07.30.10 - The Milwaukee Institute, in its continuing effort to support regional awareness of modeling, simulation and visualization technologies, is working with HK Systems (HKS, hksystems.com) to produce high resolution (1920x1080) animations of complex HKS warehousing systems. An example animation, viewable at 720p and rendered on the Institute's HPC cluster using POV-Ray (povray.org) software, is available on the Institute's YouTube Science Channel. In a statement related to this ongoing cooperation, Jeffery Jacobs, HKS Senior Engineer, is quoted as saying

"HKS, an automated material handling integrator, is continually challenged to describe complex systems to prospective customers. To address this challenge, HKS has invested in powerful animation software. The quality and timeliness of these animations is directly correlated to the computing capacity available to process the images. Initially, it required multiple computers over a month to produce high quality animations. This large amount of time was unacceptable for HKS’s sales cycle.

HKS is fortunate that the Milwaukee Institute has provided their high-performance computing services to streamline this process. Pivotal to the success of this project was the engagement of the Milwaukee Institute’s staff to understand HKS’s goals and provide the necessary resources to overcome the technical challenges. As a result, HKS is able to create high quality animations in a matter of hours instead of months. This technology provides HKS with the tools necessary to be competitive in our global environment. The Milwaukee Institute’s high-performance computing services have allowed HK Systems to utilize cutting edge animation technology without a large capital investment."