News

Mobile devices to get 3D graphics over wireless links

What's a "compelling interactive 3D user experience"? and how do you deliver this to mobile phones?

It looks like we have to wait till next year to know what we will actually see what ARM, and Imagination Technologies and Superscape describe as delivering "powerful, seamless 3D experiences to users of mobile devices" - their product collaboration won't bear fruit till well into 2003.

But the basis of their collaboration is easy enough to deduce. Three-dimensional images take a lot of processing power, which traditionally uses a lot of electrical power, and takes a long time to do; and it also involves a lot of graphics data which has to be transmitted over a very slow comms link - a mobile phone link.

ARM processors by now are very well known for their miserly use of electricity; most mobile phones and several leading pocket computers now use ARM chips. Imagination Technologies can claim to have developed the 3D silicon and software for the PowerVR range of 3D, video and graphics engines. And Superscape specialises in interactive 3D for mobile platforms, software and technology.

The three have decided to get together to cut down any inefficiencies in combining their technologies, by optimising a complete 3D platform, processor, hardware, 3D and image optimisation for slow mobile links.

"Superscape's Swerve 3D enabling software technology (comprising Swerve Client, Swerve Author and Swerve Applications) has been developed in close collaboration with ARM to deliver compelling interactive 3D user experiences to mobile phones. Imagination Technologies' PowerVR MBX graphics core, is designed for integration alongside ARM microprocessor cores in a system-on-chip (SoC) solution and will enable the migration of high-performance modern 3D and video graphics content to mobile platforms," said last Friday's press release.

By combining the software applications like Swerve and the hardware microprocessor and graphics cores from ARM and PowerVR Technologies, it is possible to create a powerful, flexible platform for advanced 3D graphics on phones and PDAs," said John Metcalfe, VP of Business Development, PowerVR Technologies. "This is the next logical step in the evolution of 3D content for ARM core-based mobile platforms. Using Swerve as a content enabling mechanism and PowerVR MBX as the hardware rendering mechanism will allow customers to develop graphically superior next generation mobile devices and the graphical content to excite users."

Superscape "specializes in the development of interactive 3D(i3D) technology" and the company has sixteen years experience working in this area, with recent projects including development of the Harry Potter game for LEGO Media. Superscape's Swerve, comprising software and services, has been developed for wireless environments and has been endorsed by some of the world's key players in this sector. Working in close collaboration with ARM, Swerve "is an enabling technology for wireless devices delivering a new generation of multimedia for feature-rich 2.5 and 3G mobile phones - it comprises a 3D engine, authoring tools and a range of associated content development and integration services.