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Kitware is preparing their training courses for the fall, and is now accepting registrations for a new VTK development course in September. The objects look simple enough:
1. Understand data structures, readers and filters – how they work and how to write new ones
2. Understand interaction and widgets – how they work and how to incorporate them into your programs
3. Discover how to control the way data is displayed with rendering and charts
4. Learn how to put these pieces together to make fully-featured applications with Qt
Full details are on their site. As someone who spent a the first 6 months muddling through VTK at my last job, something like this is a great value for getting up-to-speed under tutelage of the experts.
via Kitware Professional Training Courses.
Science education, kitware, training, vtk
Daden Limited has just released the results of their Immersive Training Authoring Tools survey, trying to figure out who is using immersive environments for training purposes and how they’re doing it. Not surprisingly, Education was the biggest sector but the tools they use were a bit surprising.
Nearly 47% of the respondents were from education, 15% from the health professional training sector and interestingly 19% were from the corporate sector – especially as there’s little sign of a significant uptake of immersive training in that area. Second Life, OpenSim and Unity were the top three platforms and Second Life, despite the removal of the educational discount, dominates still with 39% respondents using it.
Not all that surprised to see Second Life at the top, given it’s existing infrastructure and multiuser environment. I was surprised, however, to see Unity in there. Unity is a great tool (I’ve even started using it myself just for experience), but not one I would typically think of for immersive environments.
via Daden release results of its Authoring Tools for Immersive Training survey.
Science daden, education, secondlife, unity
In what could be construed as baby steps back to their old Graphics roots, SGI is offering some OpenGL training to students in 2012. It’s a 4.5 day classroom environment that’s supposed to take you from nothing to OpenGL, GLSL, and rendering sufficiency.
Students learn to view and model in 3D, and to create animated, wire frame and solid geometery, under interactive control from input devices. Students add lighting, textures, and other effects to increase realism. New OpenGL 3.0 topics include using vertex buffer objects for better performance and an introduction to the programmable shaders and GLSL for advanced shading techniques using vertex shaders and fragment shaders. This course discusses both the fixed and function pipeline and an introduction to the newer programmable shader pipeline with OpenGL.
While I hope it’s the beginning of a return to graphics, I doubt it. More likely it’s just SGI sponsoring the class in exchange for some advertising and community involvement.
via HPC Training – OpenGL Programming.
Science education, opengl, sgi
If you’ve always wanted to know more about VTK or Paraview but haven’t had the time, or haven’t been able to convince your management to spring for paid training, Kitware has heard your complaints.
Kitware is pleased to announce the availability of free online courses in support of its open-source communities. The courses, designed to give new and beginning users the skills and knowledge required to effectively use these open-source tools, will provide an introduction to the Visualization Toolkit (VTK), CMake, ParaView, and the Insight Toolkit (ITK). Each 90-minute course will cover one toolkit and be taught by an expert Kitware instructor.
You can hit their Training website and see the “Upcoming Online Courses” to see the list. They’ll be offering at first one class a month, with the first “Intro to VTK” coming up on October 12th.
via Kitware – News: Free Online Courses Now Available.
Science education, kitware, paraview, training, vtk
Alberto Cairo, directory of infographics for Epoca magazine, is launching a course for reporters with the Knight Center for Journalism in the America that hopes to teach journalists the importance of visualizing data and information.
In the course, Cairo will show journalists how to use graphics to communicate and analyze data. “You don’t need to know how to draw, nor how to use complicated software,” he said. “Instead, you need to educate yourself to think in a more visual way, something that is within everyone’s reach. This change in mentality is fundamental for the future of journalism. I will also explain how to create computer graphics/display departments, which professionals to hire and how to train them.”
via Knight Center offers new course: “Intro to Infographics and Visualization for Journalists” | Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
Graphics education, journalism, knight
CGSociety has just announced a new workshop coming up on Nuke Compositing, lead by industry legend Steve Wright. The $600 course begins later this month and runs for 8 weeks (into September), and promises to get you everything you need to get up-to-speed on 3D Editing in Nuke.
Nuke’s importance to the VFX industry is how it moves compositing to the next level as an extension of the 3D department. This is the current workflow trend in visual effects where more and more of the shot development is moved from the 3D department to the 2D department where they are faster and cheaper to produce and revise. This trend will only increase over time, so compositors who want to stay current will need to learn Nuke 3D compositing to future-proof their careers.
via CGWorkshops.
Graphics education, nuke, training
The University of Washington’s Continuing Education program is now offering a certificate in Virtual Worlds, offered via all in-world education.
Learn to use immersive virtual environments to enhance business, social and educational interactions within all types of organizations. Examine methods for creating increasingly sophisticated virtual worlds that incorporate game theory, 3D environments and information science. Explore an emerging movement to create green workplaces by using virtual location alternatives to reduce the need for commuting and business travel. Learn exclusively in a virtual world environment through a hands-on and practical educational approach.
The 9-month course begins in October, and costs $2,625 to enroll. Looks like a broad class open to everyone from educators to programmers, marketers to graphic designers.
Kinda funny tho, that they’re using standard in-class clipart to advertise it tho.
via Certificate in Virtual Worlds | UW Professional & Continuing Education.
Science education, virtual worlds
The next chapter of the OpenGLBook.com is now online, focusing on rendering and geometry in 3-dimensions with OpenGL.
If you’re learning OpenGL, it’s very likely you’re doing so to learn how to render three-dimensional data. In this chapter, we’ll be placing our very first step in the world of three-dimensional computer graphics. We’ll learn:
- The mathematics used to describe transformations in a three-dimensional world
- What coordinate systems are good for and how to use them
- What polygon culling is and why it’s used
- How to render a rotating colored cube to the screen
- Some new OpenGL function calls
As mentioned in the preface, you’ll need some mathematical knowledge in order to understand some of the concepts presented, preferably knowledge of linear algebra. The mathematics in this chapter is as lightweight as possible without sacrificing the integrity of the presented concept.
The entire “book” looks like a great resource for folks getting into computer graphics, and might even make a decent course textbook for an intro-level course.
via Chapter 4: Entering the Third Dimension | OpenGLBook.com.
Graphics, Science book, education, opengl
One week from today, Dr. Martin Banks of the Visual Space Perception Laboratory of UC Berkeley will be hosting a free webinary on user issues in 3D Displays. He’s got a wide range of issues to discuss that are relevant to everyone from 3d production to human vision experts.
- A variety of user issues.
- The temporal protocols used in stereo 3D and how they affect perceived flicker, motion artifacts, and depth distortions
- Head roll, vertical eye movements, and visual discomfort
- Visual-vestibular conflict and nausea
- Vergence-accommodation conflict
- Vergence: the inward or outward turning movement of the eyes in convergence or divergence;
- Accommodation: the focusing of the eyes to make the image on the retinas sharp.
- Vergence and accommodation in natural viewing; coupling
- Vergence and accommodation in stereo displays
- Optometric measures of discomfort
- Evidence that vergence-accommodation conflict with stereo displays causes discomfort: blurry vision, tired eyes, and headache
- The effect of viewing distance
- The effect of the direction of the conflict (content in front of the screen or behind?)
- Maintaining comfort in different viewing situations
- Relating these findings to current practice
Get all the details at the 3d-Display-Info site linked below.
via User Issues in Stereoscopic 3D Displays – a free SID webinar.
Graphics, Science 3d, education, human vision, stereoscopic, webinar
VizWorld.com 
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