Fabric Engine v1.0 released

[Memag]

Fabric Engine is a high-performance processing engine that integrates with dynamic languages (like JavaScript and Python) by exposing an interface for defining multi-threaded native code operations. Fabric Engine enables high-performance applications to be built using dynamic languages by providing an environment where processor-intensive tasks can be offloaded and processed using multi-threaded native code.

Why use Fabric Engine?

Modern hardware requires that developers be able to write multi-threaded software if they want to access the performance available to them. In 2006, the free lunch of single-core processors getting faster every year ended – until that point, your applications just got faster for free. Now you have to write software for multi-core CPUs, and for GPUs, and for scaling processing power across multiple machines/instances in the cloud. Even our cell phones are multi-core devices with powerful GPUs. Our software has not kept pace with the amazing advances in hardware. Writing software for this stuff is hard!
Right now, if you want to write high-performance applications, you have to use statically compiled languages like C++. Yet more and more developers are using dynamic languages for their every day work – they are easy to learn, fast to iterate with and it’s easy to find people who can work with them. Switching to static languages means losing all of these benefits – iteration times slow down, and it’s hard to find developers who are domain experts in your business _and_ domain experts at writing high-performance code. We often hear of companies that start out using dynamic languages, but as they become successful they start to struggle with performance. At this point they have two options: accept that they are going to provide a poor end-user experience, or spend a lot of time and money switching to static languages. This is where Fabric Engine comes in.
Fabric Engine offers a third way – we don’t think that performance should be a scarce resource, it should be a commodity that any developer can access. We provide a way for developers to provide a high-level description of concurrency that Fabric Engine dynamically compiles. We take care of the management of threading and memory and compilation so that you can concentrate on building your final product. Most importantly, we do it in a way that means we are as fast as multi-threaded C++. There is no compromise.





Click image above to go to a new Fabric Engine website, and learn more about it.

[Hirazi Blue]

Too bad "Opera" and the "Internet Explorer" (and probably some others) aren't supported (yet?). ;)
(Only Firefox & Chrome seem to be supported ATM)

[TwinSnakes007]

Okay, so this is pretty awesome. It's alot to process, I skimmed thru the JavaScript Scene Graph documentation and I had to stop because of feature overload:

#1 - Bullet Implementation [rigid, soft, constraints, anchors]
#1.5 - Bullet Shapes [Box, Sphere, Cylinder, Plane, Convex, Triangle, GImpact]
#2 - 3D Animation Support [Geometry & Character Rigs]
#3 - File IO [OBJ, Collada, Allembic]
#4 - 2D image [JPG, PNG, BMP, TIF, EXR, HDR]
#5 - 3D image [NRRD]
#6 - Video [AVI, MOV, MP4 all via FFMPEG]
#7 - WebSockets [client/server communication - i.e., multiple user collaboration in same scene]
#8 - OpenGL rendering via GLSL on GPU
#8.5 - OpenGL 3D Primitives [Points, Lines, LineStrip, Triangles]
#? - OpenCL is coming soon.

The kicker is - it's all Open Source.

[TwinSnakes007]

Too bad "Opera" and the "Internet Explorer" (and probably some others) aren't supported (yet?). ;)
(Only Firefox & Chrome seem to be supported ATM)

Yeah, they have some growing pains. Google Chrome on Linux & Windows worked for me - that's what they run when they are recording their demo videos as well.

I ran mostly all of the demos and I was impressed. I wonder if anyone has constructed something with FE yet?

[Hirazi Blue]

Sure, growing pains can be forgiven, but they could have at least mentioned this "browser requirement" on the "Browser Demos" page, so you could know beforehand. I jumped right in with the "Furry Monster" Alembic scene (I'm funny that way...) and it didn't even tell me my browser wasn't supported BEFORE starting to download the large Alembic file, which I found a little strange...
;)

[EricTRocks]

Well for Internet Explorer, I wouldn't develop anything for that browser ever. They are so hell bent on not following the standards and displaying things differently that I'm not surprised its not supported. Not sure about Opera.

[FabricPaul]

Thanks for the comments - I've updated the browser demo page accordingly. It was clearly stated on the old site, I think it was just a transition pain and got missed from the new design.

