Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/Virtual-Worlds/commercial/Division-press-releases

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From: Pierre duPont <[e-mail]>
Date:         Tue, 12 Apr 1994 20:33:44 BST
Subject:      Greetings from Division Limited
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Toni -

Andy Hamilton of Division's California office suggested that I put you
on our mailing list.  This I will do, and you will therefore receive
about one press release per month hereafter.  Let me know if I should
NOT do this or drop you in the future.

Also attached are the last several press releases we have issued:
------------------
1. Division, Matsushita and Silicon Graphics Demonstrate Advanced
Interactive VR Experience at UNIFORUM'94

2. VIRTUOSI - Support for Virtual Organisations

3. Division Extends Virtual Reality VAR Agreement with Silicon
Graphics to Entire World

4. Pixel-Planes defines new price-performance for Virtual Reality
graphics

5. "Fantastic Journey" will speed development of drugs
---------------
Some of these press releases, plus interesting photos, have recently
been sent to Alden Jones.

How do you prefer to receive your info - electronic or paper? And what
will you (would you, might you, may you?) do with things that get sent
to you?

Thanks!  The press releases follow-

=======================================================
Contact:    Pierre duPont: Marketing Director
                Division Limited, [phone]
Kelly Stremel: Franson, Hagerty & Associates, [phone]

Division, Matsushita and Silicon Graphics Demonstrate Advanced
Interactive VR Experience at UNIFORUM'94

VR System Simulates Advanced Living Environment Utilizing Silicon
Graphics Supercomputer

23 March 1994 - Division, the provider of professional virtual reality
systems, and Japan's Matsushita Electric Works (MEW), the world
leader in building construction, will demonstrate an advanced
interactive design experience with a virtual reality architectural
walk-through in a Japanese house.  Users can experience this demo
at UNIFORUM'94 in the World of the Future Pavilion, at the Moscone
Center, San Francisco, March 23-25.

MEW now uses virtual reality to simulate an advanced living
environment, simulating all features of the home including lighting,
heating and acoustics, saving immense design costs and time.  The
demonstration, configured as a complete two-story Japanese house,
includes fully textured, detailed bedrooms, kitchen, bathrooms and
interconnecting stairs.  With a head-mounted display and a 3D
mouse, users will be able to walk around the rooms and up the stairs
to different stories of the house.  This complexity, detail and quality of
virtual reality has not yet been experienced in public.

The system being demonstrated uses a Silicon Graphics OnyxOE
RealityEngine2OE graphics supercomputer, which delivers the world's
fastest compute and graphics performance.  In addition to this
particular application, Onyx systems are utilized in a wide variety of
applications ranging from flight simulation and automotive styling to
digital film production and interactive entertainment.

At the core of Matsushita's simulated environment is Division's
distributed virtual reality software, dVSOE, which provides a very
advanced software environment enabling work-group VR applications.
 With this configuration, Matsushita is able to provide the highest
performance virtual reality experience for several people
simultaneously sharing and interacting within the same world.

Dr. Nomura, head of VR research at Matsushita, said, "With this
successful installation, Division has proven that it has the most
advanced VR systems in the world."  Charles Grimsdale, Division's
MD added, "This demonstrates the rapidly growing power of VR
technology as a problem-solving tool in one of many demanding
applications.  We've been able to use Division's open,
standards-based software architecture to rapidly develop this
demonstration."

"Matsushita has developed one of the most advanced software and
hardware environments to enable a new level of realism and
interactivity in a virtual world," said Josh Larson-Mogal, Silicon
Graphics' manager of virtual reality/simulation products and markets.
 "Virtual reality continues to move into mainstream visualization and
design applications, such as this `simulated environment,'
intensifying the demand for high-performance computational and
graphics computer systems."

Division is a member of the Division Group of companies,
specializing in providing virtual reality technology, products and
services for professional virtual reality applications.  Headquartered
in Bristol, England, with offices in Chapel Hill, N.C., and Redwood
City, California, Division services a world-wide installed base of its
integrated VR systems.

Based in Tokyo, Japan, Matsushita Electric Works is a major supplier
of building materials and home furnishings including kitchens,
bathrooms, etc.  This virtual reality development is being undertaken
by the A&I laboratory in Osaka, Japan, one of Japan's leading centers
of VR research.

Division is located at 19 Apex Court, Woodlands, Almondsbury,
Bristol, BS12 4JT, England, Tel: [phone].  Its shares are
traded on the London Stock Exchange.  dVS is a tradmark of Division.
 Silicon Graphics is a registered trademark, and Onyx and
RealityEngine are trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc.

