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VFXWorld has an article up about the work Furious FX did to create Race to Witch Mountain.
This particular shot, and the rest of the project, was entirely created on Mac platforms. The primary 2D pipeline consisted of Nuke for compositing and Silhouette for rotoscoping. 3D work was based on Maya and mental ray, with some tasks being completed in LightWave.
The first step was the creation of a 3D mesh of the SUV, which utilized the on-set cyber-scanning services provided by Eyetronics. The practical SUV was photographed using a high-resolution camera and two flash units. One of these was used to project a grid on top of the SUV from multiple angles, while the other captured texture information. The data was then used to generate a highly detailed and accurate computer-based model of the vehicle.
via ….. >> VFXWorld / Feature Articles << …...
Graphics furious fx
Disney & Pixar will be showing “Disney Digital 3D” versions of Toy Story & Toy Story 2 starting October 2nd, 2009.
This extraordinary double feature taking the latest advances in digital 3D technology “to infinity and beyond ” will play exclusively in 3D. “Toy Story ” the industry s first ever computer-animated feature and the first feature released by Pixar Animation Studios in 1995 and “Toy Story 2 ” the critically acclaimed sequel that debuted in 1999 were both directed by Academy Award®-winning filmmaker John Lasseter. Both films have been meticulously re-rendered in 3D from the original digital files using the latest state-of-the-art technology.
I guess this is done via a post-processing process, as the original movies weren’t in 3D. I can’t find any details about this, other than it’s being done primarily to generate buzz for Toy Story 3, to release Jun 18, 2010.
via Toy Story 3D Double Feature on October 2nd! – ComingSoon.net.
Graphics 3d, pixar
Autodesk has a new entry in their Customer Showcase from CIS Vancouver, formerly Rainmaker Visual Effects, talking about how Maya has improved their render pipeline. CIS has worked on Tropic thunder, Changeling, and Twilight, in addition to several TV & commercial projects.
For Dowdeswell, the restructuring of the pipeline will satisfy three overarching objectives. As the company handles such a major transition, Dowdeswell is quick to point to Maya software as the “mainstay of the facility,” and reserves particular praise for the Maya Embedded Language (MEL) scripting capabilities.
“Right now, it’s the greatest thing about Maya for us,” he says. “The extensive coding functionality and flexibility makes it so easy to integrate whatever pipeline we might want to introduce. With MEL scripting, we can customize the Maya interface for individual artists. Artists can then easily and intuitively select important tasks to drive other systems. Customization is huge for us.”
via Autodesk – Film – CIS Vancouver.
Graphics autodesk, cis, maya
One of Nvidia’s big announcements yesterday was “SLI Multi-OS”, but alot of people are still uncertain what that really means. InfoWorld has an article on the latest version of Parallels which uses the feature, and gives a nice description of how it will be useful to people performing large visualizations (the Oil & Gas industry specifically).
“Until now it has been impossible for them to enjoy the benefits of virtualization as the impact on graphics performance has been significant. (…) The solution also offers up to 16 CPU cores and 64GB of RAM for guest OSs creating a superior customer experience compared to today’s normal computing speed in a virtual machine. (…) .” Rather than taking the typical path of emulating the graphics adapter in a virtual machine Parallels Workstation Extreme employs what it calls the Parallels FastLane architecture which takes full advantage of the intelligent performance features in the new Intel Xeon processor 5500 series and the Intel X58 Express Chipset.
via Parallels gives 3D graphics a boost within virtualization |Virtualization Report | David Marshall | InfoWorld.
Hardware nvidia, sli
Yesterday the internets were alight with talk of NVidia’s latest QuadroFX card offerings. However, a few astute readers saw something fishy in the announcement. In particular, the following comment about sums it all up:
What is NVidia announcing today?
Certainly it is not the Quadro FX 5800 with 4GB of video ram on-board. That was announced on November 10, 2008.
Certainly it is not the Quadro FX 4800. That was announced on December 18, 2008.
So really it appears that the new cards are the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800, NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800, and the NVIDIA Quadro FX 580/380.
The Quadro FX 3800 should sell for between $900 to $1200. This card has 1GB GDDR3 memory, 192 shader processors, 256-bit memory bus, and 51.2GB/s memory bandwidth. The maximum power consumption is about 107 watts.