As for supporting other browsers, we might do this in the future if there's a clear requirement for it - right now we are focused on the PyQt desktop environment and the server-side processing. We have to go where we can build a viable business

[Nizar]

Sorry, seems I'm the only one don't understood what exactly what is this new Fabric Engine...
is it a new generalist 3d software right now in beta?

[Hirazi Blue]

No, as far as I understand it (and I hardly do, I must admit), it's more of a programming framework, enabling you to do all kinds of cool stuff (as shown for instance on their web browser example page) by programming in dynamic languages (JavaScript/Python), while "exposing an interface for defining multi-threaded native code operations"...

This page says it so much better: What is Fabric Engine?

[gfxman]

I can't really see any real use for this...

[FabricPaul]

I think Helge posted this here already, but it gives you an idea of how Fabric might have some uses in 3D - think of it as a tool for building tools.

[FabricPaul]

And here's a look at our character work-in-progress

[Pooby]

Fabric Engine is really fascinating, but I too, cannot really understand what it is, or what it aims to be able to do, who its aimed at Etc.
On the one hand it looks like its to help developers make their own tools, but on the other, it looks like you have ambitions to make a full application with it.

I've read the blurb about it, but It still cant find a pigeon hole for it.

[FabricPaul]

It is hard to pigeon hole - we are both a developer platform and a provider of vertical stacks of industry-specific technology. We do not intend to be releasing complete applications ourselves. I'll take a pass at explaining it. There's a lot going on, so let me know if it's unclear - it helps us work out how to present things on our site

What it is
There is the core of Fabric Engine - this is the multi-threading engine that takes KL code (operator code) and makes sure it runs extremely fast. This core has a compiler built into it, which is what enables us to hit performance comparable to multi-threaded C++.

On top of the core we provide integrations to different platforms and frameworks - the browser plug-in, the integration to node.js (a JavaScript server framework), the Python binding and the PyQt integration. Think of them as frameworks that can access Fabric Engine i.e. interfaces that allow you to call on Fabric Engine when you need performance.

We have an extension system for Fabric that allows people to include existing libraries - we have built a lot of these ourselves: Bullet physics, Kinect SDK, Lidar data, Collada, FBX etc

Then there are industry specific technology stacks that we are working on - so the 3D animation scene graph, the character animation tools, high-level functions for data science etc The goal is not to provide a complete application - it's to provide an open framework for people to build on that handles a lot of the work for them _and_ allows for extensive customization. The entire framework is open, so developers can change anything they want - there are no black boxes.

Who's it for?
People who want a framework for building high-performance tools and applications. This might help: http://fabricengine.com/learn/why-use-fabric-engine/

I think we probably need to have some industry specific pages (beyond the Use Cases) so that we talk about Fabric in more specific terms.

[TwinSnakes007]

Okay, here's an analogy that might help: The Fabric Engine framework is like having a bunch of ICE nodes. Not just regular ICE nodes, but like Houdini type ICE nodes, very low level stuff that covers UI, File IO, Math, Geometry, Pixels, GPU, Physics, Network IO, etc. Then you take those low level nodes and put them together, literally, connecting inputs and outputs, with event triggers and the whole 9, all with access to both client and server hardware and file systems.

Fabric Engine is like the ICE node repository, they create the pieces. That's there space - they constantly produce new pieces and add support for various environments that those pieces can live in (the web browser, desktop via python, etc.)

Developers then would take those pieces and build something, and since Fabric Engine is open sourced, you can build your own pieces as well.

...at least that's my perception.

[Hirazi Blue]

This well-written Technology Focus (from december 2011) over at CGSociety
could help some to get a better initial idea of what Fabric Engine is about:
CGSociety - Technology Focus - Fabric Engine
;)

@FabricPaul - Might be an idea to feature articles like the aforementioned on your website prominently as well. People who review/write articles about stuff like this often have a slightly different take on things and sometimes that can be quite helpful (to a newcomer).

PS Clicking on the menu entry about the Open Source License one gets a page that tells you the page has "moved permanently", but clicking the link on that page doesn't seem to go anywhere either...
PS Addendum - Firefox tells me the following

The page isn't redirecting properly
Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.