The APC group is currently assessing potential applications in areas such as mechanical CAD/CAM/CAE, data visualization, visual simulation, industrial design, animation, architecture and games. Applications will be selected based on their importance within their market segments. The group plans to work with user groups, publications, application developers, and those who have already developed general-purpose application benchmarks.

"We're not out to reinvent the wheel," says Paul Martin of Hewlett-Packard, the ad-hoc leader of the APC group. "We want to work cooperatively with those who have developed previous benchmarks. We want to make sure, however, that the resulting benchmarks contain appropriate graphics workloads and standardized measurement criteria, review processes, and reporting formats."

The APC group's next meeting is tentatively scheduled for June 26 in the Boston area. For more information or to participate in the group's meetings, contact Paul Martin: alfa@fc.hp.com or 970-229-2368.