VizWorld.com

The CG_GL engine, available here, has got some nice new features like portals (similar to the “Portal” game), bokeh rendering, and PhysX support, to go with all the old features like scattering, particles, volumetric fog, and more.  While you may not want to actually use it for a game, it’s a great educational tool on how to implement these effects in your own projects.

CG_GL engine is OpenGL API-based open source engine for creating and managing effects. The newest version of the engine adds features like movable and scalable portals (like in the “Portal” game) working with NVidia PhysX, improved bokeh depth of field, more realistic fog, particles, fake raytrace using cube maps and many improvements. It now works both on Windows and Linux. There is also simple game created using the engine.

via CG_GL engine adds new features like portals, bokeh depth of field and particles – opengl.org news.

Science engine, opensource, video game

A new tool in photographic 3D reconstruction hit the open-source pavement last week called ‘Insight3d’.  Still in active development, it’s an open-source tool (available for Windows & Linux) that takes a collection of photos around an object and creates a point-cloud of the object, and then provides tessellation tools to reconstruct a textured polygonal model.

insight3d lets you create 3D models from photographs. You give it a series of photos of a real scene (e.g., of a building), it automatically matches them and then calculates positions in space from which each photo has been taken (plus camera’s optical parameters) along with a 3D pointcloud of the scene. You can then use insight3d’s modeling tools to create textured polygonal model.

It’s still very early in development, but fully functional. Check it out and see what you think!

via insight3d – opensource image based 3d modeling software.

Science insight3d, opensource, software

Information Aesthetics brings us news about Adam Bly’s latest project Visualizing.org, a website dedicated to open data and public visualization aimed at everyone from conferences and blogs to the big media outlets.

While Visualizing.org’s mission is to help make data visualization figure more prominently across the web as a way of understanding complex world issues as they unfold, it is not a weblog in the classic sense. Instead, the site is open and all free to use (they developed it with support from GE), and operatew under a CC non-commercial license. Visualizing thus aims to become the online resource for designers and students looking for data sets (curated by Seed) about world issues, while offering an open platform for the creative community to share the resulting visualizations with each other and the public at large.

At a glance, I have to admit it’s pretty.  He’s got a decent selection of open data, although he seems to still be working a few bugs out of the system (I saw the occasional “warning: get_object_vars() expects parameter 1″ blah blah blah).  Unlike sites like Manyeyes, the site seems to have nearly nothing for actually visualizing data, instead simply hosting the raw data, and final pictures of the results.

In other words, it’s a nice site with the endpoints of the process (You can Get the Data and Show the Results), but the actual work still has to be done elsewhere.  So there’s still plenty of room for Tableau Public and ManyEyes.

via visualizing.org: a New Shared and Free Resource on Data Visualization – information aesthetics.

Science opensource, Website

Another day and another big announcement from Sony Pictures Imageworks’ opensource initiative, this time to aid in all the pains of color transforming.  The new product, OpenColorIO, aims to provide a consistent method of storing and transferring color grading information between mainstream products, offering a simple streamlined way of maintaining this critical information.

Unlike existing color management solutions, OCIO is geared towards motion-picture post-production, with an emphasis on visual effects and animation color pipelines. OpenColorIO has been used at Sony Pictures Imageworks since 2003 to address the challenges of working with multiple commercial image-processing applications that have different approaches to color management. By providing a unified color environment, OpenColorIO greatly simplifies the task of creating and validating multiple-application color workflows.

It’s already up on their website for you to download and check out, with several ways to integrate it into your own workflow.

The OpenColorIO project includes a core C++ library (CPU and GPU), python bindings, and plug-in support for popular graphics applications. Example color profiles — which have been used on released visual effects & animated motion-pictures — are also included as references. But these profiles are merely a guide; as customization is an essential part of post-production, OCIO was developed with flexibility in mind.

Full release after the break.

Read more…

Graphics opensource, sony

Today at SIGGRAPH, Sony Pictures Imageworks and ILM announced that they have collaborated on a new open-source project named ‘Alembic’, a new interchange format designed to efficiently store animation in a format that can be ready by multiple software applications.

