speeds with the host computer's central processor.
Millennium can share the same SCSI channel with other attached
devices, allowing direct data transfers to disks or printers
without adversely affecting workstation performance.
Pricing and Availability
Millennium will be in beta-test sites in March, with
production shipments beginning in April.
In a stand-alone seven-slot chassis with SCSI interface,
Millennium is priced at $25,995 (single quantity). In a three-
board set that plugs into a VME backplane, the price is $20,995
(single quantity). Both configurations include a TMS34020-based
graphics board, a TMS34082/TMS34020-based imaging board, a 20-bit
memory video board, and an IKS software license.
Ramtek Corporation, headquartered in San Jose, Calif.,
designs and manufactures high-performance imaging and graphics
display systems and peripherals.
