A good year for CG.(computer graphics industry)(Editorial)

By now, you should have unwrapped and, hopefully, put to good use all those holiday gifts you received. Be honest, you probably even returned one or two things. In terms of apparel, perhaps you were unhappy with the color, fit, or the item itself; but if the present fell into the category of electronics, you may have traded up for a newer, more advanced version.

In fact, today's most advanced electronics--both consumer- and professional-level--seem to become outdated soon after they hit store shelves. While this can be frustrating for buyers, particularly those in the digital content creation realm, it is a signal that innovation is occurring. And that, obviously, is a very good thing.

2006 turned out to be a year of many changes within the computer graphics industry. At the beginning, Creative Labs cut loose graphics card maker 3Dlabs, leaving ATI and Nvidia to battle it out for the top position in the market. Throughout the year, ATI and Nvidia worked hard to gain ground. Nvidia was very busy, rolling out solutions for desktop, professional, gaming, and mobile users. Early work on Intel's Napa design, successor to the Centrino line, made Nvidia the top GPU choice for that platform. Perhaps Nvidia's biggest announcement came during SIGGRAPH, when it unveiled the Quadro Plex visual computing system for advanced visualization. The company ended the year by announcing its Cuda technology. And you can bet that Nvidia will not rest on its laurels during 2007.

ATI likewise remained busy in those markets with new product launches. Still, ATI's biggest move in 2006 occurred when the company landed in the hands of AMD. In fact, the analysts at Jon Peddie Research rated the acquisition as one of the top five industry events of last year. AMD, in fact, made that list twice, the second selection due to Dell's ...