VizWorld.com

Just to show that I’m big enough to admit when I may have been wrong (the jury’s still out, but it’s not sounding good), someone sent me this link to an interesting paper published in a recent issue of the IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications journal on a project called ‘Astrosim’.

Specifically, our AstroSim system supports important activities and features for research and education, such as data zooming, playing back stellar simulations, and color-coding properties or stars. AstroSim’s salient collaborative features include the ability to manipulate stars’ visual properties for annotation and to point and refer to stars.

Nothing too revolutionary, SecondLife already offers text chat, voice chat, and environmental features, so they just needed to add the stars, physics, and playback controls.  They admit encountering some of the same constraints I mentioned:

We tested our application with a simulation involving 1,024 stars. Although this number is impressive for this type of application, the number of objects is much less than normally expected in a realistic astrophysics simulation. In addition, Second Life restricts the total number of objects, or prims, that users can create per island to about 15,000. So, although AstroSim has no hard restrictions in the number of processed objects, this variable constrained us.

As well as other problems such as the dependence on libOpenMetaverse and the XML-based communications, they seem quite positive about the whole project. From a presentation of the project to astronomers from MICA not considered experts in Stellar Dynamics (the focus of the particular simulation under scrutiny):

All the astronomers were extremely pleased to see the simulation visualization displaying smoothly. Some of them said they’ve tried to create the same settings using Second Life’s internal scripting methods and had somewhat disappointing results owing to the stars’ jerkiness and the overload of computing resources on the Second Life servers. From this conversation that the astronomers had among themselves and the opinions we collected after the session, we conclude that AstroSim was a useful tool for serious research analysis.

You can get more details on their site, or in the journal article.

Science astronomy, astrosim, secondlife, virtual worlds

Anandtech takes a quick look at the MSI’s GeForce 210. This video card costs $30, is low-profile, and is passively cooled. You can easily take that to mean that it is not for those who are looking for the latest and fastest card. Still it would work well in some cases. Personally I use such cards in machines that I want to be as quiet as possible. Another case where this may be of some use is in a Home Theater PC. On that note, the video card does have some problems with deinterlacing video signals. From the article:

Once we throw deinterlacing out of the equation however the G210 has no problem playing back progressively encoded MPEG-2 and H.264 material. It looks to only be serious limited when deinterlacing, which means the G210 is only at a serious disadvantage with interlaced material such as live television.

via AnandTech: Quick Look: MSI’s GeForce 210.

Hardware geforce 210, graphics card, msi, nvidia

Anandtech has posted an article on the new Catalyst 10.2 drivers from ATI. Many of the features in this release are already available in previous hotfixes. In addition to talking about the 10.2 version, they also give a preview of next month’s 10.3 version. Personally, I am still waiting for Eyefinity⁶ hardware.

Catalyst 10.2

• Crossfire profile
• CrossfireX rearchitecture
• Ultra Low Power State
• Crossfire Eyefinity
• DisplayPort Audio

Catalyst 10.3

• Catalyst Mobility
• Eyefinity Bezel Correction
• Eyefinity Per Display Controls
• Eyefinity Multiple Groups
• Eyefinity Display Configuration Switching
• 3D Stereo driver hooks

via AnandTech: What’s New: AMD’s Catalyst 10.2 & 10.3 Drivers.

Hardware ati, drivers, graphics card

iDashboards is tracking the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics using their own interactive dashboard software. The interactive site allows you to choose which event to view, such as alpine skiing, figure skating, or others. The dashboard will then show you who won which medals. To the left is the total medal count by country. When you click on the country, it will tell you in which events the medals were won. To the right, it compares the medal count this year with the medal count in Torino in 2006. To me it looks like a good way to provide a useful tool while also marketing your product. Click on over to explore the capabilities of the software.

via : iDashboards 2010 Winter Olympics Scorecard

via : iDashboards 2010 Winter Olympics Scorecard article

Graphics dashboard, olympics

The National Post has an interactive infographic of the 101 muppets of Sesame Street, which is celebrating its 40th birthday. Simply roll over a muppet in the infographic to see when they first appeared on the show, and a little bit about its character. Did you know that Oscar originally had orange fur? Did you know that the cookie monster was originally named Sid? While I have not watched the show in decades, it appears that my favorite character has come to the opinion that cookies are “sometimes food”. Say it ain’t so Cookie Monster!

via : Cool Infographics
via : 101 Muppets of Sesame Street

Graphics infographic

Earlier we posted an infographic about the U.S. trade deficit, and how it has grown over time. There were three things that I did not like about the infographic, so that started me asking the question about how I would improve upon it. The first thing that needed to be done was to get the data on the trade balance. That data is provided by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. This is not to be confused with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) which provides the start and ending dates of recessions. While they have similar names, they are not the same organization.

As I wrote earlier, a trade deficit occurs when a country imports more goods than it experts. In other words, it is a transfer of wealth from one country to another. Over a short period of time, this is not a problem. However, over many years, or decades in the case of the United States, this can be a problem. One of the real questions in economics is why this has not been more of a problem for the United States than it has been. If you look at the chart below, the trade deficit has ballooned over the past decade.

One observation that you could make from this chart, but not from the previous graphic, is that the trade deficit has actually shrunk since it bottomed in 2006. Why is this? There are two reasons really. The first, and most obvious, is that we have had a recession the past few years. That has put a damper on trade, and especially on imports. The second reason is that is that oil prices have plummeted from a high of $145 to around $75 today. Of course, oil prices are tied into how well an economy is doing.

This chart looks at yearly data, with the data for 2009 being preliminary. If you switched to using monthly data, you would see that the trade deficit is once again increasing.

Science economic, infographic

CNN has posted an interactive infographic showing which countries are sending the most athletes to the Olympics. Simply place your cursor over a country to see how many they are sending and in which events. There is no great surprise that the United States is sending the most athletes, 223 to be exact, to the Olympics. Canada is not far behind since they are sending 218 athletes. However, there were some surprises. Did you know that Ghana and Senegal are sending one athlete apiece in the sport of Alpine Skiing?

via : Winter Olympians: Where are they from?

Graphics infographic

The WebDesignerDepot has a great writeup on “The Myth of DPI” and how people unfamiliar with web design typically size images in inches, thinking that the DPI is a useful figure in sizing images for the web.

Images on the web are measured in pixels. Yet many people go through the trouble of setting their images to 72 dots per inch (DPI). The process of sizing them is often misunderstood.ci

The misconception about resolution in digital images, especially ones bound for the web, is that they must meet a certain number of dots per inch.

via The Myth of DPI | Webdesigner Depot.

Graphics design, theory

A new promo for SEAT, sponsors of Shakira’s upcoming european tour, showcases the work of Superfad in a wide variety of styles.

“This job encompasses every bit of animation and live action knowledge we have amassed over the years,” comments Superfad Creative Director Adam Parry.  “The clients and the agency Atletico have been a real dream to work with and Shakira had to take a leap of faith and trust us to take her on this fantastic visual journey. We’ve had a blast every step of the way.”

The video is part Fanta Girls, part 8-bit Pixel graphics, part Claymation, part Bladerunner, and all hot.  See the video, the making of, and the press release all after the break.

Read more…

Graphics commercial, superfad, vfx

Financial Infographics has posted, what else, an infographic on the top givers of charity. Instead of focusing just on one class of givers, they have focused on giving by several classes. These include the largest private foundations, corporate grantmakers, nonprofit organizations, and donor advised funds. According to the infographic, did you know that those who donate their time to a charity also donate ten times as much money as someone who does not?

via : The philanthropic top 5 most generous givers of charity

Graphics infographic