VizWorld.com

NVIDIA recently released the 260.89 WHQL drivers which enables support for the 3DTV Play software. What is 3DTV Play? 3DTV Play software allows you to connect your computer to a 3-D high definition television when you use a HDMI 1.4 complaint interface. This allows you to play 3-D videos, 3-D movies, show 3-D photos, and play 3-D games on your larger television instead of your smaller LCD screen. AnandTech takes a look at what is available in this software, how you can get it, and how much it will cost.

Earlier this year, NVIDIA quietly announced 3DTV Play, a driver add-on for 3D TV owners that would allow them to take full advantage of the HDMI 1.4a port on their 4xx GPUs / 3D Vision GPUs by enabling 3D over HDMI. Without 3DTV Play, the NVIDIA 3D PC experience had been restricted to NVIDIA 3D Vision capable monitors with specialized glasses, and for 3D TVs the experience was limited to just Blu-Ray 3D. Now after some months in limbo, 3DTV Play is finally being released and shifts this experience to the big screen.

via NVIDIA Launches 3DTV Play, Bringing 3D Vision to the Big Screen @ AnandTech

Hardware 3d, nvidia

Guru3D has posted a 1080p high-definition preview of one of the scenes from the new 3DMark 11 test suite. This is just a representation of what 3DMark 11 can do, and is not necessarily representative of what will be in the final product. Still, it looks really cool.

via : 3DMark 11 High-Temple 1080P trailer preview @ Guru3D

Graphics, Hardware directx11

An odd testament to the continued intrusion of technology into our lives is the popularity of Hatsune Miku, a completely virtual pop star from Japan who’s packing arenas and stadiums with a modernized pepper’s ghost illusion.

Created by Crypton Future Media, Hatsune Miku is a virtual singing avatar that you can purchase for your PC and program to play any song you create. She and her virtual colleagues have gone on limited tours in Japan and virtual avatar song writing is a growing trend all over the world. Surprising? Perhaps, but the thing that really blows me away is that I actually like her songs.

Of course this is Japan, and they’re always a bit more open to such esoteric use of technology.  But how long until someone couples technology like this with something like Second Life for simultaneous broadcasting of a concert across multiple areas.  Check out one of her performances below.  I have to admit it’s an impressive mix of a live band with the CG Singer.

via This Rocking Lead Singer is a 3D Hologram (video) | Singularity Hub.

Graphics hologram

If you want to play with stereoscopy but lack the fancy software or display hardware, then you might want to check out this short tutorial on CGarena that generates some simple Anaglyphic Stereo (Red/cyan) imagery using 3dsMax and Photoshop.

Stereoscopy is one of the great techniques that uses in 3d sofwares to show depth. One of the popular one is Anaglyph, in Anaglyph we use red and blue glasses to watch movie. In this learning package I have shown you how to create cameras and prepare your scene for anaglyph stereo also at the end, use Adobe Photoshop to mix images.

Of course, you can’t do this with Image Sequences (movies), but the techniques he uses in Photoshop could easily be adopted for use in something like AfterEffects to work on a sequence of frames.

via Understanding Stereoscopy in 3ds max.

Graphics 3dsmax, stereoscopy, tutorial

Though the universe is chock full of spiral-shaped galaxies, no two look exactly the same. This face-on spiral galaxy, called NGC 3982, is striking for its rich tapestry of star birth, along with its winding arms. The arms are lined with pink star-forming regions of glowing hydrogen, newborn blue star clusters, and obscuring dust lanes that provide the raw material for future generations of stars. The bright nucleus is home to an older population of stars, which grow ever more densely packed toward the center.

NGC 3982 is located about 68 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The galaxy spans about 30,000 light-years, one-third of the size of our Milky Way galaxy. This color image is composed of exposures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The observations were taken between March 2000 and August 2009. The rich color range comes from the fact that the galaxy was photographed invisible and near-infrared light. Also used was a filter that isolates hydrogen emission that emanates from bright star-forming regions dotting the spiral arms.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. in Washington, D.C.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: A. Riess (STScI)

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

via : Hubble Sees Pinwheel of Star Birth

Science astronomy, hubble, nasa

This Thursday’s selection starts with an almighty business question: what’s the value of an existing customer? Flowtown helps us answer that. Then, Intuit shows us the differences between men and women Payroll in America, Credit Loan answers why Credit Scores reign supreme in today’s economic climate, and All Facebook brings ten mind blowing Facebook Games statistics. We finish with a great visual comparison on Apple’s screen sizes, found on Cult of Mac.

