A day in the life of a social media manager, illustrated
6:43 pm
People at Risk: Visualising Global Earthquake Intensity
4:43 pm
Benjamin Hennig has created a new map visualizing areas hardest hit by Earthquakes from 2010BC to present, showing that the areas currently being hit hard by quakes really aren’t getting anything new.
The database created by NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center “contains information on destructive earthquakes from 2150 B.C. to the present that meet at least one of the following criteria: Moderate damage (approximately $1 million or more), 10 or more deaths, Magnitude 7.5 or greater, Modified Mercalli Intensity X or greater, or the earthquake generated a tsunami“.
Following an approach of spatial-analyst.net, a kernel density has been calculated from these records to visualise the areas most at risk of earthquakes during that time period.
I really wish he hadn’t distorted the map by intensity and rather left it looking traditional with a heatmap overlay, but either way it’s quite plain to see that South America, western North America, and the East Coast of Asia have long-been prone to quakes.
via People at Risk: Visualising Global Earthquake Intensity | Views of the World.
Google/YouTube acquires Green Parrot Pictures
2:29 pm
Google has just announced their acquisition of Green Parrot Pictures, a video post-production company that’s developed some fancy algorithms for fixing blurry and jerky video footage through advanced motion-prediction systems. Already in use by some major motion studios in films like Lord of the Rings and X-Men, hopefully google will now be making this available to anyone uploading YouTube footage, raising the bar on their massive video library.
But some of YouTube’s most popular or moving videos are shot using low-quality mobile phones and video cameras. Take, for example, videos of recent protests in Libya. Although emotionally captivating, they can be jerky, blurry or unsteady. What if there was a technology that could improve the quality of such videos — sharpening the image, reducing visual noise and rendering a higher-quality, steadier video — all while your video is simply being uploaded to the site? You can imagine how excited we were when we discovered a small, ambitious company based in Ireland that can do exactly this.
Not sure what the terms of the acquisition are, or when we’ll be able to see some results, but hopefully soon!
YouTube Blog: Steady, as she goes: better video processing with Green Parrot Pictures.
Triple-GPU Scaling: AMD CrossFire Vs. Nvidia SLI
2:18 pm
Triple-GPU systems are still a fair rarity in the consumer space, but frequently discussed and coveted by hard-core gamers all over. In a recent benchmark by Toms Hardware, they put NVidia’s Triple-SLI against AMD’s Crossfire 3-way to see which one performs better. Much to my own surprise, the AMD solution not only yields slightly better performance, but much better efficiently with a vastly lower power consumption and heat output.
CrossFire came out with a huge overall scaling lead over SLI, and removing the one title that didn’t reflect that average would have made the lead even bigger. Superior scaling allowed two mid-priced Radeon HD 6950s to approximate the performance of two higher-cost GeForce GTX 570s, while three HD 6950s took the performance win over three GTX 570s.
If these figures cross over into the Multi-GPU/single-PCB space like the basis of AMD and NVidia’s newest announcements, AMD could have a big win on it’s hands in CrossFire Scaling.
Triple-GPU Scaling: AMD CrossFire Vs. Nvidia SLI : Is Multi-GPU The Game Changer?.
Silverdraft MobileViz Studio On Wheels
1:52 pm
Next time you need a little extra horsepower for some VFX work, or perhaps you need some VFX assets closer to the production for previz work, you’ve got a new option to consider in Silverdraft. They’ve launched a “VFX Studio in a Container” solution that they can drive where needed, with all of the supercomputing horsepower and VFX consoles inside.
The first in the fleet of Mobileviz trailers offers 30 teraflops processing, although higher-end systems can be scaled to process at up to 350 teraflops – 350 trillion floating point operations per second – ranking them amongst the top 50 supercomputers, and on par with the world’s most advanced production facilities.
Cutting-edge software and hardware technology accommodations within Silverdraft Mobileviz include: Autodesk MotionBuilder, Maya and 3DS Max; Mental Images’ Mental Ray renderer; Chaos Group’s Vray; Qube! render management from PipelineFX; Apple Final Cut Pro and Avid editing; plus on-set dailies and full color management capabilities.
Just look at some of these impressive photos from inside the rig:
Get the full details after the break.
Resource of The Week: BBC VFX
1:30 pm
From Monty Python to Doctor Who, some of televisions most iconic shows and visual effects came from the BBC VFX department, sadly closed in 2003. In this book from Mat Irvine and Mike Tucker, we see behind the scenes and the stories of some of these iconic scenes, made before the rise of CGI.
The BBC visual effects department closed its doors in 2003, but for almost 50 years it had been responsible for some of television’s most iconic images. Using interviews with the effects designers throughout the department’s history together with concept drawings, production photographs, and stills from completed programs, this book tells the story of the VFX department and celebrates the work of a group of craftspeople who lived by the mantra “if it can be imagined, it can be made.” Working largely before the age of CGI, the department was responsible for every kind of visual effect, from physical effects such as rain and explosions, to miniatures, models, sculpture, and animatronics, all of which had to be convincing—a challenge in the early days when many programs were shown live. Following a preliminary chapter on effects techniques, the book features in-depth accounts of 50 key shows, representing every genre, from sci-fi and drama to comedies and documentaries. In each we see how the designers worked, from receiving the original script to creating the finished effects. Filled with fascinating insights, wonderful stories, and numerous photographs and artworks that have never been published, this is an essential book for FX fans and anyone who loves television.
This book and many others is available in the VizWorld Store.
Daily Viz from Visual Loop – 16/03/2011
7:00 am
Last week, Forbes released their annual Rich List, showed here by Ria Novosti. In case you wonder how to become part of that list, Instant Shift teaches how to do it … in 58,398 Easy Steps! Or, you could “work” hard enough to become the CEO of a Wall Street company, and get some bonuses like the ones we see in Trading Sim‘s infographic. The evolution of coins throughout History, by iccoin, and the most embarrassing and profitable items of the last 30 years, presented by Milo, closes today’s selection.
Sony unveils professional 3-D camcorder
2:59 pm
Sony has announced that they’ll be jumping into the 3D Professional Camcorder market this NAB with their upcoming “3D XCDAM” camera.
At 2011 NAB Show, Sony will unveil the production model of the camcorder, which Honeycutt called “the camera of the future.” The 3-D XCDAM shoulder-mount HD camcorder captures images with two 1/2in 3CMOS (six sensors acquiring at 1920 x 1080 resolution) Exmor imagers and records up to six hours on two separate SxS solid-state cards, for left and right eyes; it can also be used for 2-D HD recording. Up to six hours can be captured on four 64GB hot-swappable SxS cards.
Looks pretty similar to Panasonic’s offering.
Cebas announces finalRender and Hair Farm
1:02 pm
cebas Visual Technology, creators of finalRender, has just announced a new partnership with Cyber Radiance to integrate their ‘Hair Farm’ product more closely.
“finalRender is an extremely powerful rendering system for using Hair Farm and I’m excited to integrate our products more closely,” said Dr. Cem Yuksel, creator of Hair Farm. “It will yield optimal performance and enhanced workflow for all 3ds Max users. Most importantly, it will help us extend the capabilities of our solutions and go beyond the limitations of today’s technology.”
This follows up with last year’s announcement to better integrate FumeFX from Sitni Sati. Looks like cebas may be a company to keep a close eye on.
VizWorld.com 
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