Home » Archives for October 2009
The Khronos Group, the guys behind OpenGL, OpenCL, and several other open standards, have announced a new specification called OpenMAX AL1.0 for application-level Video, Audio, and Image Processing.
OpenMAX AL (Application Layer) enables native applications to be portable across multiple operating systems and hardware platforms by providing an extensive application-level API that enables high-level abstraction for comprehensive audio-visual media functionality. OpenMAX AL provides the ability to create and control player and recorder objects, connecting them to configurable input and output objects.
Inputs and outputs include content readers and writers, headphones, loudspeakers, microphones, display windows, cameras, broadcast radios, LEDs and other types of A/V devices.
The spec is meant for both hardware accelerated solutions and software-based systems, and supports a wide variety of systems such as recording, playback, MIDI, metadata, and various effects. The spec is already available for download. Read the full press release after the break.
Read more…
Hardware, Science api, khronos, openmax
Back in April news made the rounds of a new USC Graduate Thesis project by the name “Turbo”, being made by 4 guys for $100K with a Red One camera. The description:
TURBO is a high adrenaline short film in the tradition of The Karate Kid and Tron. It tells the story of Hugo Park (Justin Chon, Twilight) a misspent youth whose only outlet for angst is a 4D fighting videogame called “Super Turbo Arena”. When Pharaoh King (Jocko Sims, Crash the Series), the Michael Jordan of cyber-sports, announces a tournament to determine who will join his pro-team, Hugo sets his eyes on the prize. But, Hugo isn’t the only gamer who wants fame and glory. If Hugo wants to win he’s going to have to beat Shamus (David Lehre, Epic Movie), the all time Turbo champ at the local Pandemonium arcade, and Ruse Kapri, a feisty prep girl that knows how to win. Realizing he can’t win on his skill alone, Hugo turns to his brother Tobias a former kick-boxer whose last match left him wheel-chair ridden. Together the two will mend old wounds and see if a washed up street fighter can teach a troubled teen how to become a virtual gladiator!
The movie was shown in some venues and got great reviews, and now you can check it out yourself online. Using After Effects and Illustrator for effects, and Shake & Nuke for compositing, it’s a fun and exciting look at what the future of video games could be.
See the entire 23-minute short after the break, and be sure to check out their website.
Read more…
Graphics movie, red, short, vfx
Do you have a product or service that you’ld like to show to the Graphics Then you’re in luck as VizWorld is now rolling out a new advertising strategy that offers much more flexibility for you and us as you buy specific ad units on 30-day slots. Head on over to our new Advertising page and check it out.
Look forward to hearing from you!
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The Norrkoping VIsualization Center and Center for Medical Image Science & Visualization (CMIV) have collaborated on a new product called the “Virtual Autopsy Table”, allowing interactive visualization and manipulation of Dual Energy Computed Tomography and MRI datasets.
The technique used in this table is already utilized successfully as a compliment to the conventional autopsy. Apart from avoiding cutting in the body the doctors can see things that are difficult to discover in a conventional autopsy. Furthermore, the technique opens up for new opportunities in countries where autopsies are not accepted due to cultural reasons. The technique can also revolutionize the traditional health care in many areas.
Looks like it’s using some pretty nice volume rendering algorithms combined with a multi-touch interface. See a video demonstration after the break.
via Norrköpings Visualiseringscenter – Virtual Autopsy. (in English)
Read more…
Hardware, Science autopsy, biomed, multitouch
The GOOD “CEO Compensation” contest is over and the winners have been announced. First place goes to Dee Adam’s “The Top 8 of CEO Compensation”, shown above.
Dee Adams’s piece “The Top 8 of CEO Compensation” does an excellent job of illustrating the massive salaries of CEOs and relating them to regular employees in a clean and simple manner. It’s our winner, and Adams will take home our prize package, including a GOOD T-shirt, a free subscription, and $250.
Be sure to hit their website and browse through some of the other entries, some great stuff in there.
via CEO Compensation Contest Winner | GOOD. via Cool Infographics.
Graphics contest, good, infographic
Pat Gelsinger holding Larrabee Silicon
John West of InsideHPC has a great interview with Justin Rattner of Intel about his background in HPC computing and Intel’s contribution to supercomputing over the years. Towards the end they begin talking about the recent popularity of GPU computing and he lets slip a few tidbits of Larrabee.
“The goal of our next generation Larrabee is to take a MIMD approach to visual computing,” he says. Part of Intel’s motivation for this decision is that the platform scales from mobile devices all the way up to supercomputers. And they have early performance results that will be presented at an IEEE conference later this year that show that the Larrabee outperforms both the Nehalem and NVIDIA’s GT280 on volumetric rendering problems.
via Interview With An HPC Pioneer | insideHPC.com.
Hardware intel, interview, larrabee
Alark Joshi, who’s written previously for VizWorld, has updated his personal site with lists of his “must-see” picks for InfoVis and VAST, two of the big VisWeek conferences.
VizWorld will be at VisWeek, will you? What talks are you looking forward to seeing?
Science conference, visweek
The periodic table has been imprinted in the minds of so many people that it’s universally known in it’s shape and use, but researchers at Microsoft believe that they’ve found a new design for the classic infographic that conveys more data such as atom size.
So why change it? According to Mohd Abubakr from Microsoft Research in Hyderabad, the table can be improved by arranging it in circular form. He says this gives a sense of the relative size of atoms–the closer to the centre, the smaller they are–something that is missing from the current form of the table. It preserves the periods and groups that make Mendeleev’s table so useful. And by placing hydrogen and helium near the centre, Abubakr says this solves the problem of whether to put hydrogen with the halogens or alkali metals and of whther to put helium in the 2nd group or with the inert gases.
via Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: A New Graphical Representation of the Periodic Table.
Science infographic, molecular
Mint has a new infographic from WallStats that breaks down some of the common “gotchas” on Credit Card & Store Card reward point programs.
Reward points programs can turn saving money on the purchases you make seem like a game. But the game you’re playing is more like skee ball than frisbee. Playing for points means you’ll be tempted to buy things you can’t afford just to acquire points. But even worse is the fact that the game is rigged before you even begin. Most people will never acquire enough points to pay for the luxury items they desire. And many reward programs are deliberately deceptive in describing how they work. Not all points are created equal and some are downright worthless. Our guide to reward points programs will teach you the tricks you need to be a points ninja.
via Reward Points: The Real Deal | MintLife Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice.
Graphics infographic
CIS Vancouver completed nearly 110 shots for the fantastic Zombieland, including the opening 90-second shot in deserted Washington, DC and a fun “Seat Belt” lesson. The Washington shot proved particularly difficult because of what the director wanted, but they describe the whole process in a great interview for AWN.
When they shot this, they didn’t quite know where the capitol building was going to be, but they did give us stills [for guidance]. The problem is that without doing that in a true 3D space, you have a capital building that has to be an accurate size to look real and they placed it based on where they wanted it to look cool. If you wanted it to be in those positions, you would need the capitol building to move freely in 3D space throughout the entire length of the shot. But then when you play it, it looks like it’s sliding around on wheels. So we had to find a middle-ground.
Getting into a Zombieland Mood | AWN | Animation World Network.
Graphics cis, movie, vfx, zombieland
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