Note: Photographs are available. Contact Pierre duPont at +44 454
615554.


=======================================================

Contact:    Pierre duPont, Marketing Director,
Division Limited, [phone]

VIRTUOSI - Support for Virtual Organisations

Bristol, UK - 29 March 1994 - The UK Department of Trade and
Industry (DTI) has announced funding for the VIRTUOSI project, a
consortium of UK industrial and academic partners which will explore
the use of virtual reality to allow multiple users to perform
simultaneous, co-operative work across geographically dispersed
locations. This project, part of the DTI/SERC Computer Supported
Co-operative Work (CSCW) programme, has a total budget of
approximately stlg2.5m over three years, with a DTI/SERC contribution
of about stlg1m.

Virtuosi will allow people to join discussions and problem-solving
activities at home or in different offices or factories across the world.
Virtual reality technology from the UK company, Division Ltd, will
contribute to the core framework of the project, providing powerful
tools to allow users to interact within the virtual environment.

A strong theoretical basis will be provided for the project by
Nottingham, Lancaster and Manchester Universities.  These
Universities are all involved in UK and European research projects to
establish the fundamental principles for interacting and co-operating
in virtual environments that will be set up across future information
superhighways.  In addition to developing models and systems, they
will also be involved in capturing user requirements and assessing
the effectiveness of the two application pilots.

Two pilot applications will be developed by the project.  One will be
concerned with improving communication between a number of BICC
Cable factories throughout the world.  The aim is to enable managers
and workers to share expertise as easily as if they were in a single
factory.  For example, technical experts on one continent will be able
to "visit" shopfloor staff on another continent to co-operate on
resolving technical and production issues at the remote factory.
A compact 3D representation of the total organisation will be
generated on the screen of the desktop computer.  Users will be able
to move round this visualisation to locate individuals and sources of
expertise at the remote sites.  The system will then integrate video
windows and computer based data into this virtual world while setting
up a conference call to the participants.

The other pilot service will be based in the textile and clothing
industry to allow co-operation between a number of small and
medium enterprises involved in the design and manufacture of
fashion garments.  This application will be part of Nottinghamshire
County Council's programme to support industry in its area and to
provide competitive advantage to its users.

Designers will be able to use virtual reality techniques to create a
visualisation of a garment.  The designer will be able to discuss the
design with remote buyers who will also be able to see the garment
being worn by a model on a 'virtual catwalk'.  Users will be able to
make changes and view the effects during their discussions and,
once agreement has been reached, the details of the design will be
transferred immediately to the factory for manufacture.  The work on
this application will be supported by a consultant to the project based
at Nottingham Trent University who will provide expertise on
computer support and visualisation techniques in garment design

Both BT and GPT Ltd will be involved in developing the
telecommunications aspects of the project.  GPT's contribution will
also be supported by GEC Marconi Hirst Research Laboratories which
has considerable experience in virtual reality applications.

NOTES TO EDITORS:  VIRTUOSI is a project within the DTI/SERC
Computer Supported Co-operative work (CSCW) programme.  Its aim
is to promote research into the use of computer systems to support
groups of people working together in industry or commerce.  Virtuosi
is one of eight projects selected for the programme.  The total budget
for the project, which will run for three years, is in the order of stlg2.5m,
with a government contribution from DTI and SERC of about stlg1m.

The organisations that form the project consortium are British
Telecommunications plc (the lead partner on the project), BICC plc,
Division Ltd, GPT Ltd, The University of Lancaster, The University of
Manchester, and The University of Nottingham.

Note: Photographs representative of the goals of the project are
available.

=======================================================

Contact:    Pierre duPont, Marketing Director,
                Division Limited, [phone]
               Clive Jones, Division Limited [phone]

Division Extends Virtual Reality VAR Agreement with Silicon Graphics
to Entire World

Bristol, UK - 22 March 1994 - Further expanding on its success in the
UK and the USA, Division has extended world-wide its existing Valued
Added Reseller (VAR) agreement with Silicon Graphics.  This new and
world-encompassing agreement will allow Division and Silicon
Graphics to jointly sell complete VR systems anywhere in the world,
through Silicon Graphics' network of local offices and distributors.

Under the terms of the agreement, Division will sell Silicon Graphics
workstations with Division's dVSOE virtual reality operating
environment and the dVISEOE Virtual Design EnvironmentOE, and provide
integration services to customers who are creating professional VR
applications.

