Computer Graphics World articles from January 2001

Computer Graphics World archives from January 2001

BEAUTY'S ONLY SKIN DEEP.(Technology Information)
January 1, 2001... A rocker maintains his groove while stripping down to the bone In the music video Rock DJ, when British pop singer Robbie Williams fails to attract the attention of aloof roller skating beauties and an attractive female disc jockey with his...

DataCAD Plus Drawing Board Edition.(DataCAD's CAD software)(Software Review)(Evaluation)
January 1, 2001... Touchscreen-optimized intelligent CAD Some market-driven software vendors give their products grand-sounding but uninformative names. Others with a more straightforward style adopt nomenclature that actually describes what the product is...

Softimage/XSI.(Software Review)(Evaluation)
January 1, 2001... A 1.0 release with promise After many years and two changes of ownership, Softimage finally released its long-awaited successor to Softimage|3D. The software codenamed Sumatra now goes by the name of Softimage|XSI, and it includes many of...

Combustion.(Discreet's desktop compositor)(Software Review)(Evaluation)
January 1, 2001... High-end desktop compositing from Discreet Discreet's Combustion is a robust 3D compositing package for Windows NT and the Macintosh that supports compositing, painting, motion tracking, and keying, all in one package. It's like a little...

SOFTWARE.(Buyers Guide)
January 1, 2001... ARCHITECTURE SITE VISUALIZATION WIN RapidSite version 2.0 from Evans & Sutherland provides 3D site visualization for real estate developers, civil engineers, and landscape architects. New capabilities include a Navigator viewer,...

HARDWARE.(Buyers Guide)
January 1, 2001... BOARDS NEW VPRO GRAPHICS WIN/LINUX SGI has introduced two new graphics subsystems for its Windows NT/2000- and Linux-based workstations. The company's V7 and VR7 graphics are additions to it VPro family. V7 is based on Nvidia's...

INSIGHT.(Technology Information)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... There's nothing like seeing an old picture through new glasses. Previously unnoticed details scream for attention. Such was the case when UCLA physicist Ross Bollens resurrected cometary simulations he'd generated nearly a decade ago for...

2001: An Update.(Industry Trend or Event)
January 1, 2001... When I was a kid, I was obsessed with science-fiction stories about "The Future," especially those describing technologies so advanced they would be, as Arthur C. Clarke might say, "indistinguishable from magic." In fact, a favorite was...

LETTERS.(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2001... A Closer Look at LightWave I would like to point out some misleading information in the LightWave 6 review that appears on pg. 80 of your August 2000 issue. First, a general comment: You say that the upgrade will allow LightWave to compete...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
January 1, 2001... The Insight image depicting a hurricane off the southeast coast of the United States that appeared on pg. 76 of the September 2000 issue was reversed. A corrected version appears below. We Value Your Input We welcome any insights you...

Speech Recognition Highlights thinkdesign 6.0.(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2001... Less than two years ago, think3 debuted thinkdesign, a desktop modeling program that featured parametric solids, advanced surfacing, and wireframe and 2D drafting. The program was distributed on a then-novel yearly subscription basis. Since...

Stereo for the Masses.(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2001... StereoGraphics, the maker of well-established stereoscopic visualization products such as CystalEyes, has introduced a new technology that will allow users to view objects stereoscopically on a Windows 98 PC without a stereo-enabled graphics...

Models from Photos with PhotoModeler Pro 4.0.(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2001... Eos Systems has released Version 4.0 of PhotoModeler Pro, its software program that lets users build 3D models and extract accurate measurements from photographs. Archaeologists, anthropologists, film and video producers, architects, engineers,...

Antarcti.ca Seeks to Map the Web.(Visual Net)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2001... Visual Net, the debut product from the newly launched company Antarcti.ca, is a desktop format that represents Web directories with maps incorporating 2D and 3D graphical elements. A corporate intranet, for example, could be configured as a map...

