🚀 go-pugleaf

	    TRIVR - Triangle Virtual Reality Special Interest Group
                          Meeting Announcement

Date:	  Wednesday, September 28th, 1994
Time: 	  6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Bell-Northern Research, RTP, RTP Room.

The purpose of TRIVR is to generate interest in VR, and promote
information sharing amongst members of the Triangle VR community.

Meeting Agenda:

6:00pm  -- Refreshments
6:30pm  -- Presentation and demonstration by David Alan Smith,
               President and CEO of Virtus Corporation
7:15pm  -- Introductions, Announcements, and  "Latest & Greatest" discussion
8ish pm -- Adjourn

Directions to BNR RTP:

Take I-40 towards Research Triangle Park and get off at Davis Drive.
Turn left (south), and follow Davis through the intersection with
Highway 54.  Continue for another half mile, and turn left into the BNR
entrance on Davis.  This is the employee lot.  Park here and enter the
door on this side of the building.  The RTP Room is located to your
left, in the atrium area.
 
About David Alan Smith
 
David Smith is President and Chief Executive Oficer of Virtus Corporation based
in Cary, North Carolina. Mr. Smith founded Virtus in 1990 to create virtual
reality-based modeling and visualization software for desktop computers. He
developed the ideas behind Virtus' technology while creating The Colony, a 3-D
adventure game for Macintosh and IBM PC-compatible computers. Prior to founding
Virtus, Mr. Smith was a researcher at Lord Corporation, also of Cary, where he
studied human-computer interfaces for robotics. Mr. Smith received his Bachelor
of Arts in Mathematics from the University of Chicago.
 
About Virtus
 
Mr. Smith founded Virtus in 1990 with the intention of introducing his virtual
reality technology to the commercial marketplace as Virtus WalkThrough. Since
then, Virtus Corporation has continued to be a pioneer in virtual reality-based
modeling and visualization software. With its emphasis on low-cost,
high-quality design and presentation graphics, Virtus has brought powerful-yet-
affordable virtual reality software to the desktop computer.
 
David A. Smith adapted what is now Virtus technology from his 3-D computer
adventure game, The Colony. This innovative game, named Macworld magazine's
1988 Computer Game of the Year, was the first real-time, 3-D interactive game
available for any platform. Smith was subsequently contacted by Mike Backes,
who was working on the movie "The Abyss" with James Cameron. Backes had played
The Colony and believed that its underlying technology would be a perfect way
to visualize the an underwater drilling platform set needed for the film. Using
designs and blueprints for a drilling platform, Smith created the set on his
desktop computer; this allowed Backes and co-workers to enter and explore a
space that did not yet exist.
 
The editors at MacUser were impressed by The Colony's technology and encouraged
the Virtus team to develop Virtus WalkThrough in time for the software to be
considered for the magazine's annual awards. In January 1991, following intense
development efforts of less than 10 months, Virtus WalkThrough was awarded
MacUser's Editors' Choice Award for Breakthrough Product of the Year.
 
The company's flagship product allowed the user to quickly create simple or
complex 3-D geometric shapes on the screen, then immediately "walk through"
them. These shapes could easily be drawn and arranged to realistically
represent objects, rooms, buildings and even cities. With Virtus WalkThrough,
users could build virtual environments of their own, then do a "walkthrough" to
explore the models in real-time.
 
Since 1990, Virtus has developed additional award-winning rendering and
visualization programs including Virtus WalkThrough for Windows, which in 1993
won the Most Valuable Product Award from PC/Computing and
Windows magazine's Top 100 Products of the Year Award. Also in 1993, Virtus
WalkThrough Pro garnered the MacUser Editors' Choice Award for Best New
Computer-Aided Visualization Software. Virtus is supporting Apple's Power
Macintosh platform by releasing native versions of its software. Virtus began
shipping Virtus VR for the Power Macintosh in May of 1994 and has plans to ship
a Power Macintosh and Windows version of Virtus WalkThrough Pro in the fourth
quarter of 1994.
 
Virtus has carved a specialized niche in the market for graphical software
packages, gaining praise from professionals in many disciplines including film
and theater set design, facilities layout, architecture, interior design and
entertainment. This technology has also been key to the company's formation of
strategic alliances with major Fortune 500 companies including IBM, Motorola
Inc.'s New Enterprises Division and Apple Computer Inc.
 
# # #
 
Virtus is a registered trademark, Virtus WalkThrough, Virtus VR and Virtus
WalkThrough Pro are trademarks of Virtus Corp. All other trademarks are the
property of their respective owners.
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
For further information on TRIVR, visit our *new* web pages at URL:
http://www.trinet.com/trivr.html

or contact: Pat O'Shaughnessey 	shags@bnr.ca
	    Frank Taylor	ftaylor@trinet.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- 
Patrick O'Shaughnessey                | internet: shags@x400gate.bnr.ca 
BNR INC., 35 Davis Drive              | voice:    (919) 991-4172
P.O. Box 13478                        | "Ask me about TRIVR!  The Triangle
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3478 | Virtual Reality Special Interest Group."