Looks like NASA has decided to collaborate with google and put imagery & topography of the red planet up on Google Earth for the world to enjoy.
“Besides providing a rich immersive 3D view of Mars that will aid public understanding of Mars science the new mode Google Mars 3D also gives researchers a platform for sharing data similar to what Google Earth provides for Earth scientists ” NASA officials said on its Web site.
Over at Kombo.com, Blair Mathis got his hands on the NVidia GeForce 3D and has written up a nice editorial about it. Of particular note is the ghosting problems at 60hz:
With most monitors refreshing at a comfortable 60HRz, you’re only perceiving 50% of that amount, or 30HRz. This results in noticeable flickering, which is enough to make anyone grit their teeth and leave the 3D Vision for smoother 2D goodness.
The only solution is a minimum of 120HRz refresh rate. Unfortunately, a quick peruse of any tech catalog reveals that nearly every LCD monitor maxes at 60HRz–the highest you can generally find is a 75HRz. There are a few monitors available at the high 120HRz refresh rate, but that nullifies one of the big selling points of the Vision 3D–that it’s low(ish) requirements means it will likely work on your current system, thus making it an affordable upgrade
His video, after the break.
via Your turn – guest editorial: NVIDIA GeForce 3D Vision: Ahead of It’s Time – Kombo.com.
If you’re lucky enough to be attending GDC this week, you might wanna check this out:
Kris Orpilla is one of the lead character modeler and texture artists at Electronic Arts (EA). He will be giving a one-hour presentation at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco (23-27 March) that will provide a basic overview of how EA integrates BodyPaint 3D into its production pipeline. The session is called “Real World Texture Painting Tips for Game Developers,” and in the program, he’ll show workflow examples and efficiencies from texture work created for SimAnimals, the latest EA intellectual property released last month for the Wii.
The session will be part of the Visual Arts Track, in Room #2000 on Friday, March 27th 10:30 to 11:30am at the Moscone Center in SF.
Lots of topics in this episode.
Note: At the 10:35 mark, I erroneously state that the PS3 does not use an NVidia chip. It does use a custom NVidia chip. Oops.
Another Note: I had alot of difficulty with AfterEffects & QuickTime in this podcast, which contributed to it coming out Monday Morning instead of Sunday Evening. My first attempt refused to play on iPhone’s (Something about an unsupported format). If this doesn’t work for you, please let me know and check out the Blip.TV version in the meantime.
“Generation Loss” is a video, simply described:
Open the last saved jpeg image
Save it as a new jpeg image with slightly more compression
Repeat 600 times
If you’ve ever tried to explain lossy-compression, or why someone should use PNG instead of JPG, this is a great example.
InformationAesthetics has a link to National Geographic’s “Kingdom of the Blue Whale“. It’s a great interactive infographic showing everything you ever cared to know about the Blue Whale.
Kingdom of the Blue Whale: Facts of the Blue Whale Visualized – information aesthetics.
While these are from 2006 (and the webpage looks like it’s from 1996), an educator at the Central Duphin High School has written a 21 chapter tutorial guide on using Blender.
I developed this manual for use in my own classroom in an effort to streamline the Blender learning curve into some kind of sequential order. I have tried to keep most chapters down to less than 4 pages and each chapter can be covered in 1-2 class periods (our classes meet for approx. 45 minutes every day). This is my contribution to the Blender open-sourced cause. Please feel free to use this manual in your own labs. You may copy any or all parts you wish!
Nice to see teachers working with Open Source software.
via Central Dauphin High School | Drafting and Design Technology.
Slides from the SIAM CSE 09 conference are now available, where they spent a day talking about using Many-core architectures for various code optimizations. Focusing heavily on GPGPU & Cell, it’s a great resource for anyone getting into CUDA-style programming.
DS announced that they’ve going to be releasing their newest versionof 3DVIA Virtools5 at GDC nexgt week. 3DVIA Virtools is a rapid prototyping game & application middleware, and the new version not only supports alot of additional DCC softwares, but also:
3DVIA Virtools 5 supplements the Virtools Scripting Language (VSL) with Lua support, making the product even more accessible to a larger group of developers. In addition, users now have access within Virtools 5 to the vast Lua behavioral libraries available online. Other 3DVIA Virtools 5 enhancements include improved usability, easy object manipulation and new libraries of professional quality 3D assets.
AutoDesk has today announced that Vancouver will be the 3rd city in it’s Digital Cities Initiative.
The goal of this pilot program is for Vancouver to be able to bring together 3D models of above and below ground features in an open platform that supports secure and robust integration of CAD, building information modeling (BIM), geospatial, civil engineering, and infrastructure data over a wide geographic area.
By combining this data with realistic visualization, analysis and simulation tools, the City of Vancouver can deliver an intuitive and compelling way to understand the impact of plans and proposals from any point in time and from any point of view.
via Autodesk Announces Vancouver as Third City of Its Digital Cities Initiative | Dexigner.
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