FireGL Cards Show Top Performance in MCAD Benchmark Tests.(News Briefs)
January 1, 2001... This month, we list the seven workstation and graphics card combinations that most recently received the best scores for the medMCAD-01 subset of the SPECviewperf 6.1.2 benchmark. The medMCAD-01 viewset is designed to model the graphics...

In Brief.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Digital compression vendor Piranha (Dallas) has announced that it will acquire JJT, a digital imaging and database company based in Austin, Texas. The acquisition will expand Piranha's customer list to include the Library of Congress and the...

A Desktop Interface for Matlab 6.(from MathWorks)(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2001... The MathWorks recently released Version 6 of Matlab, the company s technical computing environment for engineers and scientists that combines numeric computation, visualization, and a programming language. Highlighting the new release is a...

Discreet Prepares a New 3D Studio Max.(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2001... Discreet's 3D Studio Max occupies a special niche in modeling and animation in that while it is used by professional modelers and animators, it is also the high-end package of choice among hobbyists. This popular program is now ready to enter...

Pictures, in Parallel.(Technology Information)
January 1, 2001... Los Alamos researchers hope to bring the power of multiprocessing to scientific visualization The mega advances that have defined computational processing developments over the past several years have enabled scientists to simulate...

Full Stream Ahead.(Technology Information)
January 1, 2001... A new technology delivers large 3D models across the Web Big models and real-time interaction can spell big trouble for the Web, but they can also spell big success for applications relying on consistent, high-quality 3D content...

Fluid Motion in Focus.(Technology Information)
January 1, 2001... A new visualization technique provides a clearer picture of flow dynamics Scientists and engineers are increasingly looking to computer visualization to gain a better understanding of how substances flow in, through, and around complex...

The Feng Shui of Virtual Worlds.(Editorial)
January 1, 2001... Designers should go with the flow when creating online environments As conceived by the ancient Chinese civilization that developed Feng Shui--the art of arranging things to enhance the flow of energies and to minimize...

Birds of a Feather.(Product Information)
January 1, 2001... PIXAR'S LATEST SHORT FILM HIGHLIGHTS THE STUDIO'S ATTENTION TO DETAIL Of all the animated films shown during Siggraph's Electronic Theater, Pixar Animation Studio's "For the Birds" prompted the biggest reaction. The audience started...

Cyber Therapy.(News Briefs)
January 1, 2001... VIRTUAL REALITY SHOWS REAL PROMISE IN TREATING PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS From the moment the Vietnam War vet dons the head-mounted display and enters the Virtual Vietnam landing zone, it's clear why this 3D immersive simulation has such...

Tele-immersion.(Technology Information)
January 1, 2001... Tomorrow's Teleconferencing REAL-TIME TRANSMISSION OF REAL-LIFE ENVIRONMENTS MAY BE INTERNET 2'S MOST VISIONARY APPLICATION When Internet 2-level network performance becomes commonplace at some point in the future, which applications...

men in motion.(Technology Information)
January 1, 2001... A SAMURAI BATTLE SCENE PUSHES THE BOUNDARIES OF MOTION CAPTURE To achieve more realistic animation in games, developers have been using standard motion-capture techniques to create unique, compelling character movements. Links DigiWorks of...

Styles for All Seasons.(Product Announcement)
January 1, 2001... Unlike many 3D software programs targeted at a specific type of user, formZ from autodessys is a general-purpose 3D solid and surface modeling product that is as popular with computer-aided designers and architects as it is with animators for...

NAVIGATING THE NET.(Company Business and Marketing)
January 1, 2001... Vios weaves the Web into a 3D virtual landscape using its proprietary interface The number of Internet sites has exploded during the past decade, as the small-town population of URLs has grown into a massive metropolitan city of Web...

ALIENS AMONG US.(Editorial)
January 1, 2001... Animators create compelling, realistic characters that don't steal the spotlight Despite the powerful capabilities of today's modeling and animation tools, character animation is still a perplexing proposition. Sometimes, balancing the...