VizWorld.com

An interesting quirk I was unaware of, Microsoft has publicly acknowledged an error in the DirectX API that in certain situations (Having over 1GB of Video Memory and over 4GB of System Memory), the API to return total memory mail return erroneously small numbers.  Like so:

On a system with 1GB of video memory, the following values are returned with the associated system memory:

System Memory     Reported Approximate Total Memory
4GB                       3496MB
6GB                       454MB
8GB                       1259MB

NVidia has built a driver workaround to fix this for some of their cards, and provides a little application called NVTagToggle.

On Windows Vista and Windows 7, NVIDIA provides GPU driver support to work-around this issue for GPUs with less than 3GB of memory. The workaround forces the video memory to the maximum amount these DirectX APIs can report, sacrificing some of the total memory. This is called “Compatibility Mode”.The application “NvTagToggle.exe” linked below can help you detect this scenario and configure this workaround, as well as reset the GPU driver to its default behavior. The application is only supported on Windows Vista and Windows 7, for NVIDIA GPUs with less than 3GB of memory.

So if you’ve experienced this before, check it out and let us know your results in the comments.

via Direct-X diagnostics tool (DXDIAG) may report an unexpected value for the display adapters memory..

Science directx, nvidia

The Rise of Text Messaging [INFOGRAPHIC].

infographics

The Chaos Group, the company behind V-Ray, has updated their website with photos, screenshots, and information about their many SIGGRAPH announcements and presentations.  In particular, they’ve got some great shots of V-Ray RT, their GPU-accelerated version of the popular rendering tool, alongside traditional renderers showing identical visuals, but a 10x improvement in renderspeed.  Like the image above:

Offloading the rendering calculations to the GPU gives a 10 times speed increase on a single GeForce 480

They also have screenshots of the new Phoenix FD system, and some of the new IPR functionality in Maya.  Hit their website for all the details.

Chaos Group / Chaos Software official website – home – V-Ray® – award winning, production-ready 3D rendering solutions.

Graphics chaos group, siggraph, software, vray

Wired, and others, has picked up on a chart in a recent Cisco report that shows various data uses from 1995 to 2010 as  a proportion of total traffic.  Then they notice the shrinking red area (Web usage), and proudly proclaim that the Web is Dying in the growth of “Apps” like on the iPhone.

You wake up and check your email on your bedside iPad — that’s one app. During breakfast you browse Facebook, Twitter, andThe New York Times — three more apps. On the way to the office, you listen to a podcast on your smartphone. Another app. At work, you scroll through RSS feeds in a reader and have Skype and IM conversations. More apps. At the end of the day, you come home, make dinner while listening to Pandora, play some games on Xbox Live, and watch a movie on Netflix’s streaming service.

You’ve spent the day on the Internet — but not on the Web. And you are not alone.

As soon as I saw the graph I thought it suspect.  Primarily because of the massive “51%” is Video area.  Sure, video uses a lot of data due to it’s continuous streaming nature, but most of that video is YouTube, Vimeo, and Hulu, some decidedly Web-centric properties.  In addition, showing the chart as a proportion of total bandwidth is a bit of a misnomer, since bandwidth has grown exponentially since 1995.  BoingBoing thought so too, and took Cisco’s same report and adjusted the graph for the increase in bandwidth, and lo and behold:

The Web is Dead, my ass.  Maybe port-80 or HTML is on it’s way out, but you know what makes all those little “Apps” work?  XML from WebServers.

Update 8:08pm – Minor grammatical fixes.

Is the web really dead? – Boing Boing.

Graphics bad, visualization

Emoiz has a huge list of 100+ tutorials for 3dsMax and Maya compiled from around the internet.  Several of them have already been included elsewhere, but it’s a good mix of character modeling, architectural modeling, and more.

Maya and 3D Max both tools are powerful for 3D modeling, animation, texturing, rendering and visual effects software. These software were developed for the film industry and is now being used for design, visual effects, games, film, animation, visualization and simulation. In this article we present for you a Ultimate Collection of Maya and 3D Max Tutorials and Best Practices for your creativity.

via 100 Plus Stunning 3D Max and Maya Tutorials | EMOIZ.COM.

Graphics 3dsmax, list, maya, tutorial

BBC has a new interactive tool on their website called ‘Dimensions’ that takes important places and events and overlays them on a map of whatever location you choose, to help in realizing the size.  To put it simply:

Dimensions takes important places, events and things, and overlays them onto a map of where you are.

This has been done before with things like the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill but this new tool offers far more data points like historical cities, festivals, and space.

via BBC – Dimensions – Index.

Science bbc, interactive

Doremi Labs is showing off a new gadget called the ‘Dimension-3D’ that boasts the capabilities to take any type of 3D input format and process it for display on any 3D medium, be it active or passive, LCD or projected.

- Allows for any 3D input stream format to be used with all types of display components currently available, including high end projectors and the latest generation of 3D ready LCD displays.

- Converts stereoscopic camera rig output to recorders and displays.

- Enables double stack 3D projection.

If it really works, it could be huge for folks working on stereoscopic 3d workflows who constantly find themselves dealing with a variety of input formats: Side by Side, dual camera, single-camera dual-stream.

According to Stereoscopy News, it’ll be on display at IBC in Amsterdam this September, and hopefully we’ll get more details and pricing then.

via Doremi Labs.

Hardware 3d, stereoscopic

Going to start off the morning with some mind-bending visuals care of hömpörgő and the previously discussed Mandelbulb software.   The music is frankly annoying, so you might want to turn off the audio, but the fractal architecture will blow your mind.

Mandelbox Zoom from hömpörgő on Vimeo.

Science fractal, mandelbulb

It happens to all of us, at least once in a while: trying to sleep, but nothing…. However, insomnia is a much bigger problem, as we can see in the infographic made by Insomnia.net – 30 million Americans suffering is a huge number!! We then move to a much more global view, with Newsweek‘s Interactive graphic about the world’s best countries (some surprises here) and Mint‘s natural resources by country map. An overview of Apple, by Online PhD, and (yes, another) Facebook, brought by FlipTop infographic close today’s selection.

Read more…

Graphics, Science design, infographic, Visual Loop, visualizations

Hotel Rewards Cheat Sheet

Graphics, Science digest, infographics, list