“Who better to understand the demands of high-end production better than those who are in the thick of it,” explains Lucasfilm CTO, Richard Kerris, “working with the team at Imageworks, I think we have created a file format that will have a significant impact on the industry as global production and shared workflows continue to be a driving force.”

“Even though we recently started using our new format on multiple productions, as soon as we learned about ILM’s concurrent development it was immediately clear that one open source format utilizing the very best technology from both companies would offer the best solution for the industry,” notes Rob Bredow, CTO of Sony Pictures Imageworks.

It sounds very similar to the work done by Autodesk over the last several years with FBX, but the entire format is open-source.  Hopefully other applications will begin to support it, and maybe we will finally one the “One Format to Rule Them all”.

Full announcement and details after the break.

Read more…

Graphics ilm, imageworks, opensource, sony

Walt Disney Animation Studios has taken a page from Sony Pictures Imageworks and launched a website dedicated to technical publications and open-source software they use in production of their own films. Currently hosting information regarding PTex, it also offers several technical papers on ray-tracing, 2D/3D conversions (Beauty and the Beast), and several other topics.

Walt Disney Animation Studios (WDAS) launched an open technology site http://www.disneyanimation.com/technology where users will, for the first time, be able to access innovative technologies developed in house.  The first software available is WDAS’s revolutionary texture mapping system, Ptex, which was made available on January 15th 2010 at http://ptex.us/. Ptex was developed by WDAS Principal Software Engineer Brent Burley for use in production quality rendering, and is being driven to become adopted widely in the community by WDAS Director of Technology Dan Candela. WDAS has also compiled a set of papers available on the site for sharing additional technical innovations that will benefit the industry.

Hit the site to browse their offerings, and read the full press release after the break.

Read more…

Science disney, opensource, ptex

With health care reform being all the rage, Open Source projects are becoming popular topics as alternatives to the incredibly expensive and complex software suites in use today.  Smarter Technology has a great list of 10 open-source projects targeted at health and medicine, including a few great data visualization tools.

Assuming debate moves beyond “You’re stupid. No you are,” health care reform will require new ways of lowering costs and de-siloing tens of thousands of sickly complex systems. Even if the current overhaul stalls (and maybe especially so), we’ll still need fresh collaboration, technology and ideas.

Of note is a particular fav of mine, SMIViewer, which made #9.

via 10 Open Source Projects Changing Medicine – Technology For Change.

Science biomed, list, opensource, software

Scientists and Students at Stanford envision a world where the software that runs on digital cameras is similar to what currently runs on mobile devices and netbooks, and open-source user-modifiable operating system where new features can be downloaded onto the device.  To this end they’ve created their own camera to demonstrate it.

Computer science graduate student Andrew Adams, who helped design the prototype of the Stanford camera (dubbed Frankencamera,) imagines a future where consumers download applications to their open-platform cameras the way Apple apps are downloaded to iPhones today. When the camera’s operating software is made available publicly, perhaps a year from now, users will be able to continuously improve it, along the open-source model of the Linux operating system for computers or the Mozilla Firefox web browser.

via New Open-source Camera Could Revolutionize Photography.

Hardware camera, opensource, stanford

Sony Picture’s Imageworks has just released 5 of their internal products at open-source tools.  Rob Bredow, CTO, says this:

We’ve chosen 5 projects to release as open source. This software can be freely used by large and small studios around the world. We’ve intentionally chosen popular non-restrictive licensing models to help ensure you have lots of options.

Each of these projects have passionate people behind them who are interested in seeing the code widely used. We’re into the idea of building small development communities around this code. If you’re interested in contributing, join the respective mailing lists and introduce yourself.

The five packages they’ve released are:

• OSL – Open Shading Language
• Scala Migrations – Database Library Manager
• Field3D – Voxel Data storage library
• pystring -Python String Handling in C++
• Maya Reticle – Flexible camera guides for Maya

via Sony Pictures Imageworks – Open Source.

Graphics, Science imageworks, opensource, software, sony

The GIMP Animation package, the popular addon suite to the GIMP Image Suite that adds in After-effects style features, has just released v2.6.0 to bring it inline with the GIMP2.6 suite.

Look after the break for the full list of new features in 2.6.0.

Read more…

Graphics animation, free, gimp, opensource, software