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Late last year, NASA launched the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope. This space-born telescope has a 16 inch diameter and surveys light in the infrared wavelengths. The telescope’s focal planes and optics are cooled with a two-stage solid-hydrogen cryostat. This gives the mission an expected lifetime of 10 months. Over that time, it will take one image about every 11 seconds for about 1.5 million images in total.

The WISE team recently released an image of “Tycho’s Supernova”, also known by the more colorful name of SN 1572. This supernova became visible to Earth sometime between November 2 and 6, 1572. At that time, the supernova was as bright as Venus during the daytime. The remnants of this supernova are seen as the red circle in the upper left side of the image. The supernova is located some 7,500 light years from Earth.

In the center of the image is the nebula S175. Inside this nebula there are stars that are being formed that heat this cloud causing it to radiate. S175 is approximately 3,500 light years away from Earth.

All four infrared detectors aboard WISE were used to make this mosaic. The image spans an area of 1.6 x 1.6 degrees on the sky or about 3 times as wide and high as the full Moon. Color is representational: blue and cyan represent infrared light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is dominated by light from stars. Green and red represent light at 12 and 22 microns, which is mostly light from warm dust.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team

via WISE – Multimedia Gallery: Tycho’s Supernova Remnant.

Science astronomy, nasa, wise

Anton over at the 3D Vision Blog takes on two very good questions. The first question that he seeks to answer is whether the power consumption of a personal computer increases or decreases when in stereo 3-D mode versus when in plain 3-D mode. The answer, as it turns out, is that it depends. When the computer is running at a low resolution and the graphics card is not being stressed, then switching from plain 3-D mode to stereo 3-D mode will increase the power consumption. When the computer is running at a higher resolution and the graphics card is being stressed, then switching from plain 3-D mode to stereo 3-D mode will not increase the power consumption.

But what about the second question?

Now the next logical question that you should ask is if the 120Hz LCD monitor actually uses more power when displaying plain 3D content in 60Hz or 120Hz and what happens when it displays 3D content at 120Hz. And here you can say something like that watching 3D content might kill the Earth, because of not being so eco-friendly, thanks to using more power…

via Myths and Reality: Plain 3D vs Stereo 3D Gaming Power Consumption – 3D Vision Blog.

Hardware 3d, power

Seems several companies have been publishing these warnings of the effects of 3D televisions on young children, and now Sony joins the ballpark with a warning like so:

Some people may experience discomfort (such as eye strain, eye fatigue or nausea) while watching 3D video images or playing stereoscopic 3D games on 3D televisions. If you experience such discomfort, you should immediately discontinue use of your television until the discomfort subsides.

SCEA recommends that all viewers take regular breaks while watching 3D video or playing stereoscopic 3D games. The length and frequency of necessary breaks may vary from person to person. Please take breaks that are long enough to allow any feelings of discomfort to subside. If symptoms persist, consult a doctor.

The vision of young children (especially those under six years old) is still under development. SCEA recommends that you consult your doctor (such as a pediatrician or eye doctor) before allowing young children to watch 3D video images or play stereoscopic 3D games. Adults should supervise young children to ensure they follow the recommendations listed above.

The press is making a huge deal out of these messages, rather (in my opinion) unnecessarily so.  I remember the first time I looked at the manual for my old NES and seeing the warning about it causing seizures and epileptic fits.  This is just the same thing.

The incidence (or cause) of problems in children from 3D viewing is largely unknown.  There have been some studies, but nothing conclusive (yet).  No doubt some children will have problems, and some will not.  This is just legal ‘CYA’.

Personally, I think we should be more worried about children shooting their eyes out with BB-Guns or the other multitudinous ways they could injure themselves.

via Sony: Take Your Children to the Eye Doctor.

