INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
Military Training Technology
Samuel Recine Director of Sales - Americas & Asia Pacific Matrox Graphics Q: Can you describe Matrox’s history and evolution? A: Matrox is in its 36th year of operation. The company was founded by two engineers, Branko Matic and Lorne Trottier, and the first product was Video RAM—a video display generator for first-generation microprocessors with a resolution of eight lines of 16 characters. With the advent of DRAM, graphics generators were introduced. In 1986, Matrox developed the EIDS computer-based training system for the U.S. Army, and as a prime contractor under an IDIQ contract delivered 27,000 systems. Subsequently, Matrox won a contract with Sun Microsystems to develop a low-cost, 64-bit 3-D graphics accelerator card. The product for Sun workstations was then further cost-reduced to become the world’s first 64-bit Windows 3 graphics accelerator for the IBM PC. Matrox grew rapidly from 1994 to 2000, with the steady introduction of award-winning GPUs. In recent years, Matrox has shifted its focus to developing products for vertical markets, including simulation and training. Q: What are some of your key products in the DoD training and simulation industry? A: Matrox quad-graphics accelerators are extensively used by leading manufacturers of task trainer systems that utilize multiple displays. Also widely used are our Graphics eXpansion Modules DualHead2Go and TripleHead2Go, which split the output of high-end 3-D GPUs into two or three display signals. With the growing requirement to “remote” graphics without compromising signal quality or introducing latency, our fiber-optic based extension products are being increasingly deployed in training environments. The Matrox Mura MPX Series of video wall controller boards is being considered as an effective way to visualize large amounts of data on display walls during simulation reviews. Q: What are some of the new training/simulation technologies Matrox is developing? A: We just launched a video compression over IP product range that uses open-standard 28 | MT2 17.5
H.264 compression that will greatly enhance the market’s option for multi-site collaboration. We are also currently working to add isochronous USB 2.0 functionality to our Avio KVM extenders, which will provide robust audio extension over fiber. Additionally, a pair of Avio units can drive the new 4K x 2K displays at full frame rate without video compression. Q: How are you positioned for the future within the military? A: As long as the military uses networked video and/or computers, we feel very well positioned. Matrox has always been at the forefront of applications that help to “see” information, and military budgets are skewed toward obtaining, studying and visualizing data on computer systems in numerous forms to extract usable information. Therefore, the more the military makes use of conferencing systems—we’ll be there. The more the military builds trainers and simulators—we’ll be there. And the more the military tries to take advantage of OS virtualization or desktop/video virtualization to split the user-side peripherals from the CPU—we’ll be there too. Q: What is Matrox’s connection with the defense community? A: When developing the Parhelia SGT [Satellite Grayscale Technology] video card, we worked with the defense contract holders, the DoD commands, and the numerous secondary and tertiary partners involved in viewing high-resolution satellite imagery on the stereoscopic Siemens SMM21106 display, which delivered the highest quality images ever. That kind of commitment is still present today. We’ve studied the detailed requirements for
visualization stations aboard AWACS aircraft—and we’ve demonstrated how to run uncompressed, multi-user, simulators in military classrooms using open-standard hardware with no customization requirements. We’ve worked with the highest-end applications in security and surveillance, simulation, command-and-control and collaboration. Furthermore, we’re deeply entrenched in the remote computing space using old and new protocols such as RDP, Citrix, RemoteFX, and other compression schemes. Q: What is an example of your success in the military, and what are some of your goals—specific to the training/simulation industry—over the next year? A: An example of our success is the penetration of our Extio fiber-optic KVM extension product into military control rooms on account of its uncompressed multimonitor support, as it drives the most displays in the market. But this year we want to gain the same level of traction with our new Avio fiber-optic KVM extender in high-end simulation and in control room applications. Q: How do customers benefit from Matrox’s varied resources and expertise? A: Matrox offers a wide range of COTS solutions to help capture, render, move and display graphical information of any type. Our products feature long life cycles so they are available throughout most program lifetimes, and our applications engineering team is able to provide a high level of technical support. For example, the Matrox Millennium G450 video card was launched in the year 2000 and is still selling today. It has more operating system support than any other video card ever built. Q: How do you measure success? A: We measure our success by the successes of our customers. Most of them come back and that gives us confidence that we are helping them deliver effective solutions. O www.MT2-kmi.com