VizWorld.com

E-on has heard the pleas of users and updated their maintenance plan pricing to drop prices by over $100 on each plan, and added free upgrades to software under maintenance.

The following benefits are included in the Standard Maintenance Plan*:

• Free upgrades during the subscription period, including free upgrades to all .5 and full versions,
• Unlimited, priority web-based technical support,
• Access to EEF releases (Expedited Engineering Fix),
• Access to “Maintenance Only” forums.

Also, they’ve added a “Premium Maintenance Plan” that adds in support for Custom Development and priority support resolution. Read the full release after the break.

Read more…

Graphics e-on, software, vue

The Herschel Space Observatory is an infrared telescope run by the European Space Agency (ESA). It is named for Sir William Herschel who discovered the planet Uranus and the infrared spectrum. The ESA has released a new image of the Rosette Nebula that was taken by the Herschel Space Observatory. The Rosette Nebula is approximately 5,000 light years from Earth. Some of the bright smudges within the image are not really stars, but protostars. They are expected to collapse and form stars with a mass ranging from the size of our size to ten times as large. From the news release about this latest image:

Infrared image of the Rosette molecular cloud. Herschel collects the infrared light given out by dust and this image is a three-colour composite made of wavelengths at 70 microns (blue), 160 microns (green) and 250 microns (red). It was made with observations from Herschel’s Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) and the Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE). The bright smudges are dusty cocoons containing massive protostars. The small spots near the centre of the image are lower mass protostars.

Credits: ESA/PACS & SPIRE Consortium/HOBYS Key Programme Consortia

ESA Portal – Baby stars in the Rosette cloud.

Science astronomy, esa

A veritable alphabet soup of agencies including University of Tennessee (UT)’s National Institute for Computational Science (NICS), Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL)’s Computational Research Division (CRD), Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL), the University of Illinois’ National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and the University of Wisconsin at Madison (whew), are collaborating on a new endeavor called the Remote Data Analysis and Visualization (RDAV) Center. When complete, the center will provide remote visualization, image generation, statistical analysis, and a variety of other services to users, making it a leading center for developing new technology and capabilities for researchers.

“Our team of experts has been providing these scientific visualization services to thousands of researchers around the globe for decades, as part of the Department of Energy’s NERSC Analytics and CRD visualization programs. Our experience and track record in this space made us the best qualified to lead this part of the RDAV effort,” says Wes Bethel, who heads the Berkeley Lab’s Scientific Visualization Group in CRD. Bethel will also be coordinating the Berkeley Lab’s contribution to the RDAV center.

You can read more about the RDAV Center at their website.  RDAV will primarily be offered to existing users of the NSF’s TeraGrid project, but hopefully their technology and research will eventually bring Remote Visualization to larger markets.

via Berkeley Lab Researchers Help Establish Next Generation Data Analysis Center.

Science ncsa, ornl, rdav, ut

Just wanted to give you another quick update on the availability of Nvidia’s 400 series. Newegg.com is selling a ASUS GeForce GTX 470 for $349.99 plus $7.87 in shipping and handling. The GeForce GTX 470 has 448 Streaming Processor cores, a 320-bit memory interface, 1.28 GB of GDDR5 memory, and uses 225 Watts of power. It has 1 mini HDMI output, and two DVI outputs. The GeForce GTX 470 is somewhere between 10% to 20% slower than the GeForce GTX 480, but then again, it is a lot less expensive as well. Amazon is also selling a EVGA GeForce GTX 470 for $391.49, but it may sell out soon as there are only a few left.

via : ASUS GeForce GTX 470

Hardware nvidia

Flowtown has a new infographic collecting various demographic statistics from popular social media sites into a single chart.

Numerous social media sites have witnessed explosive growth of their user bases in the last several years, but it’s a known fact that the type of user a site attracts varies greatly. Have you ever wondered which sites attract the most educated of social media users, or those that pull in the highest income? Below we map the demographics of the world’s most popular social media sites.

It is somewhat nice to look at, but difficult to collect any concrete numbers at first glance.  Sections like the “Educational Level” succumb to the classic problem with stacked bar charts, as it’s difficult to answer questions like:

• Which network has more “Some College” users?  Digg, Facebook, or Twitter?
• Looking at By Age, Which age demographic is biggest for Reddit?  25-34 or 35-44?

And more.  Fun to look at, but not so useful for extracting detailed information. (Unless you’re going to count those tiny little blocks).

via Social Media Demographics: Who’s Using Which Sites? / Flowtown (@flowtown). via Cool Infographics

Science infographic, social media

If you want CS5 but need a workstation upgrade, then MAINGEAR has a new “Quantum SHIFT workstation” you may be interested in.  With a base price of $3,995, the machine scales up to an impressive 3 Quadro FX cards and 24GB of Ram.  It also supports the new Fermi-based GTX480 cards for an impressive performance boost:

“Adobe CS5 powered by GeForce GTX 480 hardware has enabled us to achieve same-day edits with our in-house video production,” said Chris Morley, CTO of MAINGEAR. “In seven years of designing and selling high definition post production workstations, I’ve never seen so much get done in so little time and for so little money.  The ROI with SHIFT powered by NVIDIA running Adobe CS5 is amazing.”

