VizWorld.com

At the Consumer Electronics Show, 3-D televisions were all over the place. While we like 3-D TV, we also have a healthy skepticism over its adoption. Do you really want to buy glasses for everyone in your house? What about when friends come over? How much content will there be?

At CES, Samsung announced its 2010 models of HDTVs. Now, Guru3d has posted a short news blurb on Samsung beginning mass production of 3-D LCD and LED HDTV panels. From the news item:

The company began producing LED and LCD compatible panels for 40-inch, 46-inch and 55-inch full-HD 3D TVs using ‘3D Active Glasses’ this month, employing Samsung’s exclusive true 240Hz technology, that will enhance 3D content to for a more natural appearance, as well as give 2D images a visual voost during fast moving sequences.

via Guru3d : Samsung first to mass produce 3D LCD/LED HDTV panels

Hardware 3d, samsung, tv

Intel integrated graphics chips have never been known for being excellent performers. Sure, they are good enough to surf the web, but not much beyond that. That makes them good for low cost machines that simply work, which makes them great for family members who need reliabile machines. Bit-Tech has posted an article on the Intel GMA HD Graphics Performance.

If you’re serious about your movie watching you’ll be more pleased that the HD-audio passthrough now works, you can get your picture-in-picture and deep colour resolutions, and when you’re not using it, the idle power use of the Core i5-661 and Core i3-530 is very low.

Likewise, Anandtech has posted an article called the Intel Core i3 530 Review. They too are looking at the graphics performance on the new Intel integrated graphics. From the article:

So the theory is that these graphics cores are easily overclockable. I fired up our testbed and adjusted the GPU clock. It’s a single BIOS option and without any changes to voltage or cooling I managed to get our Core i3 530’s GPU running at 1200MHz. That’s a 64% overclock!

That 64% overclock yielded a 52% increase in performance in World of Warcraft. That is not saying too much, as performance went from 12.5 frames per second up to 19 frames per second.

via Bit-Tech : Intel GMA HD Graphics: Is It Any Good?

via Anandtech : Overclocking Intel’s HD Graphics – It Works…Very Well

Hardware Graphics, intel

At the recent CEATAC-2009 in Japan, Mitsubishi introduced their new OLED concept that is built from small 10cm x 10cm square units.  At the upcoming ISE-2010 in Amsterdam, they will demonstrate a massive combination of these that creates a 149-inch OLED television.  At an impressive 1920mm x 3264mm, it’s considerably larger than any existing commercial product.

Sadly, the screen resolution is a mere 1088×640, making pixels 3mm in size.  So while beautiful and bright, don’t sit too close.

Mitsubishi show 149 inch OLED TV at ISE 2010.

Hardware display, mitsubishi, oled

A pair of impressive demonstrations running on the NVidia GF100 show some neat CUDA simulations running with the new and improved hardware.

First is a Fluid Splashing Demo:

Then a Real-Time hair demo:

Hardware cuda, demo, fermi, gf100, nvidia

Here’s todays Pixels:

• Quick Tips: How to get better control without “Particular” Emitters in After Effects
• How to create a Serene Panorama from Multiple Photographs in PhotoShop
• Color Correcting Canon 7D Footage
• Abduzeedo Tuesday Total Textures
• 50 Landscapes & Scenery Photo Manipulations
• Picasso’s Guernica in 3D
• 50 Outstanding Adobe Illustrator Tutorials
• 392 Cool Photoshop Gradients

Graphics, Science aftereffects, illustrator, photography, photoshop, pixels

CreativeNerds has compiled a massive list of 50 tutorials for getting into Gimp, the open-source Photoshop clone that’s free to use, but a bit daunting to even Photoshop guru’s.

I’ve always said i wanted to learn gimp but for one reason or another i just have never had the time, patients and been committed to learning it. One day i decide to download a copy of gimp and was pleasantly surprised that it was free and thought it would be useful within the future when designing but with access to photoshop. I had a search around the internet for some Gimp tutorials but struggled immensely to find any decent ones, this is what lead to me creating this article i decided to put all the best tutorials which would you to learn and master Gimp all in to one post.

Gimp never seems to get the same respect as Photoshop, although I’m not entirely sure why.  Does the $1000 price tag automatically get Photoshop respect, or does the OpenSource label on Gimp hurt it that much?

via 50 Design Tutorials for Mastering Gimp | Creative Nerds.

Graphics gimp, list, software, tutorials

Dreamworks Animation is on schedule to release 5 new films this year, including 3 CGI animated films.  The news of this ramped the stock price up to $40.46 on Monday after hitting $42.98 on Thursday, the highest since their IPO in 2004.

This year’s three movies compare to the weaker-than-expected “Monsters vs. Aliens,” DWA’ss sole release of 2009. Plus, Morris said he has screened parts of 2010 pics “How to Train Your Dragon” (release date March 26) and “Shrek Forever After” (May 21) and thinks “both look like winners.” A glimpse at the third film, “Megamind” (Nov. 5), during a New York presentation last week earned positive reviews from reporters and advertisers, though analysts expect a weaker performance from that pic.

They expect that 2010 will be Dreamworks’ most profitable year ever.

via DreamWorks Ani gearing up for big year.

Graphics dreamworks, financial, movie

Matthew Bloch, a graphics editor for the New York Times, has a great website where he has cataloged several of the interactive maps that have appeared in print and on the site over the years.  Some we have covered before but there are dozens I’ve not seen.

Also, he has a fun area called “Accidental Maps” showing the various errors along the way to a completed product.  Shown above is his broken “Map of congressional votes”.

Matthew Bloch – portfolio of web maps and graphics.

Graphics infographic, map, nytimes

CEI has just released the newest version of their scientific visualization and analysis tool, EnSight9.1, with several impressive new features:

• Volume Rendering.
• Surface Rendering using transparency channel in the color palette.
• Session Files, enhanced over context files to increase reusability of work over multiple datasets.
• Welcome screen which with session files will speed access to current projects.
• New readers for FEA: IDEAS and Ansys Autodyn.
• Accusolve reader from Acusim now included in the distribution

The Volume Rendering feature is probably the most often-requested feature in recent history, so I personally can’t wait to get my hands on it and play around. If you’re like me and stuck waiting on a purchase order to go through, then head on over to VizWorthWatching where he has screencasts and images of the new Volume Rendering features, and much more.

EnSight 9.1 via Viz Worth Watching: EnSight 9.1 now available.

Science cei, ensight, software

VFX studio Weta has just announced that they’ll be integrated StudioGPU’s MachStudio Pro into the production line for their television work.

“Improving 3D workflow throughout our facility is an ongoing priority at Weta Workshop,” says Andrew Smith, Business Advisor for Weta Workshop Ltd. “MachStudio Pro will fit nicely into our television pipeline, giving our team more tools to keep pushing the limits of creativity. The ability to work together with StudioGPU to continue developing MachStudio Pro with respect to our specific pipeline needs will allow us to continue improving efficiency and content delivery for future Weta Workshop television projects.”

This is interesting in that MachStudio has a strong partnership with AMD, but Weta just wrapped up an impressive new product with NVidia called PantaRay.  Maybe the Weta deal will allow for some hybridization of the two technologies.

Read the full release after the break.

Read more…

Graphics machstudio, studiogpu, television, weta