VizWorld.com

A nice followup to the Information Aesthetics Geshi Article, a disgruntled programmer wrote a tool to aid in creation of SVG paths with Geshi called ‘GextWalker’.

The Gephi plugin GeoLayout makes possible to display geocoded graphs from latitude and longitude attributes related to the nodes. Unfortulately, it is not possible yet to project also a map back to the graph in Gephi. It is still possible to export from Gephi the displayed graph, and then to project it with Illustrator or Inkscape on a map, but then, there is no interactive possibilities anymore.

So, I made GexfWalker able to display SVG paths – thanks to DrawSVG from Zavoo, but the way to calibrate the map to the graph was kind of awful. Finally, I coded MapAdjust, a specific version of GexfWalker, just to make this calibration, by yourself, to make this step a little bit easier to do.

via Display geocoded graphs with GexfWalker | Of Nodes and Edges.

Science geshi, software

Information Aesthetics has a good review of popular open-source network visualization tool ‘Gephi’, running it through a few sample datasets and eventually recreating the famous Minardi diagram.  In the end, he’s impressed but sees plenty of room for improvement.

Overall, Gephi is a useful and interesting tool. It allows you to explore, create, and analyze network graphs in a fairly easy way. It offers many visualization options for any type of network and supports up to one million nodes and edges.

There are some plugins available for Gephi that extend the functionality. I used one called GeoLayout to make the Minard graph below.

The only thing keeping Gephi from being a professional grade tool is its bugginess and lack of documentation. If its development community can sustain it, Gephi should be able to improve and become a more robust software tool.

via Data Visualization Review: Gephi, Free Graph Exploration Software – information aesthetics.

Science gephi, software

If you’re going to SIGGRAPH, then let CGSociety do some of the legwork parsing the massive schedule into some production focused items.

On Sunday July 25, 25,000 or so CG artists, scientists, technical wizards, product developers, and lookielous descend on the Los Angeles convention center ready to learn, interact, teach, people watch, play, buy and sell. This amazing digital art and technology circus continues until Thursday, and it’s packed with the most valuable, interesting, and incredible sessions you could wish for.

We cherry picked a few with a decided slant toward production. We didn’t sort through the technical papers – if you can read math, you’re already on the website checking them out. And we separated out most of the courses from everything else, because if you want in, you probably need to sign up . . . right . . . now. OK, here goes!

via CGSociety – SIGGRAPH 2010 Diary.

Graphics conference, siggraph

Nothing like starting a Friday with a nice cup of coffee. But do you really know how to prepare a good one? Have a look at Plaid Creative‘s beautiful graphic and find out! This week’s last daily selection also includes a deep insight about the war on drugs, by The Medical Billing and Coding, and some facts and figures about Outsourcing, provided by Focus. Finally, two complicated issues, both of them offshore – and I don’t mean the oil spill. First, the problem of sea piracy, brought by Travel Insurance, and second, the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season lookout, from Mother Nature Network.

Read more…

Graphics, Science design, infographic, Visual Loop, visualizations

Over at the SmashingHub, they’ve compiled a good list of 27 photoshop tutorials focusing on the new 3D features, and using some of the older features to get similar 3D-ish effects.

Designers love tutorial that can help them to learn every day. Photoshop might not be known as best software for designing 3D elements but all kinds of 3D effect can be achievable using Photoshop. 3D effect can really spice up your design and create a magical effect to your design.

Today’s portfolio consists of various categories like text effects, photo effects, manipulation, Realistic, multimedia, surreal etc. Here are have 27 stunning 3D fresh Photoshop Tutorial, these are gorgeous 3D effect in Photoshop that help you step by step.

via 27 New and Fabulous 3D Tutorials in Photoshop.

Graphics list, photoshop, tutorial

Autodesk is preparing for Autodesk University 2010, to be held in Las Vegas November 30-December 2nd.  They’ve got a huge amount of content lined up, so far totaling 600 topics and 400 speakers.

Autodesk University is for industry professionals who want to learn more about their current Autodesk products, network with other like professionals, and help their companies stay on the cutting edge of design.

We know you know how beneficial attending Autodesk University is to your career and your company. But sometimes upper management may not know. Here, then, are a few suggestions that might help you better position the value your company will gain from sending you to AU.