The Quadro FX 1800 should sell for about $600. This card has 768 MB GDDR3 memory, 64 shader processors, 192-bit memory bus, and 38.4GB/s memory bandwidth. The maximum power consumption is about 59 watts. It is based on the G94 core (a.k.a. the GeForce 9600).
The Quadro FX 580 should sell for about $150. This card has 512 MB GDDR3 memory, 32 shader processors, 128-bit memory bus, and 25.6GB/s memory bandwidth. The maximum power consumption is about 40 watts. It is based on the G96 core (a.k.a. the GeForce 9500).
At the low end you have the Quadro FX 380 with 256 MB of memory, and 22.4 GB/s memory bandwidth. That is, it is a Quadro FX 580 with slower clocks and less memory. It is based on the G96 core (a.k.a. the GeForce 9500).
The Quadro NVS 295 is really multi-display graphics for businesses.
In other words, even these new cards are nothing really new. The only new thing that I can see is the SLI Multi-OS. Now that is worth paying attention to.
Seems NVidia is trying to gain some press with another “Paper Release”.
Hardware nvidia
Version 7.0 of ISS Foresight is now available for all you CAD Designer types.
ISS Foresight lets you design accurately-sized construction projects in exact detail. The program combines terrain data ortho and aerial photographs CAD and GIS plans forestry ecosystems data and 3D models and turns them into a highly realistic 3D virtual model that is created to scale. Unlike many CAD applications ISS Foresight renders your models instantly. This allows you to perform rapid prototyping. You can change your model and do “what if” analysis months before real construction takes place. By showing all stakeholders how the project will look conflicts and problems are raised much earlier in the project life cycle resulting in huge cost savings.
A single-license will set you back $3,452, and runs only on Windows.
via Mar 31 – In Situ Simulation Ships ISS Foresight v7.0.
Science iss
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has just issued a Request for Information (RFI) on their “Common Operational Picture” project. The project aims to integrate massive amounts of data from various tools into a single location for quick update and analysis of critical situations. One part in particular they’re asking for information on is :
.(6) VISUALIZE INFORMATION: (a) Allow for the automatic display of data and reports in the NOC COP in accordance with established business rules.(b) Allow users to create a unique UDOP on a single desktop or for dissemination on multiple panels as found in a typical operations center. An individual UDOP does not affect or copy back to the NOC COP.
(7) DISPLAY GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION: (a) Use DHS enterprise geospatial services including iCAV and DHS Earth. There will be no duplication of capability. (b) Automatically or manually organize and depict layered information geospatially on map or other image.
Common Operational Picture (COP) – Federal Business Opportunities: Opportunities.
Science dhs
expreview has the specs on the new Radeon HD 4770, based on the RV740 chip. Of interesting note: They ship it with high-speed GDDR5 memory, but they’ve cut the memory interface in half (from 256bit to 128bit).
Slated to lauch May4th, price tag is at $99.
AMD Radeon HD 4770 Specs Unveiled – Expreview.com.
Hardware amd, ati
Looks like today is a Wikipedia-vis day as Infosthetics talks about “eyePlorer“, another interactive visualization tool for Wikipedia.
Keywords related to a user-chosen topic are placed in a circle, which once selected, reveals the nature of the relationship. The granularity of these keywords can be tweaked by a zoom slider at the bottom, and double-clicking a keyword reveals the relationships with its neighbors by connecting lines.
…
The colors within the circle denote different categories such as people, countries or organizations. Categories can be removed by dragging them outside of the screen, or further refined by clicking on an empty zone within them.
via eyePlorer: Explore and Process Search Knowledge from Wikipedia – information aesthetics.
Science wikipedia
If you’ve ever been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information containing within the Hitchiker’s Gui-, I mean WikiPedia, then you might want to check out “wikipedia-roll”, an interesting visualization of all the topics and headings within a page. It gives you fully interactive access to the structure of the pages, with inlinks and outlinks, and all the content preserved (albeit a bit mangled at times).
Wikipedia Roll – Le Garage – Betaexplore – Flow visualization.
Science wikipedia
VizWorld.com 
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