VizWorld.com

Visualization, whether it is artistic, conceptual, informational, or scientific, involves creating and moving around a lot of data. We have covered Fusion-io in the past simply because it looks like great technology that can be used in that process. Fusion-io makes solid-state drives (SSD) that fits into a x16 PCI Express 2.0 slot. The beauty of using a x16 PCI Express 2.0 slot is that it enables Fusion-io to obtain a higher bandwidth.

Fusion-io has recently announced the availability of its new ioMemory module. By using the latest in MLC NAND Flash, they are able to double the capacity of its products. This gives them the ability to have up to 1.28 terabytes (TB) of capacity. But capacity is not everything. This latest memory also allows them to have 285,000 sustained IOPS with under 25 microseconds latency.

via : Fusion-io Delivers Next-Generation ioMemory Module

Hardware fusionio, ssd

Science Fiction website io9 has some news about some scientific discoveries made by a variety of institutes that can be combined to recreate the actual color of ancient paintings and statues.  Combining Ultraviolet light technology with Infrared and X-Ray Spectroscopy they can determine exactly what materials were used in creation of the paint, accurately reconstructing not only the basic colors but the actual hues.

Spectroscopy relies on the fact that atoms are picky when it comes to what kind of incoming energy they absorb. Certain materials will only accept certain wavelengths of light. Everything else they reflect. Spectroscopes send out a variety of wavelengths, like scouts into a foreign land. Inevitably, a few of these scouts do not come back. By noting which wavelengths are absorbed, scientists can determine what materials the substance is made of. Infrared helps determine organic compounds. X-rays, because of their higher energy level, don’t stop for anything less than the heavier elements, like rocks and minerals. Together, researchers can determine approximately what color a millennia-old statue was painted.

via Ultraviolet light reveals how ancient Greek statues really looked.

Science historic

How many monitors do you need to boost productivity? That is the topic of an editorial by Clay Johnson over at InfoVegan.com. He argues that it is the number of pixels that matters, not the number of monitors.

My take: there’s an optimal number of pixels you need to complete the tasks you need to complete. Worry about that number, not the number of monitors you have. That optimal number, for the vast majority of people is about 2500×1400.

Personally, I disagree. There are many instances when having multiple monitors can boost productivity. Currently I have finished writing and evaluating several proposals in my line of work. I could tell a drop off in productivity when I moved from my dual 30″ Dell monitors at work (which is 5120×1600 for those keeping count), to my single 1920×1200 monitor at home, to my laptop. I could still accomplish the work, it just took a lot more window switching. The same thing can be said for switching between 3D Studio Max and Adobe After Effects. If you find yourself switching windows a good bit, then your productivity could be increased by adding monitors or going with a high resolution monitor.

On the other hand, if all you are doing is just two windows at a time (for example, email and web browsing), then you will not see much of a gain in productivity by adding more monitors.

Finally, there is the use of multiple monitors for gaming, as in the image to the upper right. I am all for it.

via : Manage Pixels, not Monitors

Hardware monitor

We all know it – banks are full of secrets! And this Friday’s infographic selection starts with JK Short Sale‘s illustration about the secrets the Banks don’t want you to know. Impressive. We them move to a much more “tech” subject, the Reading vs E-Reading argument, this time with the duel between the iPad and traditional Magazines, brought by Printing Choice. And we couldn’t finish the week without Social Media infographics: the drill down made by designer Mark Fidelman on the Location-based Social Networks, and the set of new graphics presented by JESS3. Finally, and because online entertainment goes beyond Social Media, Top 10 Bingo shows some facts about Online Bingo.

Read more…

Graphics, Science design, environment, infographic, social media, Visual Loop, visualizations

Certified Nursing Assistant Salaries by State

Graphics, Science digest, infographics, list

The Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W3 Digital Camera is available for preorder at Amazon for $499.95. This camera comes with two 10-megapixel sensors which allows you to capture 720p movies in 3-D. If you have a 3-D HDTV, then all you need to do to see the 3-D movie is to connect it up with an HDMI cable.

Plus, you can see your 3D movies and photos with the naked eye. The large 3.5-inch LCD screen displays high-resolution, high-contrast 3D images and movies without the need for glasses. See it in all its glory with your own eyes.