"Virtual reality is fast becoming an important technology for all data
visualization markets," said Dave Orton, vice president and general
manager of Silicon Graphics' Advanced Graphics Division. "Working
with Silicon Graphics, Division will help deliver the products and the
technical expertise our customers need to quickly develop their next
generation of professional, visual computing applications."

Division's dVS virtual reality operating environment leverages the
highest capabilities of Silicon Graphics' systems, from the IndyOE and
IndigoOE workstations through the OnyxOE RealityEngineOE graphics
super-computer, by providing a software platform for the development
of sophisticated virtual reality applications. "End-users or developers
who want to make use of virtual reality, can now quickly and
effectively do so with dVS, in the familiar and powerful SGI
environment," said Charles Grimsdale, Managing Director of Division
Group plc.

Based on a distributed, multi-user client/server architecture, dVS
allows geographically separated users to come together over
networks in a shared, immersive work space, enhancing their
productivity and effectiveness while reducing the cost of collaboration
on projects.  Further, dVS ensures that applications automatically
adapt to the available hardware configuration, from non-immersive,
flat-screen systems to fully-immersive environments with stereo
displays, head, hand, and body tracking, and 3D spatialized audio.

Division's dVISE product is an end-user virtual reality application for
existing Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools. dVISE is the industry's
first Virtual Design EnvironmentOE and offers a true immersive 3D user
interface as a seamless extension to mainstream CAD and modelling
software. dVISE can be readily used without the need for any
programming.

Silicon Graphics Inc. is the leading manufacturer of high-performance
visual computing systems.  The company delivers interactive
three-dimensional graphics, digital media and super-computing
technologies to technical, scientific and creative professionals.
Silicon Graphics has offices world-wide. Its headquarters are in
Mountain View, California.

Division specialises in providing technology, products, and services
for virtual reality applications. The company services a world-wide
installed base of its integrated VR systems as part of Division Group
plc, with offices in Bristol, UK, the USA, and representation by
Matsushita in Japan. Its shares are traded on the London Stock
Exchange.

=======================================================

Contact:    Pierre duPont    [phone]
                Clive Jones    [phone]

Pixel-Planes defines new price-performance
for Virtual Reality graphics

Bristol UK - 1 February 1994 - Visual realism in virtual reality
systems has taken a major leap forward following the launch by
Division of its Pixel-Planes graphics systems. Division has
engineered a low-cost, massively parallel graphics accelerator for its
ProVision 100 virtual reality system. This new system, called the
ProVision 100 VPX, is based upon Pixel-Planes 5, an advanced
graphics architecture developed at the University of North Carolina,
USA.  Division has negotiated a world-wide joint exclusive licence for
the Pixel-Planes technology, and will offer this as an OEM graphics
sub-system or as part of fully integrated VR systems.

"A whole range of VR applications have now become cost effective,
because of this new level of visual realism; for example, VR based
entertainment systems can now achieve the quality of experience
usually associated with expensive simulation systems," said Charles
Grimsdale, Managing Director of Division Group plc.

"Division has produced a powerful, low cost single board solution
based upon Pixel-Planes 5 technology, while adding important
features such as photo-texturing," said Henry Fuchs, Federico Gil
Professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina.
"For VR to prove useful,  then there must be cost effective systems
which solve real problems, and I feel that this system is an important
step in the right direction."

Virtual reality has previously been limited by the poor quality of the
graphic images, for anything but the most expensive systems. The
ProVision 100 VPX gives VR users a dramatic leap in the detail which
they can display at real-time frame rates. Using massive parallelism
with a processor dedicated to each pixel in the image, Pixel-Planes is
able to display an unheard-of 160 million, fully photo-textured,
Z-buffered, specular-lit pixels per second, at up to 300,000 polygons
per second. Unique to the Pixel-Planes architecture is its ability to
directly support the rendering of spheres, achieving up to 300,000
Z-buffered and specular-lit spheres per second on the VPX hardware.

Pixel-Planes is suitable as a graphics accelerator for OEMs building
dedicated systems, for example in location-based entertainment and
low cost training.  In addition, as part of the ProVision 100 VPX, it
offers unprecedented performance in a  fully-integrated virtual reality
workstation. The ProVision 100 is the world's only integrated VR
workstation, offering a simple, yet powerful, VR capability to end
users and applications developers alike. The ProVision 100 is seeing
use in a wide variety of applications by companies such as
Matsushita, Glaxo, Volvo,  British Telecom and the Defence
community, around the world.

