VizWorld.com

It’s been a while since there’s been anything to report in the SGI Bankruptcy proceeding, but lest you think it’s all over: It’s not.  You can head on over to the Dockets site (linked below) and see documents filed as recently as yesterday, including the Monthly Operating Report for September.  Few things to point out:

• The company has changed their name to “Graphics Properties Holdings, Inc”, since “SGI” is now owned by the former Rackable.
• No more CEO’s on the payroll (they’re now with the New SGI). The only payouts I see in the operating reports are for lawyers and a few consultants.
• $3.1mil in cash, 0 income
• Looks like they’re still arguing with Panasas for just over $3k
• Eliot Bernstein (the iViewIt case) is still pursuing the case with a huge filing of 14 parts, 8 Exhibits, and over 400 pages)
• DHL (the Shipping company) has withdrawn from the case

So it looks like most of the Drama is over.

Dockets for Graphics Properties Holdings, Inc. (f/k/a/ Silicon Graphics, Inc.), et al..

Hardware

The ending credits in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs are a beautiful combination of 2D and 3D visuals, and feature the work of DUCK.  They discuss the process with CGArena and share the details for all.

Directors Soyeon Kim & Todd Hemker of YELLOWSHED, represented by DUCK, collaborated with designer Justin K. Thompson from Sony to design the characters and backgrounds in Photoshop. Then, DUCK used After Effects to create digital puppets for the characters, adding joints to the bodies for movability. In a process similar to traditional stop-motion animation, designers posed each frame exactly the way they wanted it animated. DUCK animators worked from the puppets and the frames to animate the sequence in seven weeks.

To make the whole sequence appear to be in 3D, the 2D renderings were created in carefully spaced layers. Finally, DUCK exported the entire project from After Effects as a 3D Stereoscopic render. The result is a colorful, fast-moving sequence of end main credits with its own striking visual identity and storytelling.

via Duck Makes Ending Credits Happy for Sony Pictures Animation.

Graphics aftereffects, duck, movie, vfx

In an interesting recursion, Andrew Wilcox and used MindMeister’s online mind-mapping software to construct a mind map of various mind mapping software packages, cataloging the pros and cons of each.  Mind maps are a popular organization & visualization tool for tracking a “stream of consciousness” brainstorming session, and the interesting recursion of this idea is something to think about.

The Strengths and Weaknesses of Mind Mapping Software Applications Please add new applications Please include comments on a Strengths and Weaknesses topic for each application – MindMeister Mind Map. via Cool Infographics

Science interactive, mindmap, web

The new season of the popular “Girl’s Next Door” Reality show on E!, featuring Hugh Hefner and his cadre of girlfriends, features a new collection of women and therefore needed a new opening sequence.  Armed with some high-resolution photographs and powerful photo editing software, the guys at nailgun were able to accomplish the task.

“This one was much more complex creatively and technically then the last ‘Girls Next Door’ open,” Erik van der Wilden, nailgun’s Director of Editorial and Animation adds. “To really get this to move in the smooth way we envisioned meant a lot of rotoscoping and compositing work, and some long renders thanks to HD photos of 4,000 pixels and larger. But in the end it was very satisfying — you don’t often get the chance to revisit and improve upon something successful that you did five years ago, but that’s what we were able to do with this.”

via “The Girls Next Door” Call On nailgun | CGnews.

Graphics nailgun, television

Fans of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom will definately want to head on over to the Adobe Labs for a look at the upcoming Lightroom3, and to download the Lightroom3 beta to take for a test drive.

For the development of this latest release, we’ve focused on what we believe are the fundamental priorities of our customers: performance and image quality. Lightroom has been rebuilt from its core to provide a performance architecture that meets the needs of photographers today and into the future. The raw processing engine has also received an overhaul in order to ensure that you’re maximizing the potential in your images in terms of sharpening and noise reduction. And, a number of other new areas have also had new features added and enhanced. Like any beta, Lightroom 3 beta is unfinished, which means some of the features we have planned are not in this release, and some of the features in the beta are not yet complete.

The beta is a fully functional standalone English-only version that will operate until April 30th, 2010.

via Adobe Labs – Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.

