Home » Archives for April 2010
The guys at the Pixar Blog got a rare inside behind-the-scenes look at the Pixar Studio, and posted what pictures they were allowed to take on their website for all to enjoy.
Taken on April 1, 2010, the photos in the Visiting Pixar series are currently among the most recent published anywhere of the studio. I've grouped them according to theme and each one comes with a short (sometimes humorous) description. For you photography buffs, I took them using a Nikon D3000 DSLR camera with AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f3.5-5.6G VR lens. They have been significantly compressed to allow posting to Blogger.
In particular, I love the lego Buzz Lightyear & Woody.
via The Pixar Blog: Visiting Pixar: Inside the Studio.
Graphics pixar
The University of Washington hosted TEDx Seattle today, and now their Master’s of Communication in Digital Media department (MCDM) is awarding their first “Digital Disruptor” award to Tableau Software for their Tableau Public software. The award is given to any local entity that pushes communication with innovative technology solutions, looking to identify “seismic shifts” caused by the digital media revolution.
“As an application that facilitates the use of data visualization in websites and blogs, I see ‘Tableau Public’ as the YouTube of storytelling through data,” said Hanson Hosein, the MCDM’s Director. ”Societal demand for transparency calls for more disclosure from our major institutions in the form of data. Tableau’s platform allows us to digest that information and share it with others. It was obvious to me that we should recognize Tableau for this major development, as we all seek to make sense of communication in the ‘Data Age.’”
Congratulations to Tableau! Read the full release after the break.
Read more…
Science award, software, tableau, ted
MaxUnderground follows up on their successful interview with Tom Hudson with another great interview, this time with Gary Yost.
The dynamic was… dynamic. We had taken on a pretty hefty responsibility coming from a small Atari software publishing operation and then being tasked to write the “AutoCAD of 3D animation”. You can imagine there was a fair amount of pressure associated with that. So we worked really crazy long hours. A typical workweek from 1988-1998 was 90-100hrs, and for the 3 months leading up to a release 110+hr weeks were de rigueur. Since we all worked out of our own homes and were in long-term relationships, we had enough support to make that possible, barely. We only took time off after a release shipped, so you can imagine what those 18-month release cycles were like.
via The History of 3D Studio – Gary Yost interview – Max Underground.
Graphics 3dsmax, interview
The annual Tribeca Film Festival has moved beyond the annual film festival and now has a commercial release arm, Tribeca Film, and this year they are bringing 12 independent films to various Video On Demand systems nation-wide.
Tribeca Film titles will appear in theatres in New York and Los Angeles and in 40 million U.S. homes on video on demand. On April 21, the day the ninth Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) begins, these films will begin a 60-day VOD run on a Tribeca-branded destination on Comcast, Time Warner, Cablevision, Cox, DirecTV and Verizon FiOS and other providers. Other releases will follow on digital, home video, pay-TV and other platforms. Seven of the 12 titles are screening as part of TFF; the remaining five are noted films from the festival circuit.
Two films, in particular, should appeal to the VizWorld audience for their use of CG & Visual Effects technology: The dark CG “Metropia” and the light-hearted “Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle”.
Read more…
Graphics movie, vfx
VisualEconomics has posted a nice graphic talking about the economics of water. While I agree that it is important not to be wasteful of water, or to pollute our water sources, I in no way think that we are in danger of the global water supply drying up. We just may have to become more efficient and resourceful in our use of water, or develop new technologies to desalinize ocean water.
Overall, I like the graphic in the information they portray, and how it is designed. The only problem with the graphic occurs at the bottom. They take the water use by country, and then divide it out by either the domestic sector, industrial sector, or agricultural sector. These three sectors are mapped onto a circle, but not in the familiar pie-wedge shape. Instead, they simply cut out horizontal slices of the circle. It looks neat, but it makes it hard to judge proportions. Are they divided by area, or by height? Generally speaking, much of the use of water in the USA is by industrial and agricultural sources, and not domestic.
