VizWorld.com

Sony is expanding their film business by adding a new business to their collection : Sony Colorworks.  A digital post arm to work with their existing Sony Pictures Imageworks, they’ve already completed work on a few films including “Zombieland”, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs”, and “Micheal Jackson’s This Is It” in relative silence.

“The idea is if you come here you can have everything done in one place,” said Chris Cookson, prexy of Sony Pictures Technologies and onetime tech exec at Warner. Technicolor ran a DI facility in the Stage 6 building but ankled earlier this year. Sony seized the opportunity to set up its own third-party post facility.

The DI field is very competitive, but Sony has a leg up given the tight integration they will have with Sony ImageWorks and Sony’s sound department, both already used by several companies.

via Sony creates new digital sector – Entertainment News, David Cohen, Media – Variety.

Graphics color correction, sony, vfx

It makes sense that a lower ratio of students to teachers would result in more “one on one” time with teachers, and therefore result in a better education and smarter students.  This is frequently used as an argument for increased educational spending and hiring additional teachers, but is it true?  FlowingData compares state’s average ratio of Students to Teachers against average SAT scores and finds the truth a bit muddled.

From the picture above, it does look like there is a difference. States that score highest (highlighted in green) on the SAT on average tend to have lower student-teacher ratios. High-ratio states, however, have scores that hover around the national average.

But there are also many states with ratios below the national average (small-ish classes) that score below the national average.

via Class Size and SAT Scores By State | FlowingData.

Science education, infographic

With health care reform being all the rage, Open Source projects are becoming popular topics as alternatives to the incredibly expensive and complex software suites in use today.  Smarter Technology has a great list of 10 open-source projects targeted at health and medicine, including a few great data visualization tools.

Assuming debate moves beyond “You’re stupid. No you are,” health care reform will require new ways of lowering costs and de-siloing tens of thousands of sickly complex systems. Even if the current overhaul stalls (and maybe especially so), we’ll still need fresh collaboration, technology and ideas.

Of note is a particular fav of mine, SMIViewer, which made #9.

via 10 Open Source Projects Changing Medicine – Technology For Change.

Science biomed, list, opensource, software

FiringSquad takes advantage of the shortage affecting supplies of the ATI Radeon 5870 by publishing a great review of Sapphire’s version of the card.

Part of the problem is that ATI’s the only game in town right now if you want to upgrade to next-generation DirectX 11 graphics and performance. The 5870 runs about 1.5 times faster than ATI’s previous high-end offering, the Radeon 4890, and while NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 295 card is the faster overall graphics card, no single GPU comes close to offering the 5870’s unique combination of features, technology, performance, and surprisingly sublime power consumption.

Without a natural competitor, the 5870 enjoys all the high-end GPU sales. And the 55-nm GPU shortage exacerbates the situation. Finding a GeForce GTX 285 or 295 in stock at a reasonable price is becoming tougher by the day. As a result, demand for the 5850 and 5870 is even greater.

via Sapphire Radeon 5870 Vapor-X 1GB Review.

Hardware amd, ati, sapphire

Disputing news that came out earlier this week about the 40nm yields from TSMC dropping from 60% to 40%, claiming that the yields have not been effected.

AMD, Nvidia and others are impacted. In response to the reports, TSMC officials said: ”The 40-nm yield didn’t drop as reported. As a matter of fact, yield on the 40-nm process remained flat. TSMC is confident that the 40-nm yield will improve at the beginning of next year.”

Of course, 60% still isn’t a great yield.

via EETimes.com – TSMC: 40-nm yields will improve.

Hardware 40nm, tsmc

Richard Kelly’s “The Box” features some impressive visual effects work, in particular the creation (or destruction, rather) of Frank Langella’s face used in 144 of the 450 VFX shots.

“We used an on-set motion capture process based on witness cameras,” Tannenberger explains about the work done two years ago. “We had at the very least four cameras trained on him that were set up in a semi-circle or, depending on his movements, to any given thing. And essentially what this does — and we used available software [Moviemento] as well as our own in-house software [at Gradient Effects with Tan serving as digital supervisor] — is triangulating his position in the space in front of camera.

via No Exit from This Box | AWN | Animation World Network.

Graphics movie, vfx

If you live near the Austin, TX area and work in one of the many Graphics or Visual Effects fields, then gather up your portfolio and head to the Capitol on November 19th to put it in front of dozen of the top professionals and managers in film, games, visual effects, animation and design.

Whether you’re a pro or a student, come benefit from the critical feedback and career advice of nearly 20 industry professionals. Come and bring your paper or digital portfolio for formal review, and network with members of the visual effects, design, film and video games communities in Austin. “Portfolio Posse” is being held on Thursday, November 19 from 6:30 pm to 9 pm, at the Texas State Capitol (112 East 11th Street) in Austin. Join us and benefit from meeting like-minded members of Austin’s digital arts community.

via Austin ACM SIGGRAPH presents “Portfolio Posse” on November 19 | SXSW.com.

Graphics acm, employment, portfolio, siggraph

Users of the popular SolidWorks CAD Suite can now look forward to official support and service of their issues when using the 3DBOXX 4850 workstation.

“A large segment of BOXX customers have been reliably running SolidWorks for years, so certification and partner status are a perfect fit,” said Shoaib Mohammad, Director of Marketing and Business Development at BOXX. “As SolidWorks users ourselves, we understand the value of this product and the workstation configurations needed to ensure maximum productivity for designers and engineers.”

via BOXX Partners With SolidWorks to Offer Certified 3D CAD Solutions.

Graphics, Hardware boxx, solidworks

Not to be outdone by ATI and their impressive 6-way Eyefinity solution, Matrox has re-emerged on the scene with an impressive 8-way solution.  The MAtrix M9188 PCIe x16 offer 2GB memory, 2560×1600 (that’s a 30″ display folks) per output, and eight displayport or DVI Single-Link outputs from a single PCI slot.

“The M9188 is designed specifically for professional monitoring environments that require visualization of large amounts of data at once to enhance mission-critical decision making,” says Ron Berty, Business Development Manager, Matrox Graphics. “The expansive multi-monitor configuration allows system operators to accurately manage energy grids or train dispatch applications, while ensuring maximum performance across all displays.”

The card retails for $1995 US.

via Matrox Announces World’s First Single-Slot Octal Graphics Card – HotHardware.

Hardware matrix, videocard

Seac02 has released the newest version of LinceoVR, version 3.2, and adds in some new GPU acceleration features, most notably real-time raytracing support.

Version 3.2 adds real-time raytracing GPU based features, real-time texture tracking for augmented reality, an FBX importer for 3D models and animations, and a free OpenGL based viewer. The OpenGL viewer can be either a stand alone solution, or a web-based plugin controlled by JavaScript calls to see 3D interactive models online in VR and AR mode. Both LinceoVR and the viewer support HDRI lighting, real-time shadows and animations, tag and texture tracking for augmented reality, and run on all OpenGL compliant graphics cards.

Home Page — Seac02 s.r.l.. via OpenGL.org

Graphics linceo, seac02, software