The Power of Freedom, the Freedom of Power

SGI® products and solutions empower national governments' most demanding applications, including ballistic missile defense, homeland security, weather and climate forecasting, simulation-based acquisition, training systems, research and development, command and control, and surveillance and reconnaissance. SGI powers the digital battlespace with products and solutions to acquire, process, fuse, and visualize mission-critical data, enabling faster time to insight. Approximately 28-30% of SGI's annual revenue is derived by solving mission-critical problems for governments worldwide.

Introduction--SGI's Government Industry

The genesis of Silicon Graphics® computer systems was Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funding provided to support NASA's desire to visualize complex data in order to reduce design cycles. Since then, SGI has delivered on the promise of visual computing and diversified into other industries and is best known for work done with Hollywood's special effects studios. However, SGI has not forgotten its roots. SGI's overall mission is to provide scalable computing, collaborative visualization, and complex data management solutions for the technical and creative user. The largest technical users are governments worldwide that are focused on applications of national defense and intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security, health care and social services, scientific research and education, transportation and communication, and energy and the environment.

SGI products and solutions support the most demanding, mission-critical applications across the government and defense domain, including:

SGI is committed to supporting the government industry and its associated system integrators. Involvement in the industry is of strategic importance for SGI, since government customers are the largest consumer of technical computing--our core business. Defense customers have mission-critical requirements that push us to develop high-end features and capabilities and we are eager to respond.

Watch A Video Flight Simulation and Training Video (2:45 min) Bringing the real world into simulation requires the power of SGI® advanced visualization technology. The Airforce Research Laboratory utilizes SGI solutions to create photo-realistic simulator training systems used in mission planning and rehearsal. HLS Visualization (2:07 min) This demonstration features the RealSite™ and InReality™ applications by Harris. Aerial photographs of Quebec City, Canada, are converted to 3D models and displayed on a large screen using an SGI® Onyx® family platform. This process provides real-time 3D virtual fly-throughs of the city for mission planning and rehearsal. Fleet Numerical (5:43 min) Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) is one of the world's leading numerical weather prediction centers, supplying much of the data U.S. military forces rely on. SGI® high-performance computing and storage solutions are utilized to fulfill the FNMOC's compute-intensive mission. Decision Support Visualization (8:47 min) This demonstration highlights the use of SGI® Reality Center® to visualize complex satellite image data. Clip-texturing allows the user to page through high-resolution data on the fly, generating seamlessly integrated images updated at 60 frames per second.

Images courtesy of
Engineering Animation, Inc.
BVR Systems (1998) Ltd.
the Naval Rehearsal TOPSCENE Program
ERDAS, Inc., data courtesy of Spot Image Corp