Graphics adobe, beta, lightroom, software

The latest issue of the IEEE Spectrum is dedicated to Mars: Getting there, what do do once we’re there, and why we aren’t there already.  The part most interesting to me is their graphic visualizing the various missions to Mars from 1960 to present.

I never knew there were so many, and that the success rate was so low.

IEEE Spectrum: Special Report: Why Mars? Why Now?.

Graphics, Science ieee, infographic, mars, nasa

One common trick when working with Architectural Rendering is rendering Outlines.  Not wireframe, but outlines of the edges of objects.  This removes the bias of shadows and colors, and gives a great view of the structure.  Ramy Hanna has posted some tips on using the “Ink n Paint” shader in 3ds Max to get the desired results.

I just recently was trying to get some nice renderings with just the outlines of a model, and thought this would be a good topic to post. The nice thing about this method is it works regardless of if you are using scanline, mr, or vray. The magic shader for this trick is the “Ink ‘n Paint” shader.

via 3DS Max Rendering: Rendering Outlines!.

Graphics 3dsmax, architectural, howto

Information Aesthetics wraps up VisWeek2009 with a nice recap of some of the award-winning and honored papers, as well as the keynotes.

This year just over 800 people met in Atlantic City, USA to discuss, present, or listen to recent research on all kinds of visualization related topics. If you want to skip our summary and see the “raw data”, check out the videos captured of workshops, tutorials, panels, and paper talks. For a summary of our – of course highly subjective – experience, please read on.

If you’re into VisWeek information, then be sure to read VizWorld’s coverage of the event here.

via IEEE VisWeek 2009 Conference: Best-Of Recap – information aesthetics.

Science conference, visweek

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months, or (like me) use a Mac, you may not know that today is launch day for Microsoft Windows7.  I’m sure there will be more, but NVidia has just released a few press releases about their contributions to the future of Microsoft operating systems.  First is the additions to gaming:

“New advances in parallel computing, physics, and, stereoscopic 3D have amplified the importance of the GPU,” said Mike Ybarra, general manager of Windows Product Management at Microsoft. “These advances, combined with Windows 7, DirectX 11, and DirectCompute will transform PC gaming for years to come.”

Then their contributions to GPU Computing:

“DirectCompute takes GPU computing from a niche to the mainstream by making this potentially life-changing technology available to the millions of users of the Windows 7 operating system,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst for the Enderle Group. “Using the GPU and the CPU as co-processors has already yielded amazing results in fields such as medical, geological and scientific research and will have a transforming effect on consumer applications as well.”

They even manage to plug their new GPU, Fermi:

“NVIDIA has demonstrated its commitment to GPU computing with the announcement of the Fermi architecture,” said Mike Ybarra, general manager of Windows Product Management at Microsoft. “Windows 7 and DirectCompute will make it even easier for developers to create innovative applications that take advantage of the GPU’s massively parallel processing power.”

So, are you running out to get Windows7 today?

via NVIDIA GeForce GPUs Create the Ultimate Gaming Platform with Windows 7. and NVidia GPUs Empower Software Developers to Bring GPU Accelerating Applications to the Masses with WIndows 7 DirectCompute

Hardware, Science directcompute, fermi, microsoft, nvidia, windows7

EXPreview is reporting that EVGA has sent out 300 invitations to a special event at NVidia headquarters on Halloween night, where they’ll be launching a new GeForce product.  Of course, they’re keeping it all mysterious but news is leaking out.

According to what BSN has found out, this would be a dual-GPU card by combining GeForce GTS 250 with GeForce GTX 275, which means an interesting combination of G92 and GT206/GT200b GPUs. Undoubtedly, this would be the very first graphics card which packs two different GPU chips onto the same PCB.

The sole purpose of G92 is be used for PhysX effects, so it sits in idle mode during regular Windows applications. The chip only works when PhysX gets into overdrive.

Rumors have the price point between $350-$420, making it in the ballpark of the Radeon HD5850/5870, but are people willing to pay for a card with no significant boost to rendering quality?

via EVGA and NVIDIA to Launch a Dual-GPU Card on Halloween – Expreview.com.

Hardware evga, nvidia