Somewhat in response to a recent article from Gartner that put the BI space firmly in the hands of Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM, some users started a poll over at LinkedIn (See it here, account required). The results are interesting, with Spotfire coming out way in front.
Now, a few things to note first:
It’s a self-selected sample.. Voters already had LinkedIn accounts and were part of a Data Visualization group
There were only 5 options (the 4 shown and “Other”), so of course people will gravitate to those 4.
It’s interesting to see the difference in opinion. I think Gartner is probably right, simply because of the old adage ”Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”. Smaller companies have more flexible and agile tools, but big business likes buying from big business, so IBM & Microsoft rule those markets.
There are also some interesting demographics to note:
Younger people seemed to gravitate to Tableau. I would bet that’s due to Tableau’s recent success in creating a powerful and easy web-embed friendly visualization system that keeps cropping up all over the internet. Exposure is great advertising.
Most of the people picking “Other” were older “Managers”, somewhat reinforcing my point above. The folks with the money are going elsewhere.
Spotfire, the clear out-and-out winner of the poll had 3/4th of their votes from “all other” people, meaning their job description didn’t fit into the usual suspects. This could indicate a large freelancer base. (I originally thought students, but the age is a bit high)
If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, I’ve included the entire fully-expanded chart after the break (Showing demographic breakdowns for all 5 choices).
Lightworks has just selecting the winner in their latest Image Competition, and it’s Andrew Parks with the amazing picture above.
Andrew is a designer at Archimania in Memphis, Tennessee, where he utilises 3D visualisations as a design tool. He uses FormZ software for his modelling and rendering throughout all phases of the design process, continuously manipulating and refining the designs to create a unique atmosphere for each project. His winning image of a house in rural Arkansas uses very simple materials and forms but conveys a richness in character. Its simplicity adds a depth of realism to the image which particularly impressed the judging panel.
These days, looks like everyone’s planning to open a startup, and Software by Rob teaches how to do it in a fun and simple way. Another great lesson comes from Contact Me, about the waste of money, while GigaOm breaksdown which startups are really making money. Dinar Standard shows the top 100 Companies of the Muslim World, and to close this selection, the Gold Mining process explained by Monster Price for Gold.
RTT has announced the details of their upcoming annual conference and Emerging Technology Contest. If you think you have an idea of what the world might be like in 2020, consider pulling it together for a contest judged by NVidia’s own Jen-Hsun Huang and Tesla Motor’s Nancy Holman.
The RTT Emerging Technology Contest has been an integral part of the RTT University Program since 2005, and will focus on “Human Environments” by looking at the challenges relating to how we will interact with our environment and everyday consumer goods in the future. The RTT Funky Visualization Contest, in its second year, will test the creative imaginations of participants. Based on “Advanced Motion,” futuristic products and everyday items will be demonstrated in 2D or 3D visualizations.
Winners in the Emerging Tech contest will get a new NVidia Quadro 6000, while winners in the Funky Viz contest get an Intuos 4M Tablet PC from WACOM.
The latest incarnation of Italy’s VIEW conference is gearing up, with a new website, dates (25-28 Oct 2011), and calls for entries.
VIEW 2011, from 25th to 28th October in Torino, will continue to focus on exploring the increasingly fluid boundary between real and digital worlds. Through lectures, meetings, tributes, exhibits, screenings and demo presentations VIEW will reveal the new digital frontier sweeping from cinema to architecture, from automotive design to advertisement, from medicine to videogames. Two special focuses this year will be on Medical Imaging and Automotive Design.
So if you’ve got some neat new Medical Imaging algorithms or tools, this would be a great place to show them to some other Viz-nerds who might appreciate them.
Deadline for Papers, Videos, and Artworks is August 31st, and the Shorts Competition deadline is September 15th.
If you saw the new Green Hornet or Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 3D, then you’ve already seen the work of the newest entry into 3D Conversion in Hollywood. Coming out of “Stealth Mode” operations, Venture 3D is now officially launched and already has an impressive resume of work from some of the biggest recent hits in the industry. How do they do it? Well, they won’t really say aside from the use of proprietary and worldwide patented software-technology.
In order to cost-effectively convert large scale and technically intricate film projects such as The Green Hornet, Venture 3D also employs a highly-skilled and dedicated team of stereographers and artists in Los Angeles and Korea to convert shots into high-quality 3D. Todd Cogan, Venture 3D’s senior vice president of operations and one of the most sought-after and experienced 3D producers within the industry, is overseeing the company’s 3D stereoscopic production.
