Scalable Graphics Timeline from 1996 to 2025 and beyond
Although Scalable Graphics company is “only” 18 years old, its members have been involved research & development activities in various fields including high performance computing and visualization, parallel rendering, virtual reality, networking, streaming, video compression, global illumination, geometry processing, reservoir modeling, plasma fusion, bioinformatics, forestry, skin care for about 30 years. These works have led to more than 40 research papers in international conferences and journals and 3 patents, as well as demonstrations in renowned events all around the world. This page depicts the historical timeline of our company, highlighting some key milestones and allowing a better understanding of our roots, our skills and our vision.
1996
The early days
Back in the last century, after academic studies in computer sciences at the University of Sciences Henri Poincaré in Nancy, France, Xavier Cavin started his research journey with a Research Master in the gOcad research project under the supervision of Professors Pierre Bouchet and Jean-Laurent Mallet, working on 3D triangulated surfaces for Oil & Gas reservoir modeling. Then, Xavier moved to Paris, France for his military duty at the Ecole Militaire, where he joined the Janus simulating and training software team under the orders of Colonel Pascal Jouanique.
1997-2000
Starting the R&D journey at Inria
The serious things began in 1997, when Xavier joined the ISA Project at Inria National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology in Nancy, France to start working on his PhD thesis under the supervision of Professor Jean-Claude Paul. Xavier’s research was mainly focused on high performance computing and visualization for photorealistic rendering, working on SGI graphics supercomputers. He also work on remote rendering and Virtual Reality for artchitecture, CAD, Oil&Gas, Biology, Plasma and Forestry applications.
2000-2001
Where it all began: VTHD, VSP Technology
After his PhD thesis, Xavier moved to an Inria postdoctoral position to work on a start-up company project named VSP Technology, while working in parallel on the VTHD project. VSP stands for “Visualization Service Provider”, and the goal was to provide remote access to parallel 3D applications running on SGI Supercomputers. VTHD stands for “Vraiment Très Haut Débit” and the goal of the project was to use France Telecom high speed interconnection network to, among other things, stream different kind of applications. These ideas are summarized in the following France 3 documentary video.
2001-2002
The US times: from SGI to PC cluster
Xavier then moved to Salt Lake City, UT for a postdoctoral year at the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute of the University of Utah with Professor Chuck Hansen. This is where the idea of replacing costly supercomputers with Commodity Of The Shelf (COTS) PC based hardware and software has germinated.
2002-2007
The Inria years as a Full Time Researcher
Xavier came back to his birth place in Nancy as a Full Time Researcher at Inria, in the Alice Project led by Professor Bruno Lévy. He also led the CRVHP, the Regional Center for Visualization and High Performance Computing of the Région Lorraine. His multi-disciplinary research works led to a couple of International Publications. But this is the time where he met his future start-up co-funder Christophe Mion, who was hired as on a short-time engineering position at Inria. Their common research works on parallel computing and rendering, on PC clusters for architecture, CAD, Biology, Plasma Fusion, Forestry have planted the seeds for what will become the Scalable Graphics company.
