Home » Archives for May 2011
Those of you with NVidia 3D Vision rigs have a whole new source of 3D content, and it comes from the largest purveyor of online video around: YouTube.
“We’re excited to introduce HTML5 and WebM support to the thousands of 3D videos available on YouTube,” said Jonathan Huang 3D Product Manager at YouTube. “By embracing these open standards, Nvidia 3D Vision users now have a great way of experiencing YouTube’s library of 3D content.”
Make sure you’ve got the latest drivers (v275 or newer), crank up FireFox (version 4 or newer), and you’ll see a new HTML5 Viewing option with 3D Video support!
via Nvidia 3D Vision Now Compatible With YouTube.
Graphics 3d, 3d vision, nvidia, stereoscopic, youtube
If you know OpenGL and you’ve always wanted to see your name listed as an “Author”, then consider heading on over to the OpenGL Insights page where they’re looking for Authors for a wide range of subjects.
Given the wide array of OpenGL platforms, from Mac desktops to Android phones to web browsers, we invite you to submit article proposals on all aspects of OpenGL development, including performance tuning, recent GL features/extensions, application architecture, vendor-specific techniques, WebGL, and interoperability with other APIs. We are interested in proposals based on your unique real-world experience using OpenGL.
Proposals for chapters are due by August 15th.
OpenGL Insights.
Science book, opengl
RTT just wrapped up RTT Excite 2011 in Munich, bringing over 700 of the biggest names in the visualization industry together for a huge event including lectures, examples, and hands on demonstrations.
This year’s RTT Excite once again formed a focal point for the 3D industry. The event featured a program rich in contrast and included many new innovations. Most notably, a world premiere of “RTT DeltaGen 4 TEAMCENTER,” a presentation of RTT DeltaGen version 10.0, live demos of cloud based visualization applications in cooperation with Fujitsu and gesture/look-controlled product configurators created a lot of buzz. More than 40 demo-stations were available to provide interaction with the solutions on display, and exclusive speakers with industrial and commercial backgrounds reported about their experiences and provided insight to future developments and projects.
Another big item was the “RTT FutureLab”, an area where universities and researchers could present the “3d visualization technologies of the future”.
Get the full release after the break.
Read more…
Science conference, rtt
LinkedIn has just come out with another fun way to visualize your social network and employment history via the “Connection Timeline”. It plots your history on a short timeline, and then lets you scrub back and forth across it to see your various connections at that time come and go. It’s surprisingly effective, especially when you see (as I did) someone who you work with now pop up from an old job (or school) that you never knew was actually there.
LinkedIn Connection Timeline.
Graphics interactive, linkedin, timeline
One of the first things you learn in any data visualization course is that displaying lots of information isn’t always useful, the biggest impact you can have as a visualization expert is presenting it in a clear and usable way. Overat NTen, the Nonprofit Technology Network, they have an article from Larry Orman that gets specifically into the problems of Data Maps.
But, while some of us may “ooh” and “ahh” over a particularly cool-looking map, most people have a hard time actually reading and understanding maps. Some of this is a general cognitive truth, but a good part of that comes from poorly designed maps.
If our data is that important – and it is – we have to create visual design that delivers our messages to people.
via Data and Maps: Making Place Legible | NTEN.
Science gis, maps
Like pretty much everything else, the Travel Industry has been overwhelmed by the growth of Social Media, and MachoArts‘ infographic shows it clearly. The folks at eezeer ranked the airlines by their social media strategies, and from Museum Nerd comes an interesting comparison: Twitter following vs. visitorship for 50 New York City museums. To close this roundup, the ideal restaurant social media flow, by Ethan Hein, and a look at America’s Bars and Clubs on Facebook, brought by Eyes and Feet.
Read more…
Graphics, Science design, economy, environment, infographic, infoviz, travel, Visual Loop, visualizations
It’s been a while since I had a resource to recommend, so I went out and looked and found what looks to be a great reference and educational text on GPU-based Interactive Visualization Techniques from Daniel Weiskopf.
This book presents efficient visualization techniques, a prerequisite for the interactive exploration of complex data sets. High performance is demonstrated as a process of devising algorithms for the fast graphics processing units (GPUs) of modern graphics hardware. Coverage includes parallelization on cluster computers with several GPUs, adaptive rendering methods, and non-photorealistic rendering techniques for visualization.
The book looks to be fairly complex, opening up with scalar field visualization with volume rendering techniques and then transitioning into visualization of vector fields with algorithms like dye advection and level sets. Definitely not for the novice, but a great book for anyone looking to get some in-depth knowledge.
Science feature, resource of the week
An interesting paper submitted to SIGGRAPH2011 from Microsoft’s Johannes Kopf and Hebrew University’s Dani Lischinski puts forth a new automated algorithm for “Vectorizing” old pixellized graphics.
We describe a novel algorithm for extracting a resolution-independent vector representation from pixel art images, which enables magnifying the results by an arbitrary amount without image degradation. Our algorithm resolves pixel-scale features in the input and converts them into regions with smoothly varying shading that are crisply separated by piecewise-smooth contour curves. In the original image, pixels are represented on a square pixel lattice, where diagonal neighbors are only connected through a single point. This causes thin features to become visually disconnected under magnification by conventional means, and it causes connectedness and separation of diagonal neighbors to be ambiguous. The key to our algorithm is in resolving these ambiguities. This enables us to reshape the pixel cells so that neighboring pixels belonging to the same feature are connected through edges, thereby preserving the feature connectivity under magnification. We reduce pixel aliasing artifacts and improve smoothness by fitting spline curves to contours in the image and optimizing their control points.
The results shown are impressive. I’ld love to see some of my old 8-bit favorites reprocessed into some higher-resolution vector graphics (1080p Bionic Commando!). Their website is (understandably) under some pretty heavy load, so I’ve mirrored their paper at this link (4Meg PDF). See some other results of their algorithm below:
Click for Fullsize
via Depixelizing Pixel Art.
Science algorithm, microsoft, siggraph
Another year, another Icelandic Volcano eruption. This one, the Grimsvotn Volcano, can now be explored interactively via a neat new Google Earth visualization from Adam Burt.
Not only is it a great visualization, but it has a few extra dimensions that you wouldn’t expect; elevation and time. You can fly through the visualization to see how the ash spreads differently at different elevations, and you can also animate the entire cloud to see it in motion.
Hit their site to download the KMZ and check it out for yourself.
via Excellent visualization of Grimsvotn’s ash cloud | Google Earth Blog.
Science google earth, volcano
Unity, the high-level 3D game engine, has just released an announcement that they’ve hit 500,000 Registered Developers, with 150,000 “active monthly users”.
“The combination of Unity’s powerful yet approachable technology has resulted in it being the number one game engine used for both traditional and casual games,” said David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies. “It’s exciting to see how our users build on top of Unity to create mind blowing innovation of their own.”
In addition, they’ve got 60 million users of their browser plugin, making Unity probably one of the most successful 3D plugins around.
via Gamasutra – News – Unity Surpasses 500K Registered Developers.
Graphics unity
VizWorld.com 
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