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But in the past five years much of this mathematical logic has been incorporated into tiny, special-purpose computer chips. Graphics calculations that used to require a $250,000 bank of hardware can now be performed by a single plug-in board. In just the past year the cost of an entry-level 3-D computer has fallen by nearly 70%, to less than $16,000. Within the next five to eight years, predicts Jim Clark, chairman of Silicon Graphics, the leading manufacturer of 3-D workstations, "we'll see the kind of images Tin Toy represents on an ordinary personal computer."
These advanced machines have already started to change the way Americans work and play. The packaging for dozens of name-brand consumer products, from Ivory Snow to Kleenex tissues, is now designed on 3-D computers rather than from mock-ups made of cardboard or clay. Last year the entire line of Coca- Cola soft drinks was redesigned around a new logo -- a project that would have taken twice as long had it not been done by machine. Timex wristwatches, Ping golf clubs, Reebok sneakers and Volvo station wagons are all created on graphics workstations. Volvo even uses a satellite hookup to connect its design computers in California with its manufacturing computers in Gothenburg, Sweden. If a new model does not leave sufficient headroom to accommodate the average American driver, the computer in Gothenburg can spot the oversight before the car gets built.
Scientists are also reaping rewards from 3-D visualization. By studying insulin molecules modeled on a computer, the Danish biotechnology firm Novo- Nordisk was able to create a synthetic insulin that did not clump when injected into the blood, an insight that cut three years off the usual eight- year research-and-development cycle for a new drug. By displaying weather data on a computer, researchers at the University of Illinois have been able to capture the exact moment when a tornado forms within a thunderstorm, a breakthrough that if incorporated into an early-warning system, could one day save lives.
Some of the benefits of 3-D graphics have more to do with science fiction than with science. At NASA's Ames Research Center, visitors who put on special computerized gloves and helmets can actually experience what it would be like to explore various 3-D worlds -- a space station orbiting the earth, for example, or the landscape of Mars. The gloves are equipped with magnetic position trackers and fiber-optic sensors that telegraph every movement of the hand directly to the machine. The helmet is equipped with a pair of stereoscopic TV projectors, one for each eye, that are carefully coordinated so that a slight turn of the head to the right will shift the entire synthetic world to the left.