Blog posts tagged with 'graphics'
A key part of my job as Product Strategist for Multimedia Virtualization is to stay tuned in with the evolving needs of our customers for graphics and multimedia technologies. Citrix has many different ways of collecting such market input, and your comments on my blog posts are one source that I particularly appreciate. Another highly valuable source of input is the Citrix Customer Advisory Community, a global group of customers who provide their perspectives and opinions in an online community forum. What are they saying about their needs around graphics and video?
The technology referred to most frequently in a recent dialogue with the Citrix Customer Advisory Community was streaming video. At least a third of respondents specifically mentioned Adobe Flash. Obviously - and this was no surprise - Flash has been widely adopted in the enterprise for employee training and corporate communications. And Flash content has become prevalent on the Web. Many Citrix customers are publishing a web browser or a complete Windows desktop to their users, so Flash support is becoming increasingly important to them. As I noted in my blog post Secrets for Optimizing Flash Performance - Part 2, significant improvements to Flash support were introduced in XenApp 4.5. And there's more to come. One of the priorities of the Citrix Multimedia Virtualization Initiative is to adapt our RAVE (Remote Audio and Video Extensions) technology to further optimize the delivery of Flash videos and animations while dramatically increasing server scalability. We are also looking ahead to Silverlight, an important new technology from Microsoft.
A wide variety of graphics-intensive applications were named by the Advisory Community. Several were OpenGL applications like Dassault CATIA, which will be well handled by Citrix's new Virtual Design Studio product based on our Pictor technology. Others were DirectX based applications such as Autodesk AutoCAD/Inventor and Bentley MicroStation, for which our new Apollo accelerated bitmap remoting technology will be very well suited. Customers in the Healthcare space mentioned 3D echocardiograms and high contrast CT scans that generate large graphics models requiring hardware acceleration, again a great opportunity for Apollo technology.
Customers running 2D and lightweight 3D graphics applications commented on the excellent graphics performance of XenApp Presentation Server 4.5, thanks to the new SpeedScreen Progressive Display technology. Applications mentioned included SolidWorks eDrawings, Intergraph PDS and SmartPlant, AutoCAD Map 3D and ESRI ArcGIS. SpeedScreen Progressive Display is truly a needle-mover for the vast majority of graphics applications being used by our customers today.
Some customers are using client-side application virtualization (also known as "application streaming") to deliver graphics applications. They get the benefits of centralized management and application isolation while fully leveraging the capabilities of the user's PC.
Tickers that scroll horizontally were mentioned a couple of times. Today's SuperCaching algorithm is optimized for vertical scrolling, but we've been doing some research into an enhanced algorithm that will accommodate scrolling in any direction. It will be interesting to test out the new algorithm with applications like on-screen "readerboards" that display text in this way.
What are your priorities for multimedia virtualization, including graphics, streaming media and real-time communications? What experience have you had delivering graphics applications with SpeedScreen Progressive Display? What are your plans for adopting unified communications, voice chat or desktop video conferencing ? I look forward to your comments!
Derek Thorslund
Product Strategist, Multimedia Virtualization
AutoCAD Map 3D, first introduced in the mid 1990s, has become the leading engineering platform for creating and managing geospatial information, bringing together the CAD and GIS worlds so that spatial data can easily be integrated with design drawings. The software is widely used by utilities, government agencies and industries dealing with natural resources.
Citrix and Autodesk have just completed extensive verification and field testing using XenApp Presentation Server 4.5 to provide on-demand access to AutoCAD Map 3D 2009, which has now been validated as Citrix Ready. This is a great example of how Citrix multimedia virtualization technologies such as SpeedScreen Progressive Display and SpeedScreen Image Acceleration optimize the ICA protocol to provide an excellent user experience with graphical applications while increasing security and dramatically reducing management and workstation costs.
To learn more about the Citrix and Autodesk partnership and this solution, check out today's press release and this new web site: http://www.citrixandautodesk.com/.