Water is such an inherent part in our daily lives that it’s easy to take it for granted. If we’re not mindful of our water use, we might soon find ourselves without it.
via Water(less) World: H2O Use Around the World @ VisualEconomics.
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Graphics infographic, water
Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 480 has a default core clock speed of 700 MHz. The shader clock speed is 1400 MHz, while the memory clock speed is 3696 MHz. However, it was rumored that the clock speeds that Nvidia were trying to hit were much higher. What if you could attain those clock speeds? What would its performance have been? Guru3D takes a look at adding more GPU voltage to the GeForce GTX 480 and overclocking the GPU core. The problem with this is that it adds a considerable amount of heat. Therefore, they recommend either setting the fan at 100%, or to watercool the card. What did they achieve? They were able to achieve a core clock of 857MHz, a corresponding shader clock of 1713MHz and a memory clock of 4512MHz. Hit the link below to see how that translates into high framerates in games.
The GeForce GTX 400 series definitely has been topic of much discussion. Though extremely powerful this graphics card runs hot and is rather loud. Now these sure are lacklustre factors .. but that doesn’t mean the product doesn’t have any further potential. Contrary as today’s article will show there’s in fact a lot of additional performance to be found in the GeForce GTX 480, that’s if you know how to tweak it properly.
via Overclocking GeForce GTX 480 with extra GPU voltage.
Hardware gtx480, nvidia
The Icelandic volcano ‘Eyjafjallajokull’ (please don’t ask me to pronounce that) continues to spread ash over Europe, grounding airplanes and shutting down airports for a second day. The Guardian has a slideshow chart of the evolution of the ash cloud from the initial eruption, based on Met Office data.
Eyjafjallajokull : Icelandic ash cloud over Europe | World news | guardian.co.uk.
Science map, weather
Yesterday President Obama released his tax return in which he paid $1,792,414 in federal income tax and another $163,000 in Illinois state taxes. President Obama donated $329,100 to 40 different charities. This does not count the $1.4 million awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. The tax law allows such awards to be directly donated to charity. This way he does not have to claim it as income, pays no taxes on it, but also does not get to take a deduction on it.
BillShrink has posted an infographic showing Your Taxes Vs America’s Top 25 Companies. They give a short history of the United States tax code, followed by a breakdown of the percentage of Americans in each tax bracket. President Obama is, of course, in the top tax bracket. The graphic then shows what the top tax bracket has paid each year. (This is a bit misleading since even though the top tax bracket was above 60% for a long time, there were plenty of tax loopholes to keep people from paying that much.) At the bottom, they show how much the top 25 corporations paid in taxes.
Businesses are also taxed on their income, but at a different rate than individuals. While individuals fall into higher tax brackets the more they earn and can owe the IRS up to 35 percent of their income, corporations often earn far more in profits, yet pay the government a smaller percentage of that income. Here is a graphic comparison of what you pay the government verses how little some of the largest corporations in America pay.
via Your Taxes Vs America’s Top 25 Companies @ BillShrink.
Read more…
Graphics infographic, tax
I just saw the news of Autodesk Homestyler over at Lifehacker, and thought it looked pretty familiar. Sure enough, it’s the old Project Dragonfly that we brought you over a year ago, and now it’s finally graduated.
Project Dragonfly was our technology preview of floor planning using just your browser. Using a software as a service approach, there is no download or install required to watch your design and decorating visions take shape right before your eyes. In addition, no prior knowledge of computer aided design is required to join in on the fun. The simple-to-use interface and intuitive design allows you to easily drag and drop items into floor plans that you've created. When you’re done, save it and show friends your masterpiece. The technology preview has ended and is now available as Autodesk Homestyler. Thanks to everyone who provided feedback to shape Project Dragonfly into its current form.
All the same functionality you loved, in a great flash-powered browser interface. You can check it out online at www.homestyler.com.
Graphics autodesk, homestyler
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