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I’ve not used FieldView lots during my career but I know it’s huge in the CFD space, and the new version released today might make me take another look at it soon.  The new FieldView 13 adds in support for transparency, modern GPU accelerators, sweep caching, a new Windows 64-bit client, and built-in support for Windows HPC Server if you want it.

Existing FieldView customers can go ahead and download v13 from the Support Area after a login.

Intelligent Light and FieldView: Post-processing software for computational fluid dynamics.

Science fieldview, software

Tableau, in cooperation with the Economist Ideas Economy conference, is cranking up a big contest for their free Tableau Public tool that could result in a nice 3-night stay in Vegas for the event, $2000 in cash, and a new iPad2.

The winner chosen by our judges will also take away a free roundtrip ticket to attend the 2011 Tableau Customer Conference. This includes 3 night’s accommodations at the Encore and a chance to compete in the Iron Viz championship with the winners of two other contests. The winner of Iron Viz will take away a new iPad2, and $2,000.

Interestingly, there are no restrictions on input data.  So go find your favorite dataset, make a smooth viz, and if nothing else all entries get a free Tableau T-Shirt!

via The Tableau Interactive “Viz” Contest | Tableau Public.

Science contest, tableau

An international team of astronomers has used ESO’s Very Large Telescope to carefully study the star VFTS 682 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small neighbouring galaxy to the Milky Way. By analysing the star’s light, using the FLAMES instrument on the VLT, they have found that it is about 150 times the mass of the Sun. Stars like these have so far only been found in the crowded centres of star clusters, but VFTS 682 lies on its own.

“We were very surprised to find such a massive star on its own, and not in a rich star cluster,” notes Joachim Bestenlehner, the lead author of the new study and a student at Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland. “Its origin is mysterious.”

This star was spotted earlier in a survey of the most brilliant stars in and around the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It lies in a stellar nursery: a huge region of gas, dust and young stars that is the most active star-forming region in the Local Group of galaxies. At first glance VFTS 682 was thought to be hot, young and bright, but unremarkable. But the new study using the VLT has found that much of the star’s energy is being absorbed and scattered by dust clouds before it gets to Earth — it is actually more luminous than previously thought and among the brightest stars known.

Red and infrared light emitted by the star can get through the dust, but the shorter-wavelength blue and green light is scattered more and lost. As a result the star appears reddish, although if the view were unobstructed it would shine a brilliant blue-white.

As well as being very bright, VFTS 682 is also very hot, with a surface temperature of about 50 000 degrees Celsius. Stars with these unusual properties may end their short lives not just as a supernova, as is normal for high-mass stars, but just possibly as an even more dramatic long-duration gamma-ray burst, the brightest explosions in the Universe.

Although VFTS 682 seems to now be alone it is not very far away from the very rich star cluster RMC 136 (often called just R 136), which contains several similar “superstars” (eso1030).

“The new results show that VFTS 682 is a near identical twin of one of the brightest superstars at the heart of the R 136 star cluster,” adds Paco Najarro, another member of the team from CAB (INTA-CSIC, Spain).

Is it possible that VFTS 682 formed there and was ejected? Such “runaway stars” are known, but all are much smaller than VFTS 682 and it would be interesting to see how such a heavy star could be thrown from the cluster by gravitational interactions.

“It seems to be easier to form the biggest and brightest stars in rich star clusters,” adds Jorick Vink, another member of the team. “And although it may be possible, it is harder to understand how these brilliant beacons could form on their own. This makes VFTS 682 a really fascinating object.”

Science astronomy, eso

Yesterday, some U.S touristic landmarks were visualized, and we’re picking up where we left, with TReasure Island‘s take of Las Vegas. Then, Savoo teaches how to travel through Europe and not break the bank, Confused shows where do Brits spend their gap year, Citypass breaksdown the size and history of the CN Tower, and, finally, a look at Tourism in North Korea, provided by GOOD.

Read more…

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

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The Fast And The Furious Franchise

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Graphics, Science digest, infographics, list

The next salvo in the ongoing battle to get VFX-workers the benefits and rights they deserve was fired by VES’s own Eric Roth in a lengthy letter to the industry, published in a new article on the Hollywood Reporter.  It makes the interesting statement that VFX workers don’t want to unionize, merely bring visibility to the problems.

The key issue is that the business is worldwide and jobs are instantly mobile, since the data files that VFX workers work with are easily transmitted between far-flung locales. That means that success in organizing Los Angeles companies would probably just drive even more work overseas. Add to that the multiplicity of companies in the business and the price pressure theyre under, and it becomes obvious why organizing the field will take a lot longer than a digital download.

via Visual Effects Society Slams Hollywood Over Working Conditions, Benefits, Credits – The Hollywood Reporter.

Graphics ves, vfx

Take Two’s new game “L.A. Noire” showcases some great facial animations and character motion done through some new technology from MotionScan, and in a new article on the Wall Street Journal they have some details and an example video of how it works.

MotionScan uses an elaborate camera rig, which places 32 high-definition cameras on the ground, ceiling and at eye-level of the actor being filmed, to capture and create a 3-D model of the performer’s face, and eventually his whole body, to use in computer-generated films and videogames.

“Instead of just editing a movie, the director would be able to reconstruct the scene in any way they want,” he says. “You could change the lighting, change the angle of the camerawork, and basically design the film to your specifications, but still be able to feature a realistic performance from the actor.”

via Dropping Bodies Into Computer-Generated Films – WSJ.com.

Graphics motionscan, take two, video game

I Remembered a Vet Today.

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infographics

Infographic: Facebook & Teachers – Should You Friend Your Students?.

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The Fast And The Furious Franchise |.

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