Khronos Moves Ahead With Developing "ANARI" API For Analytic Rendering

Khronos announced last year they would be looking to pursue an analytic rendering API and following the evaluation they have decided to move it forward.

A formal working group has now commenced to create this analytic rendering API which they are calling ANARI. The ANARI API will be focused on having an industry standard around data visualizations and is one step above Khronos' graphics APIs like Vulkan and OpenGL. ANARI will be focused on data presentation and similar in nature to the vendor-specific NVIDIA VisRTX and Intel OSPRay.

The ANARI API will be focused on broad industry support for a fast and efficient open API for data visualizations. This higher-level analytics rendering interface API won't be tied specifically to Vulkan but could make use of it as one of the hardware abstractions. ANARI is being backed by the major players on the hardware side including AMD, NVIDIA, and Intel, among others, while also on the software side having the backing of Autodesk, Kitware, and others.

More details on the formation of the ANARI working group via Khronos.org.