Science 3d, stereoscopic

So, VizWorld has risen to the level to be noticed by some rather prominent companies, and we have recently been given the chance to review some Video Cards from various manufacturers. While I’m not at liberty to discuss details (yet!), I’m curious to see what kind of benchmarks you would like to see posted here on VizWorld?  Currently I’m using:

• 3dMark (I’m currently using `06, since I’m running on an XP64 machine, but plan to rev up to a newer one on Windows 7 soon)
• The new SPECViewPerf

I’ve been trying to build application benchmarks with tools like ParaView & VisIt, but not having much luck (they seem heavily throttled by GUI updates, so better GPU’s make almost no improvement).  I also want to try some OpenCL code, can anyone recommend anything particularly intense?

Post suggestions in the comments!

Graphics, Hardware, Science

Johannes Luderschmidt’s final master’s thesis was the creation of a multi-touch capable visualization tool to be used in law enforcement that he called ‘Vispol’. Targeted for ‘special situations’ like hostage scenarios or bank heists, the system is meant to work as a centralized data consolidation and analysis platform for the multitude of data sources police have access to.

In Vispol a person is represented by a circle and an object is represented by a square. Persons can be connected with other persons and objects and vice versa. A person consists out of a central circle and ten wedges around this circle. The central circle contains information about the type of person (culprit, victim, not involved), the sex and the name of the person. The upper five wedges can hold information represented by an icon about the age, the health state, the armature, a potential criminal file and the whereabout of the person. The lower five wedges can hold various information like notes, questions or photos of the person.

Beyond creation of the tool, the remainder of the project is in use case analysis and user evaluation.  No word about that on his site, but hopefully something will be released soon.

via Johannes Luderschmidt’s Blog » Blog Archive » My Master’s Thesis Project: Vispol – An Interactive Scenario Visualization.

Science flash, flex, interactive

If you’ve been wanting to try Maxwell Render, you won’t find a deal better than this.  To honor Spain’s big win in the 2010 World Cup, the Maxwell Renderer is 50% off for 1 week only, ending Monday 19th July.

We are so enthusiastic about football that we want to celebrate the World Cup tournament with you, and hopefully Spain’s success. That’s why we are running a Maxwell Render promotion which sees prices dropping the further Spain progress in the tournament.

Maxwell Render :: Maxwell Render Promotion.

Graphics maxwell, sale

How do you spend your time? A pretty simple question, but for the majority of the CIOs, the data presented by Modis is quite revealing. Also revealing is the infographics by Visual Economics about the food consumption of the American population, and our third pick is Karen Kavett‘s great flowchart on the ways of using YouTube. We close this selection with two pieces about transportation, one from Ria Novosti and the other from Brazilian environmentalist site Planeta Sustentável.

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Graphics, Science design, infographic, Visual Loop, visualizations

The Truth About Wine Prices

Ecosystems of the World

CNN on Drilling the relief wells

Water Management – United States

Graphics, Science digest, infographics, list

The Truth About Wine Prices [Infographic].

infographics

OptiTrack is combining some of their existing properties to create an interesting new gadget they’ve named the ‘Insight Virtual Camera System’, or Insight VCS.  It looks very similar to Intersense’s VCam product, but completely forgoes any attempt to look like a camcorder and instead goes for something lightweight and portable.  The result is a ‘virtual’ camera that can link into tools like Maya and MotionBuilder for live tracking.  Already in use at Halon Entertainment, they have this to say:

“In working with OptiTrack to develop the Insight VCS, Halon helped build a tool that puts film directors and directors of photography in a virtual world they more closely understand,” said Justin Denton, technical developer and previs supervisor at Halon Entertainment. “The value of being able to walk out into a space and explore a virtual world by physically controlling a camera, finding the perfect angles and then shooting multiple takes is truly remarkable. All of this is achieved in a fraction of the time it takes to keyframe a single camera take, and the results are more natural. The Insight VCS has proven invaluable on multiple high-profile film and commercial projects for us here at Halon.”

One of the best parts of the build is the flexibility in price:  As low at $100, or as much as $5,000, depending on features.  Plugins exist for MotionBuilder and Maya, and they have special ‘universal’ plugins to work with systems other than the VCS (like Intersense’s) as well.  The rig is destined for sale later this summer, and will be live on the SIGGRAPH Exhibition Floor (booth #701).

Full press release after the break.

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Hardware camera, optitrack, vcs