Derek Thorslund
Product Strategist, Multimedia Virtualization
As more and more people experience the recent beta release of XenDesktop, the value of Citrix's ICA protocol in delivering graphics is getting a lot of notice. ICA is shining in environments where network latency puts other protocols to shame.
Here are a couple of recent video blog posts that capture the performance advantages of ICA for graphical content. The first video (click here to view) shows the simple and common task of dragging an image across the screen, as you might do when editing a PowerPoint. The second video (click here to view) shows a CAD viewing and publishing application, eDrawings from SolidWorks. These are good examples of how ICA technologies such as SpeedScreen Image Acceleration and SpeedScreen Progressive Display optimize the user experience.
Derek Thorslund
Product Strategist, Multimedia Virtualization
Remember the great demo video of OpenGL graphics acceleration that Lee Laborczfalvi did for us at the iForum App Delivery Expo? Project Pictor has come a long way since. The Pictor technology has been incorporated into a new Citrix product called Virtual Design Studio. And 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.
Derek Thorslund
Product Strategist, Multimedia Virtualization
One of the half dozen SpeedScreen technologies from Citrix is SpeedScreen Image Acceleration. Since I've been reviewing these technologies as part of my multimedia virtualization strategy work, I thought I'd briefly share some highlights of this valuable feature.
SpeedScreen Image Acceleration was introduced in Presentation Server 3.0 back in 2004 and is included in all product editions. It is one of the new features in last month's Mac client release (along with SpeedScreen Progressive Display and various other enhancements), and it is an important capability of XenDesktop, too.
Image Acceleration improves the delivery of photographic bitmaps and high detail synthetic images. If a bitmap looks as if it is probably photographic or highly detailed, SpeedScreen Image Acceleration can add an extra level of lossy JPEG compression to speed up the transmission of the image to the client device. Lossy JPEG compression is quite CPU intensive, but since it is applied only when there is enough image detail that the probability of payoff is high, server CPU is not consumed needlessly.
With modern applications, even a background image can have considerable detail. For example, there may be subtle color changes from left to right or top-down. Even icons these days are often high detail images with gentle graduation in color. JPEG is very good at handling pictures with many different shades of color.
Under most circumstances, the compression scheme is able to remove redundant data with minimal loss of information, and the image still looks good to the user. So SpeedScreen Image Acceleration is enabled by default. But sometimes, applying a high level of lossy compression to a high detail, synthetic (non-photographic) image will produce noticeable artifacts or smudging. So there's a trade-off between image quality and throughput. Since lossy compression isn't always desired, the settings for Image Acceleration are fully controllable by policies. The system administrator can choose the preferred compression level (high, medium or low) and may restrict the use of lossy compression to network connections below a specified bandwidth threshold. Lossy compression is not appropriate for certain applications where image fidelity is critical, such as Picture Archival & Communications Systems (PACS) used in Healthcare to view X-rays and other scans, except to improve responsiveness while an image is being scrolled on the screen; but that's a topic we can cover another time when we take a look at SpeedScreen Progressive Display.
Derek Thorslund
Product Strategist, Multimedia Virtualization
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)
The Citrix Multimedia Virtualization Initiative is an ongoing cross-product R&D effort focused on multimedia desktop and application delivery. Watch my video blog for a 6-minute introduction to the Multimedia Virtualization Initiative and learn how Citrix is continuing to enhance the ICA protocol to provide the best end-user experience as graphics and rich media technologies evolve. (Brightcove link: http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1228639816)
My video blog references Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) technology and a fast-paced video that will give you a great appreciation for what WPF applications are all about. You can find Microsoft's WPF video at http://wpf.netfx3.com/blogs/news_and_announcements/archive/2007/05/10/wpf-momentum-video.aspx.
Derek Thorslund
Product Strategist, Multimedia Virtualization
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