mental images - rendering imagination visible



mental ray Configurations and Supported Platforms

mental ray® supports all UNIX platforms from Hewlett-Packard (HPPA 2.0, Alpha, IA64), IBM (Power, PowerPC), SGI, Inc. (MIPS, IA64), and Sun Microsystems (Sparc). Also, mental ray supports Windows 2000/XP platforms. Furthermore, mental ray supports LINUX on x86, IA64 Itanium and AMD X86-64 Opteron based platforms and Apple Macintosh OS X (PowerPC and Intel).

Standalone Version

The mental ray standalone version is a command line application that renders photorealistic images from the mental ray scene file format (.mi). It is also used on a rendering slave for network distributed rendering.

mental ray standalone is available to end-user customers from

  • Avid Technologies
  • Autodesk
  • Dassault Systèmes
  • Sensable Technologies

Integrated Version

This version is provided to mental images' OEM partners for integration into their products.

mental ray is currently integrated into the following DCC and CAD applications:

  • Avid 3D
  • Softimage|XSI
  • Autodesk 3ds Max
  • Autodesk Auto CAD
  • Autodesk Inventor
  • Autodesk Maya
  • Autodesk Revit
  • Autodesk VIZ
  • SolidWorks/PhotoWorks
  • Dassault Systèmes Catia V4 /Visualization Studio
  • Dassault Systèmes Catia V5 /Photostudio2, Photo Studio Optimizer
  • Sensable FreeForm
  • Side Effects Houdini 5

Developer Version

A developer version of mental ray that allows direct access to the mental ray API, is available directly from mental images to third parties on an OEM/VAR basis for integration into a wide range of applications, including CAD, styling design, architectural design, visualization, and numerous Intranet/Internet applications, that require sophisticated and interactive rendering capabilities.

Demo Versions

A fully functional demo standalone version and a full API compliant demo developer version of mental ray 3.6 is contained in the CD-ROM that comes with the mental ray handbook 'Writing mental ray Shaders' vol.3.

mental ray Supported Platforms

The following hardware/OS combinations are supported for mental ray® Version 3.x

32-bit platforms

   

Apple Macintosh OS X (PowerPC/Intel)

HP: HPUX 11.x for HPPA 2.0

IBM: AIX 4.3.x and later

Linux for Intel x86 and AMD x86

SGI: IRIX 6.2 and later

SUN: SunOS 5.6, 5.8 and later

Windows 2000/XP for Intel x86 and AMD x86

64-bit platforms

Apple Macintosh OS X (PowerPC/Intel)

HP: HPUX 11.x for IA64 Itanium and HPPA 2.0

IBM: AIX 5.1 and later (Power 4 and up)

Linux for AMD x86-64 Opteron and Intel EM64T

Linux for Intel IA64 Itanium (HP zx6000, SGI Altix 3000)

SGI: IRIX64 6.2 and later

Windows XP for AMD x86-64 Opteron, Intel IA64 Itanium and EM64T