As Siggraph 2008 winds down, it’s time for me to take one last, brief mention of some of the more interesting technology and developments at the show. Be sure to read upcoming issues of millimeter and Digital Content Producer magazines for more in-depth information.

While some may claim that there is nothing new at the show, if you walk the aisles with an open mind you’re sure to find trends and new gear that fits the bill. more

Laptops are on track to soon replace desktop units as the most popular personal computer type. Over the past couple of years, more powerful mobile CPUs and GPUs have made lighter weight laptops prime candidates to become the machines of choice for pro graphics and NLE users too.

While they didn’t have a booth on the show floor, Dell still garnered interest by the introduction of two potent new members of its line of pro-oriented, ISV-certified mobile workstations, which turned up on display in Intel’s and NVIDIA’s booths. more

Unlike the slowly changing, monolithic market for CPUs, the development of graphics chips and cards looks chaotic, with chip designs, products, and companies coming in and out of the market at a near furious pace over the decades since the first graphics technology delivered in 1960.

Over the past eight years or so, however, two companies have come to dominate the market for discrete chips and cards: ATI (since 2006 a division of AMD) and NVIDIA. While the companies continue to slug it out, most everyone else had fallen to the wayside. Now, the two companies own 98 percent of the discrete GPU business, according to on Peddie Research. more

Until recently, most laser scanning systems—whether for use in films, games, or other applications–were pretty big pieces of gear, designed for capturing a car, or on a slightly smaller scale, a full body. While some companies did make small desktop rigs, these mainly captured small objects—say the size of a soda can—that had to be placed on a revolving stage attached to a workstation. Pretty complicated for the most part.

At the show, Quebec-base Creaform, which develops and makes the Handyscan 3D line-up of handheld and self-positioning laser scanners, debuted an innovative, lightweight handheld 3D color scanner that only needs to be attached to laptop to deliver near real-time scans. more

SPEC’s Graphics and Workstation Performance Group (SPEC/GWPG) announced a wide range of upcoming benchmarks at the Siggraph 2008 conference in Los Angeles.

The new offerings will include a power-performance benchmark for workstations, a new version of SPECviewperf, and new and updated application benchmarks. All are slated for release before spring of next year.

“Under our expanded charter announced last year, we are branching out in new directions such as power consumption, while continuing to move ahead with our graphics and workstation application benchmarks,” says George Chaltas, SPEC/GWPG chair. “The overriding objective is to apply SPEC’s expertise and proven methodologies in areas that provide the most value to users, vendors and testing labs worldwide.” Read on at The Briefing Room

More Siggraph 2008 news from The Briefing Room

Sony Electronics is unveiling a new workflow solution for faster processing of high-resolution effects and computer graphics. This new technology platform, named ZEGO, is based on the Cell/B.E. (Cell Broadband Engine) and RSX technologies, and is designed to eliminate bottlenecks that can occur during post production, especially during the creation and rendering of visual effects. Read on at The Briefing Room

More Siggraph 2008 news from The Briefing Room

Demand for better graphics performance and programmability within the professional notebook market continues to increase as animators, designers and engineers work with larger 3D models, datasets and images. NVIDIA, a worldwide leader in visual computing technologies, continues to address the demand with the introduction of a new series of NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile GPUs, featuring an NVIDIA CUDA Parallel Computing Processor. Read on at The Briefing Room

More Siggraph 2008 news from The Briefing Room

Creaform, developer and manufacturer of the well-known Handyscan 3D line-up of handheld and self-positioning laser scanners, once again pushes the limits of portable 3D scanning and introduces its newest and most innovative product: the VIUscan, a self-positioning handheld and high resolution portable 3D color scanner. Read on at The Briefing Room

More Siggraph 2008 news from The Briefing Room

Having covered the motion capture beat for years, I have found in recent years the most interesting stories for our magazine(s) have always been application-specific stories–how it was used on a particular project like Beowulf , Polar Express , etc. In terms of the technology specific stories, I’ve felt we havent’ received earth-shattering news from the industry in a long while–either the technology was optical or it was tethered or it was some kind of wireless gyroscopic transmission system. Either it was high end or it was low end, and either it was put to good use or it wasn’t.

While it’s still not earth-shattering given the rapid pace of today’s IP-based developments, I did see today something on the technology side I had not seen before, and something that I think has some interesting applications. That something was Animazoo’s IGS-190 system, which the company dubbs “live Internet animation.” By that, they mean that they have come up with a pretty seamless approach for live streaming of motion-capture data in real time, creating all sorts of interesting possibilities on the remote collaboration front. more

I didn’t get what was new and useful about HP’s DreamColor technology when it debuted for monitors at NAB 2008. (DreamColor was introduced in 2007, but aimed initially at color printing solutions.) There seemed to be a lot of noise being made for better color rendition, but what was exciting or new about that?

I think I’m starting to get it. Attending a talk by HP and a group of DreamWorks artists and technicians–their partners in developing the technology–the differences in the crisp colors and black blacks of the new 24-inch HP DreamColor LP2480zx display and a standard LCD at its side were remarkable.

The new display is described as “true 30-bit”, which means it can choose from a range of over 1 billion colors to display. The result? No banding, and rendering of colors subtle enough to best reflect what the artists want to see on the big screen. more