Siggraph

While I was going over the HP new product releases with a trio of product managers, it was mentioned that a small number of people can leave Siggraph with a DreamColor Display for $1999.

There are a very limited number of discount coupons (in the hundreds) available at the HP booth (739). The reference-grade monitor, developed in conjunction with DreamWorks, is already for sale at the disruptive price of $3K.

This year’s Siggraph Computer Animation Festival is an all-inclusive affair. Each standalone programmed screening runs approximately two hours and is made up of several short films and compliation works of varying degrees of length. Though they are the shortest of the short and often are promoting one thing or another, commercials and spots shouldn’t be overlooked as works of art worth celebrating, and the festival’s first program featured several worth mentioning. more…

Luxology, developer of modern, artist-focused 3D software, announced that DS SolidWorks has entered into a technology licensing agreement to utilize Luxology’s Nexus rendering technology. As one of the leading 3D mechanical CAD software vendors worldwide, DS SolidWorks selected Nexus for its modern architecture and superior rendering capabilities. Read on at The Briefing Room

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Red Giant Software, with popular products Magic Bullet, Knoll Light Factory and Trapcode, today launched Magic Bullet Steady, a new tool to remove camera shake, jitter, and noise. Magic Bullet Steady is a plug-in for users of Final Cut Pro 6 and After Effects CS3 (Mac and Windows). The stabilizer function removes unwanted camera movement which can be distracting and disturbing to viewers. Magic Bullet Steady is also included in the newly updated Magic Bullet Suite 2008. Read on at The Briefing Room

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Autodesk congratulates the recipients of this year’s Autodesk Masters awards: Paul Neale, Dario Passariello, Andrea Maiolo and Piyush Patel. Through this annual program, Autodesk recognizes exceptional Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya software artists and technical specialists whose work and dedication have significantly contributed to the advancement of computer graphics (CG). The 2008 Autodesk Masters were announced yesterday on Autodesk’s AREA community website. Read on at The Briefing Room

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Here’s a sampling of the several exhibits in the Design & Computation gallery located in Hall H. They explore analytical and generative methods for design, as well as design and digital fabrication technologies.

HyperSurfaces

Haresh Lalvani (born India) more…

InterSense, a market leader in precision motion technology, announced its IS-900 VCam Virtual Camera Tracking System, a precision, inertial-ultrasonic virtual camera tracking system for use in the pre-visualization of virtual content. Combining InterSense’s industry leading motion tracking technology with powerful virtual production software, the new system enables producers of animated & 3D feature film, game and video to increase productivity, streamline workflow and lower production costs. Read on at The Briefing Room

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“Live-action 3D is the future/Teach it well and let it lead the way,” Whitney Houston once sang, I believe. Oops, wrong bad joke. The big joke among people who make 3D stereoscopic films is that it is way more work than making a regular 2D film because you have to make the same film twice.

This summer’s Journey to the Center of the Earth was shot in stereo with dual Sony HDC-950 HD cameras mounted on Pace Technologies‘ 3D HD rigs. The movie’s Visual-Effects Supervisor Christopher Townsend was on hand to explain that there is no cheating space when you’re filming live-action 3D. You can’t use any of the solutions normally associated with 2D movies, such as flat matte paintings for backgrounds, 2D compositing, or any 2D cueing traicks at all. Journey to the Center of the Earth is the directorial debut of longtime visual-effects supervisor Eric Brevig and the movie was the first ever full-length stereoscopic motion picture shot in HD to be released in digital 3D. more…

Luxology, developer of modern, artist-focused 3D software, announced Bentley Systems, a global leader in software for sustaining infrastructure, has licensed its Nexus rendering technology. Bentley chose Nexus for its overall performance and plans to use it for enhancements to Bentley’s MicroStation product line and many more applications in Bentley’s comprehensive portfolio of products. Read on at The Briefing Room

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3D models and datasets have become too large for the standard desktop workstation to handle. To help combat the problem, NVIDIA Corporation, a worldwide leader in visual computing technologies, announced the D Series of NVIDIA Quadro Plex Visual Computing Systems (VCS) available in deskside or rackmount configurations. Engineered to provide the most robust NVIDIA Quadro GPU visualization performance to date, the Quadro Plex systems are ideal for the styling and design, geosciences and scientific visualization industries, working with extremely large 3D models, datasets and power walls. The new Quadro Plex series provides performance improvements of up to 100% over previous versions and offers massively parallel processing capabilities using multiple Quadro graphics cards for visualization, large-scale projection and display, or computation with the NVIDIA CUDA Parallel Computing Processor. Read on at The Briefing Room

More Siggraph 2008 news from The Briefing Room