If you love ParaView and VTK, then you should definitely look at this newest press release from Kitware which discusses their recent SBIR win to develop some new features for massive parallelization, for use by NASA.
In this investigative phase Kitware will identify scaling bottlenecks in ParaView, an open-source visualization application currently used by NASA to explore the results of trillion element particle simulations on the Pleiades supercomputer. As the number of processors scales up past ten thousand, Kitware anticipates that the most critical issues will be data IO, architectural overhead, and how to composite of the partial results. Although the Phase I effort of this project is limited to developing prototypes and selecting a solution, if the Phase II effort is funded these improvements will be incorporated into ParaView and the underlying Visualization Toolkit (VTK) which will benefit tens of thousands of researchers world-wide.
Paraview already works surprisingly well on large-problems, but the 100,000 core runs their mentioning are problematic for any piece of software. I can’t wait to see what they add!
Louisiana-based Digital FX got their hands on the coveted RED EPIC-M, and managed to shoot a little ‘feature reel’ showing some beautiful closeups and details using the original 4K RED ONE M-X.
Lousiana post-production company Digital FX lovingly fondled EPIC-M #98 on camera, not to mention goodies like the Bomb EVF and 5-inch touchscreen LCD, and you can watch, drool and share your oh-so-envious thoughts with us right after the break.
It’s a beautiful camera, but for $58,000 I wouldn’t expect anything less.
Los Angeles is doomed in the upcoming film “Battle: Los Angeles”. Aliens, marines, helicopters, and spaceships were all on tap for the new film, and CGSociety has an interview up with Cinesite’s Ben Shepherd on how they brought it to life.
The aftermath of a battle on Santa Monica Pier, and the ongoing ground battle with the aliens pushing forward was another sequence Cinesite had their work cut out on. The sequence where the aliens landed served up the giant rings of smoke. This was the way the meteors containing aliens were shown landing at the Santa Monica beach. These were all done with Maya Fluids. “We wrote our own proprietary renderer which solved the problem of gathering the best rate for creating this,” explains Shepherd. “We added extra frequency detail, so we could do a lo-rez render on the inital run, then you break it up on the farms to add more detail.”
Today’s Daily Viz from Visual Loop begins with Rasmussen‘s infographic showing the correlation between Education and Happiness, followed by the evolution of The College Student, from Real Online Degrees. The folks at Voxy show us what are the hardest languages to learn, and the factors that may influence that process of being fluent in other idioms, and to close up, a couple of “How To”, from Mindflash and Guy Kawasaki: How to train yourself to speed read, and how to achieve Enchantment.
The Media Design School has a new edition of the “Real Or Render” challenge up. Six Images that you get to pick if they’re photographs or CG renders. One lucky entrant will come away with a $100 Amazon Gift Card for their time, as well.
The New York Times has a collection of breathtaking photos from various satellites before-and-after the recent Tsunami and Earthquake. Each photo-pair is connected to a slider so that you can wipe back and forth between the two and get a glimpse at the incredible damage mother-nature wrought upon Japan.
The shocking images of Japan’s biggest earthquake ever are still all over the news, constantly remind us of how fragile we are, when it comes to facing the forces of Nature. The folks at Live Science have put together an infographic summing up the information about the quake, while Graphic.is and Ria Novosti explain the science behind an earthquake, and how the Richter measurement scale works. Then, two interactive features: ABC News comparison of notable earthquakes and, from the Brazilian newspaper Estado de São Paulo, a look at the past 50 years of natural disasters – worth checking even if you don’t speak Portuguese.
The NOAA Center for Tsunami Research has released a video of the tsunami propagation in the Pacific Ocean.
Propagation of the March 11, 2011 Honshu tsunami was computed with the NOAA forecast method using MOST model with the tsunami source inferred from DART® data. From the NOAA Center for Tsunami Research, located at NOAA PMEL in Seattle, WA
Announced back at SIGGRAPH, E-On software has just released Carbon Scatter for 3dsMax. Combining their digital nature systems with instancing plugins, you can now create massive populations in your scenes with just a few button clicks.
Carbon Scatter is the easiest and most straightforward solution for creating complex and detailed populations using the native instancing technologies of 3ds Max. Versions of Carbon Scatter for Maya and Cinema4D* will be available shortly (an Open Beta will be released in the coming weeks).Carbon Scatter integrates e-on’s patented EcoSystem™ algorithms directly inside the end user’s favorite 3D application, allowing the population of native scenes with millions of instances and rendering them with the user’s renderer of choice.*Versions for Softimage and LightWave are under consideration.
Key features include automated “smart” scattering, painting, and many ecosystem controls. It’s available for Windows systems now for $195 to $395, depending on features.
Chaos Group, creators of V-Ray, will be on a big North-American tour for the new few weeks showing off the features of VRay 2.0 for 3dsMax and some sneak peeks of the upcoming V-Ray 2.0 for Maya. Their schedule:
If you love ParaView and VTK, then you should definitely look at this newest press release from Kitware which discusses their recent SBIR win to develop some new features for massive parallelization, for use by NASA.
Louisiana-based 
Los Angeles is doomed in the upcoming film “Battle: Los Angeles”. Aliens, marines, helicopters, and spaceships were all on tap for the new film, and CGSociety has an interview up with Cinesite’s Ben Shepherd on how they brought it to life.
Today’s Daily Viz from Visual Loop begins with 
The New York Times has a collection of breathtaking photos from various satellites before-and-after the recent Tsunami and Earthquake. Each photo-pair is connected to a slider so that you can wipe back and forth between the two and get a glimpse at the incredible damage mother-nature wrought upon Japan.
The shocking images of Japan’s biggest earthquake ever are still all over the news, constantly remind us of how fragile we are, when it comes to facing the forces of Nature. The folks at 
Announced 
Chaos Group, creators of V-Ray, will be on a big North-American tour for the new few weeks showing off the features of VRay 2.0 for 3dsMax and some sneak peeks of the upcoming V-Ray 2.0 for Maya. Their schedule:
VizWorld.com 
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