02 Nov 2007 12:00 AM EDT

In this 5-minute video, Citrix architect Lee Laborczfalvi demonstrates technology from project Pictor, a key component of the Citrix Multimedia Virtualization Initiative. Pictor leverages high performance GPU hardware to accelerate interactive 3D graphics applications built on OpenGL, a widely used graphics API that offers a broad set of rendering, texture mapping, special effects and other powerful visualization functions. OpenGL is commonly used by CAD/CAM/CAE, GIS (geographic information), medical imaging and data visualization applications. Click here for a video demonstration of Pictor from the Tech Lab at iForum 07 - The App Delivery Expo.

Up until December 14, 2007, Citrix is recruiting select customers and partners who use Dassault CATIA to participate in a 2-day Design Council for Pictor. Participants will preview and test early Pictor technology at the Citrix office in Santa Clara, California, interact directly with the Citrix Pictor team, provide feedback and influence the future direction of the solution. For further information, please contact Citrix Product Manager Debbie Fox (Deborah.Fox@Citrix.com) or Product Marketing Manager Michael Chang (Michael.Chang2@Citrix.com).

Derek Thorslund
Product Strategist, Multimedia Virtualization

(Click to watch Lee demonstrate the Pictor technology -- and stay tuned for a bonus feature at the end)

Permalink | Comments (13) |

Comments  (Hide Comments)

Wow. This demonstration looks absolutely amazing. Though I have never seen such a huge external GPU before. I think project pictor has a huge potential. It actually opens up completely new market segments for application virtualization. Like a lot of engineering workgroups who depend heavily on CAD/CAM/CAE software. And even film studios creating animated movies. I think this is really exciting. So, is leveraging the power of OpenGL in project pictor in any way related to delivering Vista Aero to non-Vista clients???

Posted by Anonymous at Nov 02, 2007 00:00 | Reply To This

(reply to cwegener) Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm about the huge potential of the Pictor technology. No doubt this will open up significant new market segments for Presentation Server and application virtualization. You asked if the Pictor technology is related in any way to project Apollo and the ability to deliver Vista Aero to non-Vista clients. Yes, there's a lot in common between these two projects. There are noteworthy differences, too. Architecturally, Pictor and Apollo share a similar design and the projects will leverage some common code. Our architects and engineers from both projects are working closely together to optimize and align our R&D investment in these technologies. Like Pictor, Apollo can use server-side GPU resources to accelerate graphics rendering. On the other hand, while Pictor is focused on the OpenGL API, Apollo involves multiple graphics technologies including DirectX, WPF (which is built on DirectX) and OpenGL. Note that the Vista Aero user interface -- delivered by the Desktop Window Manager (DWM) -- is built on the core graphics layer of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Pictor is targeted at Citrix Presentation Server; project Apollo is developing cross-product technologies for both Presentation Server and XenDesktop.

Posted by Anonymous at Nov 04, 2007 00:00Updated by Derek Thorslund | Reply To This

Hi Derek, Thank you for your clarification of the different technologies involved in Pictor and Apollo. Your information is very much appreciated. As is the whole Citrix Community blog. Just one more question. I'm assuming that Pictor and Apollo are being developed based on Win32 ICA client architecture as this is the main platform for ICA Client. But I hope that the technologies used in both projects are not in any way dependend on the Win32 ICA client platform. I am thinking of the Mac ICA client in particular. With Mac sales being on a sustained growth (2.2M in Q4), Macs start showing up in predominantly Windows based environments more often now. The new Mac ICA client is definitely good news and it was long overdue. I hope that Citrix will keep the Mac ICA client updated more frequently. And deliver these great new technologies like Pictor and Apollo to a wide variety of client devices. With Best Regards from Europe. Christoph Wegener

Posted by Anonymous at Nov 05, 2007 00:00 | Reply To This

Christof,

To clarify Derek's response, any client will be able to connect to Citrix Virtual Design Studio, aka Pictor, and the application will use hardware rendering on the server. The difference will be in the transport of the bitmap image to the client as only the ICA Win32 client will have the new technolgy and so other clients will continue to use ThinWire for the transport.

Thanks.

Debbie Fox

Posted by Anonymous at Feb 07, 2008 10:59 | Reply To This

(reply to cwegener) Hi Christoph, Great question! And you'll like the answer... The Pictor and Apollo graphics technologies will not be limited to Win32 clients. In fact, if all goes well, we hope to achieve backwards compatibility even with currently available versions of our various clients, although newer client versions will likely include performance optimizations. So I'll be able to access OpenGL, WPF and DirectX apps from my MacBook Pro! Derek

Posted by Anonymous at Nov 06, 2007 00:00 | Reply To This

Hi

One thing that would be good to know is likely release dates for these new features. Pictor has been around for a while now, any update on this?

Thanks

Russell

Posted by Anonymous at Feb 18, 2008 12:28 | Reply To This

Russell,The beta program for Virtual Design Studio has now been announced. Citrix is now inviting customers in the Manufacturing sector who use Dassault CATIA v5 to participate in our White Glove Beta Program, scheduled to run from April 15 through June 30, 2008. For details, check out the beta invitation on our corporate web site. GA of the Virtual Design Studio is scheduled for 2H08!

Posted by Deborah Fox at Feb 26, 2008 21:28 | Reply To This

Hello Deborah,
I have been worked with CATIA V5 since 2004 and I am very impressed with this demo. But I have a question: There is no evidence of  support for Windows 2003 server in the Dassault documentation. If we intend to implement your solution how to make sure that Dassault will provide the support in case of issues and baseline (new releases) evolution ? Is there a Dassault agreement in this Pictor Project ?

Regards,

Posted by Anonymous at Apr 10, 2008 07:25 | Reply To This

Citrix is in discussions with Dassault to gain their support for Virtual Design Studio. Dassault has requested that any customer that is interested in delivering their applications on Citrix to please contact them at:

Barbara.TABB@3ds.com and Tom.SCHORR@3ds.com

Posted by Deborah Fox at Apr 14, 2008 10:13 | Reply To This

Actually, HP's Remote Graphics Software (RGS) is a more elegant solution than this and has been on the market for at least a couple of years.  www.hp.com/go/rgs

Posted by Anonymous at Feb 26, 2008 14:59 | Reply To This

I am curious why you think it is a more elegant solution?

Posted by Anonymous at Feb 26, 2008 21:21 | Reply To This

Hi Derek,

Congratulations on such an interest project with so much potential.

As always with Metaframe/Presentation we have to think a bit more about performance of such a solution under real life conditions. For example, things that I'd like to know are:

 1. How many CATIA sessions you think the can run with acceptable performance? Or do you have any documentation/links on sizing and capacity planning yet?

2. What are the bandwith/latency requirements for smooth video? (or at least something around 5-10fps)

At work we have a few Citrix servers for development purposes, CATIA, RADE, VStudio 5, etc, and we live with the constant need of time-shared the server since more than 3 developers running RADE bring the servers to a crawl.

Posted by Anonymous at Apr 11, 2008 12:53 | Reply To This

As Virtual Design Studio comes to General Availability in 2H08, we plan to have performance metrics to address these types of questions. In our early alpha 32 bit code, we were seeing 3 high end Catia users per GPU and we expect to achieve at least this with the 64 bit version so stay tuned!

Posted by Deborah Fox at Apr 14, 2008 10:15 | Reply To This