Home » Archives for June 2009
It’s no secret that rendering Fire is one of the trickiest possible materials in all of computer graphics. Wired sits down with ILM’s Tim Alexander to talk about how they did it for the upcoming Half Blood Prince.
Once Half-Blood Prince director David Yates signed off on a visual template, ILM deployed supercharged Linux machines, each loaded with 16 processors and 4 gigs of RAM. “We emulated all these fire parameters: heat ripples, smoke, buoyancy, viscosity, opacity, and brightness,” Alexander says. Processing the massive particle simulations for the 100- by 300-foot firewall was burning up days of data crunching for each frame. So computer graphics artist Chris Horvath spent eight months obsessing over a faster way to conjure impressive flames. “Chris figured out that a lower-resolution particle set still had a fluidy flow,” Alexander says. “The effect looks as if you sprayed propane and then lit it.”
via Quest for Fire: Look for Searing FX on the Next Harry Potter .
Graphics ilm, interview, movie, vfx
At the SIGGRAPH2009 Computer Animation Festival, Academy Award winner Chris Landreth will be showing his newest short film The Spine and talking about unintended consequences of the “Uncanny Valley” effect.
“It is an honor to have Chris return to give back to the SIGGRAPH audience. He has a wonderful story to tell that should be applicable across multiple industry lines,” stated Carlye Archibeque, SIGGRAPH 2009 Computer Animation Festival Executive Producer. “Chris’ animation expertise, as well as his long-standing history with SIGGRAPH, specifically his participation in the Computer Animation Festival, offer a great example of the caliber of work showcased in this great venue and what is possible by showcasing your talents at SIGGRAPH.”
via CGSociety – SIGGRAPH 2009 Diary.
Graphics animation, conference, siggraph
High-Speed distribution centers face a unique set of problems due to their mechanical nature and need for 24/7 problem-free operation. Maintenance of these massive facilities is a big problem due to the specialized equipment involved, and some companies have found graphic visualizations essential.
When a system has a problem, defining where the problem lies can be a challenge. Dematic uses a graphic visualization program to tell technicians exactly where the problem is located. System manuals, including all of the parts for the equipment, are displayed on the visualization. It is a very efficient resource to identify where the problems are located and finding the right part to resolve it.
via The Changing Needs Of Maintenance In High-Speed Distribution Cen.
Science business, maintenance, visualization
Blur Studios has just updated their website with a new Animation Reel showing some of their fantastic VFX work for movies and video games. Some truly epic visual effects.
Animation Reel.
Graphics
Rumors have it that Intel, having successfully launched the Core i3 and Core i5 chips, it preparing for launch of the “Clarkdale” chips later this year. This is not to be confused with the new “Larrabee” GPU from Intel, these chips will merely have Intel’s existing integrated graphics chips.
Clarkdale is the codename for Intel’s first processors with integrated graphics, designed using the chip maker’s new 32nm manufacturing process. Clarkdale, alongside Lynnfield, will be part of Intel’s next-generation line of mainstream and high-performance processors, which will be included in the company’s Core i3 and Core i5 series.
This will be Intel’s first CPU/GPU integrated chip, and should be publicly available in Q1 2010. Larrabee should be available shortly afterwards.
via Intel Plans Shipments of 32nm ‘Clarkdale’ in Q4 – Availability slated for Q1 2010 – Softpedia.
Hardware clarkdale, gpu, intel, lynnfield, processor
OpenSceneGraph Professional Services has annnounced the release of v2.8.1 which adds several bugfixes and crashfixes.
The OpenSceneGraph 2.8.1 release is the culmination of 10 years of work by the lead developers and the open-source community that has grown up around the project. The real-time graphics industry and academia embraced it from the very beginning, deploying it in real-world applications, and actively participating in its development, testing and refinement. The end result is a high-quality library with a feature set relevant to application developers’ needs.
In addition to the new version release, there are new books available as well in English and Chinese.
via CAD CAM News: OpenSceneGraph Professional Services releases OpenSceneGraph 2.8.1.
Science library, openscenegraph, software
IBM has jumped on the Augmented Reality train with their “Seer” application for Android G1 phones. Targeting specifically for people attending Wimbledon, it’s remarkably similar to the previously covered Layar application. It functions like any good event app, with one important exception:
What makes this one cool, though, is that it uses your device’s GPS and compass to present information as an overlay on your Android phone’s camera instead of in a static map. Basically, if you point your phone’s camera at a court, restaurant, bathroom or parking lot, Seer should tell you whatever you could want to know about it.
Unfortunately, while Wimbledon opens today the app isn’t available yet. They list it as “soon”. See video of the app after the break.
via Gizmodo – IBM Seer Augmented Reality App Ensures No Confused Android Users At Wimbledon – Android ibm seer app.
Read more…
Hardware, Science android, augmented reality, ibm, seer
A new company hoping to get their piece of the massive geospatial information visualization pie has emerged by the name of “SpatialKey”. Currently in Beta, SpatialKey is a “next generation geotemporal visualization and analysis” tool (you can just taste the buzzwordiness of that). It’s a web-based application with a public documented API so that you can explore, filter, and share your data and visualizations via their web interface. According to their blog people have already built simple visualizations of SalesForce leads and Parking Tickets in San Francisco.
It’s a tall-order that many have attempted before. Here’s hoping they can pull it off. See their advertising video and the SalesForce visualization after the break.
SpatialKey Data Visualization and Mapping – Home.
Read more…
Science geospatial, infovis, spatialkey, Website
Google has released a new paper that they presented at the recent Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) conference in Miami, FL. Called “Tour the World: building a web-scale landmark recognition engine”, it’s about a new tool they’ve built for image pattern matching to identify images of landmarks.
Our research builds on the vast number of images on the web the ability to search those images and advances in object recognition and clustering techniques. First we generated a list of landmarks relying on two sources 40 million GPS-tagged photos from Picasa and Panoramio and online tour guide webpages. Next we found candidate images for each landmark using these sources and Google Image Search which we then “pruned” using efficient image matching and unsupervised clustering techniques. Finally we developed a highly efficient indexing system for fast image recognition.
They’re adamant that this is not a new google product, just some research, but it’s not hard to imagine this being rolled into something like Picasa in the near future.
via Official Google Blog: A new landmark in computer vision.
Science conference, google, imageprocessing, paper, picasa
It’s no secret that rendering Fire is one of the trickiest possible materials in all of computer graphics. Wired sits down with ILM’s Tim Alexander to talk about how they did it for the upcoming Half Blood Prince.
VizWorld.com 
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