Don’t forget, Maitri Erwin’s interview with Edward Tufte is tonight, so if you have ideas for questions or discussion then get them in now before it’s too late!
Upcoming VizWorld Interview With Edward Tufte | VizWorld.com.
Cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) is an important tool in biological research for its ability to visualize nanometer-scale structures in 3-dimensions. Researchers have now developed an algorithm to allow even higher-resolution images and models to be constructed from cryoEM images.
A Japanese-UK research team has now demonstrated that cryoEM image analysis may be exploited to obtain structural information of sufficient resolution to reveal the absolute three-dimensional (3D) configuration of a designed DNA nanostructure. With their technique they have obtained structural information at sufficient resolution to visualize the DNA helix and reveal the absolute stereochemistry of a self-assembled DNA tetrahedron.
Another day, another list of “X great examples of Data visualization”, this time from WebDesignLedger gathering examples as Art. Some of the visualizations are of questionable effectiveness (such as the 3D Stock Prices trend, that one might be pretty but it’s also pretty useless I suspect) and they trend heavily towards radial graphs, but there’s a few winners in there.
Good data visualization should appear as if it is a work of art. This intrigues the viewer and draws them in so that they can further investigate the data and info that the graphic represents. In this post there are 15 stunning examples of Data Visualization that are true works of art.
via 15 Stunning Examples of Data Visualization | Web Design Ledger.
Tools like ZBrush make fantastic models quickly and have become a popular choice amongst graphics designers, but the models they generate are often too detailed and need to be reduced. A new software product, TopoGun, aims to make generating texture maps and resurfaced models much simpler.
TopoGun is a stand-alone resurfacing, and maps baking application. The resurfacing functions in TopoGun will help you modify and/or recreate the edgeflow of your digital 3D models. The maps baking functions, will help you bake various types of texture maps from your high resolution 3D models and then allow you to apply them to your newly created optimized meshes. These texture maps contain information that will help you recover the appearance and features of the original high resolution mesh.
There’s a free demo if you want to try it out, (feature restricted, cannot save scenes or maps), and it’s available in both node-locked and floating versions for $100/$250 respectively.
NVidia’s Tegra chipset has gotten alot of press, but not alot of actual usage in recent months. Hexus talks to Mike Rayfield, general manager of NVidia’s mobile business unit, and finds out that NVidia has really staked the future of the company on the success of Tegra.
Graphics maker NVIDIA has so far spent $600 million on the development of its low-power chipset designed for use in smartphones and smartbooks.
When you consider that the total value of the company over the past year has only been around ten times that amount, and that there has yet to be a single device sold containing the chipset, it’s fair to say that NVIDIA has staked its future on Tegra.
Mobile devices are definately a quick-growing market and NVidia is seeing increased competition in the desktop space from Caustic, AMD, and Intel, so maybe it’s a good move from a business sense. I just hope that QuadroPlex and CUDA stick around.
via NVIDIA: Tegra is our future :: HEXUS.channel – Essential IT business intelligence.
New Scientist has collected some graphics illustrating the explosive growth of the internet in near history. It’s a collection of 9 different graphics showing undersea cables and capacities, IP layouts, and internet traffic.
Gallery – Exploring the exploding internet – Image 1 – New Scientist.
A new system called “BioBrowser” from a German Research Foundation project at Fraunhofer Austria in Gras aims to allow researchers to interactively analyze and manipulate the molecular stucture of massive proteins containing 50,000 and more atoms.
Based on research data of molecular biologists, the software automatically calculates and displays 3D models of complex proteins – at the push of a button, in high quality, and interactively. Researchers can turn the molecule and look at it from every angle, enlarge it at will and select specific areas; the image is always razor sharp and users can switch between the most important variants.
via Super-sized Tiny Proteins: Software Helps Biologists Visualize Molecules.
Robin George’s “Tezcatlipoca”, a 3-minute short based on the Aztec myth of the deity who descends from heaven in the form of a jaguar, which premiered at SIGGRAPH2009′s Computer Animation Festival, is now online for you to enjoy.
From September 2007 to January 2009, it took about a year and a half to take from conception to completion as a solo project. It has been a huge learning experience for me as I inched through each phase; I started with storyboards and animatic, then moved to modeling, rigging, texturing, and preliminary set design, then eventually moved to character animation and ultimately to final sets, backgrounds, lighting, rendering and finally compositing. I was lucky enough to have my classmate Chris Wombold do lava simulation for me, as well as the help and advisement of my teachers Aaron Adams and Zach Gray.
You wouldn’t think a movie like “Julie & Julia” would be very VFX heavy, but a new press release from Brainstorm Digital reveals their use of Nuke, Photoshop, and Maya to reconstruct the “Ground Zero” environment used in the film.
The painters worked in a 16-bit half-float linear workflow within Photoshop with help from Fnordware’s ProEXR which helped them merge seamlessly into Brainstorm’s internal linear color pipeline. This enabled them to output multi-layer OpenEXRs for the compositing team who then went straight into the 2.5D camera projection workflow inside Nuke rather than rendering out passes out of 3D. “The process saved both time and money by enabling us to have a smaller team perform much more efficiently,” said Ball.
Read the full press release after the break.
From the recent Web2.0 Expo, a talk from Jeff Veen entitled “Designing for Big Data” shows his philosophy behind creating visualizations that allow users to “tell their own story” from data. It’s a great 20-minute presentation, check it out after the break.
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