Wes Bethel (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) , Kelly Gaither (TACC), Hank Childs (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and Sean Ahern (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) are among the leaders today in the visualization community. They, along with John van Rosendale, Dale Southard, and Eric Brugger, have published a whitepaper titled: Visualization From the Skinny Guys at Big Supercomputer Centers. The report takes a look at the importance of the role of data analysis, or scientific visualization, in understanding the results that come from high performance computing systems. Some of the questions that they cover are of particular interest. For example, one question that they ask is whether or not data analysis hardware needs to be separate from the HPC systems, or integrated into the HPC systems. Another question they examine is how large should the data analysis staff be at a Supercomputing Center. Here’s a hat tip to InsideHPC for bringing this whitepaper to our attention.
Supercomputing Centers are unique resources that aim to enable scienti c knowledge discovery through the use of large computational resources, the Big Iron. Design, acquisition, installation, and management of the Big Iron are activities that are carefully planned and monitored. Since these Big Iron systems produce a tsunami of data, it is natural to co-locate visualization and analysis infrastructure as part of the same facility. This infrastructure consists of hardware (Big Iron) and staff (Skinny Guys). Our collective experience suggests that design, acquisition, installation, and management of the Little Iron and Skinny Guys does not receive the same level of treatment as that of the Big Iron.
JVC is jumping into the 3D Video craze with a new low-end consumer camcorder, well as low end as you can get for $2000. Boasting what’s pretty much a point & shoot operation, it’s full of automatic and default features to make the usage as simple as possible.
JVC’s latest Everio camcorder addition combines two 3.32 megapixel, back-illuminated CMOS sensors with JVC 3D TWIN HD GT F1.2 lenses, which is said to effectively offer two different 3D HD cameras in one camcorder body. The company has developed a new high-speed imaging engine called FALCONBRID that can simultaneously handle two 1920 x 1080i full HD images on a single chip. There’s auto parallax adjustment, optical axis auto image stabilization, and each camcorder will come shipped with Everio MediaBrowser 3D Edition for management, editing and sharing of content.
Our last round-up of this week is filled with humor and entertaining infographics – after all, it’s Friday, and we all had enough “serious” things to deal with!! So, we start with Credit Score‘s funny look at some purchases that may indicate a midlife crisis. Funny, yes, but also true, don’t you think? After that, TV Squad brings some things you didn’t know about Seinfeld, followed by a spectacular infographic, from the Muller agency, diving deep into the Coen Brothers filmography, and Complex created a Deadliest Gladiator Index for TV show Spartacus. Our last pick goes to Car Insurance‘s World’s Wackiest Racers, a tribute to one of the most memorable Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a great movie with some impressive VFX work, and you can see some of the “How They Did It” in a new Video Reel making the rounds on the internet. See it below.
Somewhat in response to a recent article from Gartner that put the BI space firmly in the hands of Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM, some users started a poll over at LinkedIn (See it here, account required). The results are interesting, with Spotfire coming out way in front.
These days, looks like everyone’s planning to open a startup, and 
RTT has announced the details of their upcoming annual conference and Emerging Technology Contest. If you think you have an idea of what the world might be like in 2020, consider pulling it together for a contest judged by NVidia’s own Jen-Hsun Huang and Tesla Motor’s Nancy Holman.
The latest incarnation of Italy’s VIEW conference is gearing up, with a new website, dates (25-28 Oct 2011), and calls for entries.
If you saw the new Green Hornet or Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 3D, then you’ve already seen the work of the newest entry into 3D Conversion in Hollywood. Coming out of “Stealth Mode” operations, Venture 3D is now officially launched and already has an impressive resume of work from some of the biggest recent hits in the industry. How do they do it? Well, they won’t really say aside from the use of proprietary and worldwide patented software-technology.
JVC is jumping into the 3D Video craze with a new low-end consumer camcorder, well as low end as you can get for $2000. Boasting what’s pretty much a point & shoot operation, it’s full of automatic and default features to make the usage as simple as possible.
Our last round-up of this week is filled with humor and entertaining infographics – after all, it’s Friday, and we all had enough “serious” things to deal with!! So, we start with
VizWorld.com 
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