Of course, it’s not cheap.  The building with dual Quad-core Xeons, 24G of Ram, and Dual GTX480′s comes in around $7000, and the “Fully loaded” version with dual Hex-core Xeons, 96G of Ram, and Dual GeForce FX5800′s with 8G of Ram in SLI comes in at a wallet-busting $22k.

Full release after the break.

Read more…

Hardware adobe, maingear, nvidia

Last September, NVidia debuted their “Quadro DVP” product, a combination of NVidia Quadro cards with special video input and output cards to enable GPU-accelerated processing of multiple SD streams simultaneously.  Today at NAB, they’ve released the latest version of the Quadro DVP which adds even more horsepower that handle four simultaneous HD-SDI streams, or two stereoscopic streams, and enable a whole realm of real-time effects and processing options.  Already in use by several main companies, they have quotes like:

“The Quadro Digital Video Pipeline delivers the essential technology to revolutionize live 3D production,” said Paul Lacombe, president at Brainstorm America. “Working with NVIDIA, we are delivering solutions to customers such as ESPN who will define the future of live 3D sports broadcasts.”

“NVIDIA Quadro is the processor of choice for our 2D and 3D graphics generation systems,” said Gerhard Lang, chief engineering officer at Vizrt. “The new Viz Engine adds support for the NVIDIA Quadro Digital Video Pipeline, and the direct access to the NVIDIA GPU gives us the ability to render more intricate 3D scenes at a higher level of detail without additional latency.”

The hardware meshes seamlessly with the 3D Vision for real-time preview of stereoscopic video, and Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 for editing.

Full release after the break.

Read more…

Hardware dvp, nab, nvidia

When I first took at look at the image to the right, I thought “That is one massive graphics card!” Upon closer inspection, it turns out that it is not one card but three. The left most card is the Quadro SDI capture card that has 4 high definition SDI single-link sources to be captured simultaneously. The card in the middle is a standard Quadro FX graphics card. The card on the right is the Quadro SDI Output card.

Nvidia is demonstrating how to use this technology in a standard workflow in order to produce 3-D broadcasts. From the NTersect blog:

On the exhibit floor, we are demonstrating new tech for 3D broadcasting, leveraging the Quadro Digital Video Pipeline that integrates live action 3D acquisition, real-time 3D graphics, 3D encoding, and 3D distribution for home theater or PC based viewing – all accelerated by GPUs. This is a complete production workflow, showing how broadcasts like the Masters golf tournament can be produced in real-time and streamed via the internet to mass audiences who have 3D Vision ready PCs.

via nTersect Blog – NVIDIA at NAB 2010 – 3D Starts Here.

Hardware 3d, nvidia

If you’ve been watching the various videos Adobe has shown of the new CS5 features (Puppet Warp, Content Aware Fill), then you’ve probably been wondering just how much of that is CPU-based and how much is based on their new Mercury Playback engine.  A new press release from Nvidia offers a little insight into that, and lets us know that the new features will work with pretty much any of the new-ish Quadro cards.

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium, which includes Adobe Photoshop® Extended, Adobe® After Effects® and more, and Adobe Premiere Pro with the new Adobe Mercury Playback Engine that taps into the parallel processing capabilities of NVIDIA GPUs, is fully supported by a range of NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics solutions. Products certified by Adobe for professional use include the Quadro FX 5800, Quadro FX 4800, Quadro FX 4800 for Mac, Quadro FX 3800 and Quadro CX.

Full press release, with some great quotes from users, after the break.

Read more…

Graphics adobe, cs5, nvidia

The deepest that a human being has dived without using a SCUBA tank is 214 meters. That is a long way down. Using SCUBA, Nuna Gomes descended to 318.25 meters.

That is still nothing compared to aquatic animals. A sperm whale can descend to 3 kilometers and remain submerged for 90 minutes. In order to cope with the pressure at such great depths, the sperm whale’s rib cage is flexible allowing its lungs to collapse. They also have a higher number of oxygen carrying red blood cells to cope.

The graphic to the right shows how far various animals can dive. It does not include the Trieste, a bathysphere that went to the bottom of the Mariana Trench at 10.9 kilometers. It also does not include the flounder or shrimp that live at that depth.

Pearl Divers dive without external oxygen sources in search of oysters containing pearls. How far can other creatures dive in their search for adventure or food? This graphic shows you how deep certain animals dive.

via Pearl Divers to Squid Eaters – Diving the Depths | The Infographics Showcase.

via : Cool Infographics

Read more…

Graphics infographic