Today, in conjunction with the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in San Jose, California, we are announcing major updates to our industry-leading DesignWorks and VRWorks SDKs and developer tools. Developers working in professional graphics, advanced rendering, video processing, 360-degree videos, material design, and 3D printing can immediately begin using the updated SDKs and tools.
The announcement demonstrates NVIDIA’s commitment to providing developers with the latest generation tools they need to thrive. That is why we have put together a comprehensive guide to help you get started.
Register to get access to the latest software releases and tools and receive notifications and invites to join special developer events, early access programs and educational webinars. The program is free-to-join and open to all developers.
DesignWorks
On the Advanced Graphics side, we have a few maintenance releases and a fairly substantial update to the MDL SDK which introduces MDL 1.4.
MDL SDK 2018
MDL 1.4 has been added which comes with a few major improvements including:
Supports UDIM which simplifies texturing workflows by blending multiple textures into a single UV space
Color weights for BSDF layering allows for easier modelling of realistic colored coatings
Complex ior: accurately render metals by specifying their complex index of refraction
MDL SDK 2018 also adds improved performance on PTX/LLVM code providing better state interface reducing setup time and improved code generation with better optimization. We also provide a new rendering sample for OpenGL using distilling to UE4 material model and texture baking.
This SDK adds a new sample implementation of the surface bsdf/whole material model. MDL SDK can now create code for evaluating the material using LLVM/PTX and a few rendering samples for Optix and CUDA were added using the sample material implementation.
GVDB 1.1
Also a maintenance release with quite a few fixes on topology rebuild, point gathering, import of OpenVDB, supporting multiple CUDA contexts, multiple objects per session, multiple channels of data, support for OptiX 5.0 and updated samples.
OptiX 5.0.1
This is a minor maintenance release with fixes to AI denoiser integration as well as a fix for a crash during peer to peer access in WDDM mode and new sample applications.
On the Video Processing side of things we have a new release of Video Codec SDK, Capture SDK and VRWorks 360 Video SDK which bring some performance and quality improvements.
Video Codec SDK 8.1
Version 8.1 introduces completely redesigned sample applications based on modular and reusable C++ classes. A new feature enables using B-frames as reference frames to improve overall encoding quality for H.264. This new release also adds support for real-time HEVC 4K@60fps as well as a new API to specify region-of-interest for applications having prior knowledge of video frame.This feature works well in conjunction with image area classification feature (part of Capture SDK 7.0).
Capture SDK 7.0
Adding Volta support and Image area classification through the use of emphasis maps which can be directly passed to Video SDK for implementing region of interest encoding. (see Video Codec SDK 8.1).
VRWorks
VRWorks 360 Video SDK 1.5
Today we released VRWorks 360 Video SDK 1.5 which includes support for Linux, making it easier to integrate into a wider range of uses including embedded devices and linux based image processing pipelines.
- Added Linux support (Ubuntu 16.04 and up and Fedora 25 and up)
- Added support for GP100
- Enhanced low level audio SDK to use static buffers for consistent processing performance
- Enhanced quality for stereo panoramas when the rig is calibrated with nearby objects (e.g. indoor scenes)
- Critical bug fixes
For more information on VRWorks, visit our “VRWorks at GTC” guide and read more about VRWorks 360 Video SDK >
For more information on DesignWorks, visit our “DesignWorks at GTC” guide and read more about DesignWorks SDK >
