VizWorld.com

The World is a big place. Even with all the technology and the internet, we still encounter tremendous disparities between nations, and that was the focus of Meet the Boss‘s infographic, about happiness in the world. Another world overview is brought by Pure Simple Translations, showing a subway-style map with the most widely spoken languages. An impressive chart called Tree of Life, by David M. Hillis and his team from the University of Texas is our third pick for this Monday, and we close with two entertaining designs: The Periodic Table of Mad Men, Flavorwire‘s celebration of the beginning of the show’s 4th season, and the Inception Timeline, by Deviantart designer Dehahs – this one could be a bit of a spoiler, if you haven’t seen this amazing film yet.

Read more…

Graphics, Science design, infographic, Visual Loop, visualizations

This afternoon I took in a panel discussion entitled “Future Directions of Graphics Research”.  I had expected a panel of experts going into blue-sky visions of research so mind-bending it would leave us all raving lunatics, but instead I found something much different.

The Computer Graphics industry is suffering from its own success.  Recent smashes like Avatar, Toy Story 3, and others have several people thinking that computer graphics is ‘done’, there’s no more research to do.  The technology has matured to the point where we can not only realistically create digital actors, but completely make up alien planets and worlds.  What is possibly left to do?

Such thinking is beginning to impact researchers and academics financially, as government grants are becoming more and more scarce.  Shrinking government budgets doesn’t help things, so the academic community has decided to come together and write up a lengthy report to the National Science Foundation (NSF) detailing areas that still need research.

Read more…

Science feature, siggraph

Today began the first day of SIGGRAPH 2010 here in sunny Los Angeles.  The schedule is a bit different this year than previous years, and I thought I’ld share some of the changes.

Perhaps the most visible change is in the Schedule.  Sunday has traditionally been nothing but a registration day, but this year contains tutorials, panel discussions, and talks all afternoon.  To offset this, they’ve completely eliminated the final day of the Conference (Friday), so the Conference runs now from Sunday-Thursday.  Friday has always been a pretty dead day at SIGGRAPH, and this is a clever way to rearrange the schedule around it.

Also this year there is no special ticket for the Electronic Theater.  Showing are every night starting Tomorrow, but the times vary a bit each night (Monday it’s 6-8, but Tuesday it’s 7-9).

From rumors I’ve heard around the conference, it sounds like this year is another unusually low attendance year.  Attendance is down, and the exhibition hall is a bit small as well, compared to previous years.  However, this isn’t impacting the volume of press releases coming out of the event, as I’m currently being inundated with several each day of the show.

Today attendance was sparse, but it’s a Sunday so it’s a bit early to say.  Keep checking back for regular updates from the floor!

Graphics, Science feature, siggraph

aetuts has a great collection of VFX breakdowns covering films as new as Avatar and Alice and Wonderland, and going back through several reels we’ve covered in the past.

I say it time and time again, these are seriously some of my favorite roundups to do. Watching these amazing making ofs, behind the scenes content, and VFX breakdowns really give you a look into how a shot was made, or what really goes into a production. You can take a lot away from just seeing a couple of shot breakdowns… so check em out!

via 31 Absolutely Spectacular VFX Breakdowns | Aetuts+.

Graphics breakdown, makingof, vfx

Pixologic just anounced on their forums that they’re preparing to add a new product to their stable of 3d modeling tools care of Tom Pettersson called ‘Sculptris’

Sculptris is the brainchild of the bright programmer Tomas Pettersson. Sculptris has captured the hearts of artists with its fun, intuitive and user-friendly interface – indeed a perfectly sweet companion to our big monster ZBrush! Tomas will be moving to California, from Sweden, to join our team. It is our pleasure to welcome Tomas and we look forward to a fruitful collaboration on future Pixologic projects.

You can download the early ‘raw baby’ Alpha 5 version at their site now, and check out the new forum they’ve created for it.  It currently only runs on Windows.

via ZBrushCentral – A Gift From Pixologic.

Graphics pixologic, software

The Blender Foundation has just released the first ‘beta’ version on the 2.5 tree, version 2.53 beta, representing the culmination of several years of work by the development community. They say it’s feature complete for the most part, and the only reason it’s still Beta is due to some issues with the Python API.  The new version has a completely new GUI, redesigned to be clearer and easier to navigate, as well as support for Python-based addons and user-definable keyboard shortcuts.

blender.org – Blender 2.53 beta.

Graphics blender, software

Using a combination of instruments on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered the most massive stars to date, some weighing at birth more than 300 times the mass of the Sun, or twice as much as the currently accepted limit of 150 solar masses. The most extreme of these stars was found in the cluster RMC 136a (more often nicknamed R136). Named R136a1, it is found to have a current mass of 265 times that of the Sun. Being a little over a million years old, R136a1 is already “middle-aged” and has undergone an intense weight-loss program, shedding a fifth of its initial mass over that time, or more than fifty solar masses. It also has the highest luminosity, close to ten million times greater than the Sun.

R136 is a cluster of young, massive and hot stars located inside the Tarantula Nebula, in one of the Milky Way’s neighboring galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud, 165 000 light-years away. This video zooms into the R136 cluster as seen with the MAD adaptive optics instrument on the Very Large Telescope, starting from a wider view obtained with the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope.

credit: ESO/P. Crowther/C.J. Evans

Science astronomy, eso

An article on the University of Texas website talks about the TACC Vislab, home of several large cutting-edge displays.  While I’m sure they mean it to talk about how the large displays help to advance scientific research and understanding, it gets off to a rocky start by pitching it as a tour stop.

Though primarily intended for scientific research, the Vislab has become a dramatic attraction for students, artists, humanities researchers and university officials, who frequently showcase the lab on VIP tours. From analysis of brain scans to student film festivals, the lab is now a hub for novel research and presentations across the sciences and humanities.

However, if you keep reading you’ll eventually get to some of the research this large screen aids in.

Bajaj and co-workers have developed a computational method that transforms incredibly high-resolution microscopy scans of a mouse brain — a part of the hippocampus believed to be important in memory — into a wiring diagram of the type used by electrical engineers.

Because the microscopy technology used to explore the hippocampus creates images of incredible size and resolution, the Stallion tiled display in the Vislab was the only place where Bajaj and his group could see the multi-Gigapixel images at full nanometer-resolution scale.

via TACC’s Vislab has become a dramatic attraction « Know.

Science tacc

At SIGGRAPH, Lightworks will be announcing and demonstrating several new versions of their products, as well as a new cloud-rendering solution called ‘Lightworks Alto’.

Siggraph 2010 will see the announcement of new Lightworks solutions which take advantage of the latest GPU technology, as well as Lightworks Alto, a new network/cloud rendering product. In addition to this, the next release of Lightworks Author will be shown which features new Image Based Lighting and Tone Mapping, as well as the latest version of Lightworks Artisan which boasts an updated user interface among other features.

Not much information aside from that little blurb, hopefully more will come next week.

via Lightworks to showcase latest technology at Siggraph LA.

Graphics lightworks, software

The State of the USA | One in 31 Adults in U.S. Corrections System; Overall Population Growth Slows.

infographics