Essentially, with the two 10-megapixel sensors, this is really two cameras in one. This allows you to do cool things like have one sensor zoomed into a subject, while the other sensor has a wider view of the action. Or you could set one sensor to shoot with a different color profile than the other sensor. Or you could shoot a scene where each sensor had a different sensitivity to the light.

via : Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W3 Digital Camera

Hardware 3d, camera, fuji

This bit of news only impacts a tiny portion of the readers here, but bears repeating.  As Oracle slowly works its way through the massive collection of Sun projects, they’ve been killing them off one by one.  First there were questions of how Oracle would treat open-source competitor MySQL, then the death of long-time open source project OpenSolaris, and now Sun GridEngine is on the block.

Oracle has “absorbed” Sun GridEngine internally and renamed it “Oracle GridEngine” (OGE) and placed it under a new license that restricts it to only 90-days of free usage in a “trial” arrangement.  From the 6.2U6 EULA:

As selected in your Entitlement, one or more of the following Permitted Uses will apply to your use of Software. Unless you have an Entitlement that expressly permits it, you may not use Software for any of the other Permitted Uses. If you don’t have an Entitlement, or if your Entitlement doesn’t cover additional software delivered to you, then such software is for your Evaluation Use.

(a) Evaluation Use. You may evaluate Software internally for a period of 90 days from your first use.

So you have to be granted an “Entitlement”, which basically means special exception or paid license, to use it beyond that.  It looks like this was done first back in June, and is just now being noticed by the community at large.  Folks are already talking about forking the project into something like “Open GridEngine”, but there are questions about licenses, patents, and general legal safety of such a project.

So, why do you care?  Well, SGE is used by some VFX shops as a queue controlling system.  It’s a pretty nice project, and (at least it used to be) free.  The open nature of it makes it ideal for use on massive renderfarms without custom software or expensive queue-ing solutions.  If SGE is going away, I doubt they’ll wind up buying it from Oracle and instead switch to other options.  SGE is also popular in several university environments (like TACC) because of budgetary constraints, who will now have to find some other option.

What do you think? Do you use SGE?  Will you buy OGE?

… and SGE goes 90-day trial license … « scalability.org.

Science hpc, oracle, sun

NASA has released a large library of models for everything (realistically) space-oriented.  It contains astronauts, spacesuits, satellites, shuttles, and various bits of technology surrounding them.

These models are for anybody that uses a 3D software package. Most of the models are in the common .3ds format, which can be read by most 3D programs. Some models, however, are in their original .lwo, .fbx, or .obj formats to preserve details that would be lost in conversion.

I wonder how long before someone recreates the JSC Mission Control room in Second Life using this.

via NASA – 3D Models.

Graphics free, models, nasa

Visualisation of Activity in Afghanistan using the Wikileaks data from Mike Dewar on Vimeo.

The New York Times points us to an interesting visualization of the Wikileaks War Logs made with R by Mike Deward at the August bit.ly hackathon in NYC.

The intensity of the heatmap represents the number of events logged. The color range is from 0 to 60+ events over a one-month window. We cap the color range at 60 events so that low intensity activity involving just a handful of events can be seen — in lots of cases there are many more than 60 events in one particular region. The heatmap is constructed for every day in the period from 2004-2009, and the movie runs at 10 days per second.

The orange lines represent the major roads in Afghanistan, and the black outlines are the individual administrative regions.

The source for the visualization is available online, and the visualization itself does a good job at showing the “hotspots” in the region and how they’ve spread from the eastern edges further inland, presumably as US forces penetrated further into the region.

via Visualizing the Wikileaks War Logs – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com.

Science military, nytimes, visualization, war

Variety’s David Cohen has the news of another unfortunate band of VFX artists in Montreal, this time working for Fake Studios, who find themselves unpaid and out of work and struggling to find out who to blame.

A handful of artists who worked for Fake on the 3D vfx for Dimension’s “Piranha 3D” have yet to receive payments due in April. Their plight has inspired a great deal of anger in vfx circles, where hearing “unpaid artists” and “Montreal” opens the old wound of Meteor Studios and the problems artists had getting paid for New Line’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth.”

The studio says it paid, the VFX house says it doesn’t have the money to pay everyone “in one shot”.  Would a union fix this? I honestly don’t know.

via Fake Studio fails to pay workers – Entertainment News, David Cohen, Media – Variety.

Graphics fake, movie, vfx