The ProVision100 VPX is available with a single VPX graphics board
producing one very high resolution image or a stereo pair of
video-resolution images, or with two VPX graphics boards producing
very-high resolution images in stereo, or four video-resolution
images. Applications range from immersive and interactive
simulation and training, to entertainment, CAD visualisation and
scientific visualisation.  Pricing for a complete, ProVision100 VPX
system starts at stlg50,000, while OEM prices for a single Pixel-Planes
board start at stlg12,000.

The Department of Computer Science at the University of North
Carolina, is a world leader in VR and real time graphics research. The
Pixel-Planes concept was first conceived by Prof. Fuchs in the early
1980s, and since then several generations of advanced research
machines have been built based on this very powerful parallel
architecture.  The basic principle is to use an array of processors
(8,192 on the VPX board) to compute pixel data in parallel, with each
processor dedicated to one or more pixels on the screen. This
provides significant performance advantages, particularly where
complex lighting and texture mapping is required on each pixel.

Division specialises in providing technology, products and services
for virtual reality applications. The company services a world-wide
installed base of its integrated VR systems as part of Division Group
plc, with offices in Bristol, UK, the USA, and representation by
Matsushita in Japan. It's shares are traded on the London Stock
Exchange.

Note    35mm transparencies available on request.

=======================================================

Contact:    Pierre duPont, Marketing Director,
Division Limited at [phone]

"Fantastic Journey"
will speed development of drugs

Bristol & London, UK - 14 March 1994 - Scientists and technicians will
use virtual reality to bring themselves down to the size of the
molecules they are investigating in a new project aimed at improving
our understanding of protein molecules and their interactions with
drugs.

The stlg600,000 project, announced today by Trade and Technology
Minister Patrick McLoughlin, will enable technicians with limited
experience to carry out scientific analysis, while experts will be able
to work without needing to understand the technicalities of the
computer equipment they use.

Funded by stlg180,000 from the DTI and stlg120,000 from the Science and
Engineering Research Council (SERC), the project for "interactive
protein modelling systems using virtual reality" is the latest stage of
the stlg6.35m government-funded LINK protein engineering programme,
which is expected to attract an equivalent sum from industry.

The project, using molecules simulated in 3D images, will be
undertaken by the University of York, Division Ltd (specialists in
virtual reality and software) and Glaxo Research and Development
Ltd. The aim is to develop systems using existing stereo imaging
facilities, which can be developed subsequently to use virtual reality
systems.  Laboratory workers will be able to use the more intuitive
user interface of VR systems to understand the structure of
macromolecules and how the structure relates to their function.
Early take-up of such key enabling technology by UK and European
companies will lead to direct sales of the system, and economic
benefits such as shorter development times for new medicines.

Under the project, three molecular modelling and manipulation
systems will be developed:

. a system for building models of macromolecules that satisfy "low
resolution" experimental and other constraints;

. a protein visualisation system for natural and effective
representation and analysis of protein structure; and,

. a system for exploring similarities between molecules, in terms of
both structure and function.

The key characteristics of these systems are interactive visualisation
of structure and properties of molecules, and manipulation of
structure(s) by the user.

A pilot project has demonstrated that virtual reality offers crucial
advantages over a conventional computer workstation in providing
these interactive features. The applications in the project will be
developed to operate both on conventional workstations and within a
virtual reality system.

Notes for Editors

1.    Recent advances in molecular biology and genetic
engineering have led to increased commercial interest in the potential
to design proteins with enhanced or new properties and to produce
improved drugs, hormones, industrial enzymes, agrochemicals,
biocatalysts and food proteins. The LINK Protein Engineering
Programme seeks to encourage collaborative R&D that will generate
a focused research effort aimed at advancing the understanding of the
structural properties of proteins and the ground rules which relate
structure to biological activity.

2.    For further information, contact:
    University of York    Dr Rod Hubbard at 0904-432519
    Division Limited    Pierre duPont at 0454-615554
    Glaxo Group Research Ltd    Philip Connolly 081-966-3470

3.    Photographs are available from Pierre duPont at +44 (0)454
615554

=============================================================
email: [e-mail]
Pierre duPont                           phone: [phone]
Division Limited                        fax: [phone]
19 Apex Court, Woodlands, Almondsbury, Bristol BS12 4JT UK