NVIDIA Scene Graph

The NVIDIA Scene Graph Software Development Kit (NVSG SDK) is an object-oriented programming library for creating scene graph-based applications.

Most Scene Graphs were designed around state management of the OpenGL fixed function pipeline, with shaders being added as an after-thought.  NVSG, on the other hand, was designed from the ground up around shaders.  NVSG makes use of CgFX - a meta file format that allows shaders to easily be shared between applications. The ViewerVR application shows how simple it is to drag and drop CgFX effects onto the model and render it with shaders.

NVSG provides a comprehensive set of classes that developers can easily combine and extend to create fast and reliable GPU-centric graphics applications. NVSG is the ideal platform for Vehicle Styling, Volume Rendering, Broadcast Graphics, and Vis/Sim style applications due to its shader-driven design and effective use of OpenGL extensions and GPU resources.  The SDK also includes numerous tutorials with full source code to demonstrate how to use NVSG's features effectively.

A complete feature list is available here.

New NVSG Discussion Forum

We have a new online discussion forum where you can post questions and comments about NVSG. Check it out at http://forums.nvidia.com/.

If you have questions about the NVSG SDK, please send email to NVSGHelp@nvidia.com or post a query on the NVSG discussion forum.

New in NVSG 4.0:

• Support for OpenFlight, COLLADA / COLLADA FX, PLY, and OBJ file formats.
• FX Composer 2 and mental mill Artist Edition effect interchange.
• Support for Cg 2.0 and its new G80 features, including Geometry Shaders and Texture Arrays.
• Significant Animation extensions.
• Skinning support rewritten to be much more flexible and performant. Adds support for CPU and GPU based skinning.
• New data passed to shaders in NVSGScene structure: frame counter and scene ambient color.
• Support for NVIDIA Quadro® HD SDI Graphics-to-Video Output.
• New examples and many performance and usability enhancements.

• Windows Requirements:
• The NVSG SDK 32-bit .Net 2005 binaries for x86 architecture require the .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package (x86) and the Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package (x86) installed on the target machine.
• The NVSGSDK 64-bit binaries for x86_64 architecture require the .NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package (x64) and the Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package (x64) installed on the target machine.

NVSG 4.0.6.0.1 Release: Complete List of Improvements

Sample Viewer Application

The SDK provides a simple viewer application (ViewerVR) that demonstrates some features of the whole scene graph. You can load different file types like .nbf, .nvsg, .flt, .dae, and .vrml into this viewer and manipulate them. You can also export your scenes from 3D Studio Max as .nvb and load them into the Viewer. (You'll need the .nvb export plug-in for 3ds max to do this.)

In the viewer, you can examine scenes with walkthroughs, change the materials, assign shaders, and save everything for future sessions. You can also view your favorite scenes in stereo and play animations...  You can use the viewer to monitor cluster renderings.

VisSim Demo

The demo illustrates the integration of Physics (Bullet physics system), Audio (OpenAL), and Graphics through Producer, Cal3D, FreeType and of course NVSG.  Bullet, OpenAL and Producer are all open source projects that are available from their respective repositories on the Internet.  Nvidia and the NVSG team do not endorse any of these projects specifically, but they have worked very well for us and we would certainly recommend them.  The source code to the VisSim demo is available below. Please note that as of Jan 16, 2008, this source code works with 4.0.4.0.1 Beta, and not the 4.0.5.0.2 Release version yet. We will post a new Demo soon that works with the Release version.

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