Read more…

Graphics, Science design, economy, environment, infographic, infoviz, Visual Loop, visualizations

O’Reilly media is opening a new conference focused on data and visualization in Santa Clara next February, and registration has just opened!

Unprecedented computing power and connectivity are bringing new layers of experience to our lives: a change that brings both opportunity and the challenge of new technologies and skills. The future belongs to those who understand how to collect and use their data successfully.

Strata will provide three days of training, breakout sessions, and plenary discussions—along with an Executive Summit, a Sponsor Pavilion, and other events showcasing the new data ecosystem.

If you look the speakers and topics, you’ll see a wide variety of topics including:

• Dealing with distributed Data
• Data Acquisition & Cleaning
• Machine Learning
• Training & Education of Data Scientists
• Privacy, Policy, and Protection laws
• Visualization & Design

And much more.. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about visualization, or perhaps you want to know how better to integrate visualization into your organization, then this is the conference for you.

But that’s not all!  VizWorld is proud to be one of the StrataConf Media Sponsors, and that means we have a special Discount Code for you!  When you register, simply use the code ‘str11vzw‘ and get a nice 15% Off!

In addition, I’ve got a special free registration code that will go to one lucky VizWorld reader!  Be sure to keep coming back and I’ll be announcing how you can get the code soon!

via Strata 2011 – O’Reilly Conferences, February 01 – 03, 2011, Santa Clara, CA.

Science conference, feature, oreilly, strata

We have told you numerous times about the Fujifilm’s W3 camera that can take 3-D photos (which is available at at Amazon for $449.95). Unfortunately, Sony cameras do not have this ability. Instead some Sony digital cameras have a Sweep Panorama mode. This has been upgraded by Sony into a 3-D Sweep Panorama mode. What is this mode? How does it work? What Sony digital cameras have it? Anton over at the 3D Vision Blog can fill you in on all the details.

As you should know taking a 3D photo requires you to shoot the same scene twice with a bit of a horizontal offset between each photo, so if you have a camera with two separate sensors you can automate the process and do it with at the same time. However you you need to replicate that with a 2D camera that has just one sensor you can just move the camera a bit on the left/right after you take the first photo and then take the second one. But thanks to the consecutive shooting modes available in almost all modern digital cameras you are able to shoot photos with a speed of a few frames per second, and if you add a horizontal movement of the camera to left/right while you hold the button to shoot multiple photos on the camera you can pretty much automate that process. Add a bit of processing after that of the photos that were taken and you pretty much get the basic functionality of the 3D Sweep Panorama mode, of course Sony has packaged that into a nice and simple to use mode for pretty much anyone that can use a digital camera.

via About the 3D Sweep Panorama Mode in Some Sony Digital Cameras – 3D Vision Blog

Hardware 3d

Over at CGHeute, Max von Tettenborn has a short tutorial on using ICE in XSI to simulate a sphere moving through a small body of water and creating waves.  It’s a bit difficult to follow, since it’s written in German and only partially translated to English.  However, it’s got some good graphics and most of the text is understandable (perhaps with a bit of help from Google Translate, particularly PAge 2).

XSI ICE Wellen Tutorial | cgheute.

Science ice, physics, tutorial, xsi

Last night, the International 3D Society held their Inaugural 3D Technology Lumiere Awards celebration in the famous Mann’s Chinese Theater, recognizing the best in 3D and Technology.

Who was honored and why? First, it’s important to point out the Century Award is the highest mark of respect bestowed by the 3D Society and the first award went to Texas Instruments DLP Cinema. Nvidia was honored for developing a graphics card with the capacity to handle 3D content. This was the point in the evening when it became clear why there’s a special awards show just for 3D.

In addition to NVidia and TI, awards were given to Sassoon Film Design, IMAX, Sony Pictures Imageworks, 3ality, In Three, Autodesk, RealD, Dolby Digital, and Panasonic.

via International 3D Society honors technical achievements – Los Angeles Film Institute | Examiner.com.

Graphics