Full details are at their site, including a great writeup from Lynn Allen on some reasons to use to convince your employer to foot the bill.  The event looks heavily skewed toward CAD tho, based on comments like this:

You’ll learn from top-rated working professionals in the fields of AEC, Automotive and Transportation, CAD Management, Civil Engineering, Drafting, Education, Government, Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment, Geospatial, Utilities & Communication, Visualization, and many more.

So folks who use 3dsMax in the Animation & Graphics fields may want to pass.

via Lynn Allen’s Top Eight Reasons for Attending AU.

Graphics autodesk, conference

Hybride and Ubisoft Digital Arts collaborated on the terrifying Predator Hounds in the new ‘Predators’ movie, creating the giant animals with a variety of tools and compositing them into live footage for the chase scenes.  They discuss the project on an interview at AWN.

“These are like Hell Hounds: very mean and nasty, so, of course, they were built and textured in CG and we had to integrate them into the plates of the live shooting,” explains Philippe Théroux , lead CG supervisor for Hybride. “Sometimes the guns on their shoulders were animated in CG; the blade of the Predator was sometimes CG.” In all there were 470 shots.

via Letting the Predator Hounds Loose | AWN | Animation World Network.

Graphics hybride, movie, ubisoft, vfx

AMD has just released the newest version of ACML-GPU (AMD Core Math Library for GPU), which offers several popular math functions (like SGEMM and DGEMM) with GPU optimizations.  However, unlike other options these can automagically switch between the GPU and CPU execution modes depending on problem size and hardware available.

AMD Core Math Library for Graphic Processors (ACML-GPU) provides an ATI Stream-accelerated version of ACML. ACML-GPU accelerates certain routines in ACML, such as SGEMM and DGEMM, by off-loading the computation to the compatible GPUs in the system. The library dynamically decides, based on the parameters passed to the routines, whether to run the computation on the CPU or GPU, depending on which processor will yield the best performance.

Requires the STream SDK, but works in both PGI Fortran, Visual Studio C, and GCC in Windows and Linux.

via AMD Core Math Library for Graphic Processors (ACML-GPU) | AMD Developer Central.

Hardware, Science amd, gpgpu, library

You’ve probably seen the recent Yahoo! commercials on TV where people are whisked away from their mundane ordinary existence through fantastic spaces and beautiful places.  These commercials showcase a lot of CG work done by Brickyard VFX, and they cover a bit of the project in a new press release.

Patrick Poulatian, VFX supervisor, was on location in Prague where all of the spots were shot in a historical mansion over a period of 6+ shoot days. While Brickyard was on set to support the creative vision, a bulk of the team’s work came after the shoot, as they completed transitions and additionally designed CG elements in Maya and composited using Autodesk Flame. The project did not come without challenges. “Bryan took an organic filmmaking approach to the shoot and used a handheld camera. This gave him the freedom to shoot whatever he needed, but it also posed quite a technical feat when it came to tracking,” noted, Patrick. “With no motion control, it was a challenge to track elements; however our team of artists was relentless to circumvent the obstacles and ultimately achieve the look and feel Goodby had envisioned.”

via Brickyard VFX Creates Fantasy Worlds for Yahoo! – Brickyard VFX – pitchengine.com.

Graphics brickyard, commercial, vfx, yahoo

Proof that Augmented Reality is more mainstream than ever, a new “Augmented Reality Greeting Card” company is on the prowl named ‘Atomic Greetings’.  Simply design the card how you want, with the AR marker on the inside, then visit their website and record a video message to accompany it.  The user then holds the card up to their computer webcam, on the appropriate webpage and voila.

Using your webcam, Atomic Greetings allows people to use video to communicate the full breadth of their feelings. They can simply say “I Love You,” or they can sing or even dance for the card’s recipient. Video allows people to communicate a range of emotions that are impossible with just the printed word. Birth announcements no longer hold only the stats of the baby but can actually show the child cooing and being lovingly held in Mom’s arms. A Thank You card can now be easily sent as you tell the person how grateful you are for their gift or actions. No more hunting for the perfect thing to write, you just say it and people see on your face how you truly feel – just like in real life.

Full announcement after the break.  Go try it for yourself at Atomic Greetings.

Read more…

Science augmented reality