Press Release

Critical Mass Labs launches Vesuvius, a physics-based particle system

August 13, 2001 – Los Angeles, California — Critical Mass Labs, creators of Vortex physics software, has today released Vesuvius, a 3D particle effects simulator that relies on physics to deliver dramatic atmospheric, explosion, liquid, and pyrotechnic effects.

Vesuvius is a set of libraries that developers can integrate into their simulations to create special effects of dust, snow, smoke, sparks or explosions that exhibit natural behavior. Vesuvius particle systems are based on physical properties such as mass and charge and can be made to react to simulated forces including wind, gravity, turbulence, magnetic charge, and collisions with other particles.

Vesuvius is a real-time SDK that is easy to integrate in any graphics or rendering pipeline. Using Vesuvius, animators and applications developers can:

Build multiple particle systems – each with unique properties.
Manage particle spawning: particle fractions, spawn instances, particles spawned, spawn speed, and spawn spread.
Set particle lifecycles according to time, speed or collision.
Emit particles from geometrical shapes such as spheres, triangles, quadrilaterals, or polygons.
Set emission rate, mean and standard speed deviation, and velocity angular spread.
Define attractive or repellent interactions as well as the range and strength of interaction.
Determine interactions between particles in a single particle system or in multiple systems.

Targeted to the simulation industry, Vesuvius is a cross-platform library and supports Microsoft Windows, SGI Irix, and Linux.

Vesuvius is currently available from Critical Mass Labs. Visit http://www.cm-labs.com for detailed product information and a free trial version, or contact the Critical Mass Labs Sales Team at sales@cm-labs.com.

About Critical Mass Labs

Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Critical Mass Labs is an integrated solutions provider for companies in the field of visual simulation. Providing software and consulting services, Critical Mass delivers solutions for character animation, human factors engineering, virtual-reality, robotics, and engineering design. At Critical Mass Labs, we are committed to developing real-time dynamics for integration into authoring tools. We have already partnered with and developed for companies such as NASA, Nokia, Oryx Simulations, and Partek Forestry and are available for similar integration ventures.

For more information, please contact Heather Black at heather.black@cm-labs.com