Computer Graphics World articles from September 2001

Computer Graphics World archives from September 2001

But Can She Act?
September 1, 2001... When we were designing the cover for last month's issue--which featured Aki Ross, the virtual star of the film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within--we considered running a headline that asked "But Can She Act?" The idea was that, sure, she looks...

letters.(Letter to the Editor)
September 1, 2001... Avatars for Atmosphere I read the Product Spotlight on Adobe Atmosphere on pg 10 of the July 2001 issue with great interest, but was disappointed that there was no mention of Poser 4 and Pro Pack. While Discreet and Alias|Wavefront have...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
September 1, 2001... Moe Merell is the correct spelling of the name of the lead digital character animator at Disney cited in the Atlantis feature "Staying Tooned" (pg. 32, July 2001 issue).

SDRC Intros Freeform Design Tool.
September 1, 2001... The new I-deas Freeform suite from SDRC is a reincarnation of the Imageware modeling and product design software that SDRC acquired from Imageware Corp. three years ago. But the package also has new capabilities, a redesigned interface, and...

Vector Text for Boris Graffiti.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... Vector-based text is the major new addition to Version 2.0 of Boris Graffiti, Boris's graphics application for integrated 2D and 3D title animation. The new vector tools allow users to create relatively sophisticated animations, such as text on...

VX Pursues CAD/CAM Interoperability.(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... VX CAD/CAM Version 5 from VX Corp. (formerly Varimetrix) is the latest incarnation of the company's integrated system for engineers and industrial designers. Among the new capabilities in Version 5 are enhanced interoperability, new healing...

Digital Dailies from 5D.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... 5D Cyborg Commander from 5D is a new playback/output system for the post-production industry that allows users to check digital dailies on a computer screen rather than outputting them to film. Daily test composites for movie special effects...

IBM Debuts Super-Hi-Resolution Monitor.(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... IBM takes monitor envy to new heights with the T220, which the company claims is the world's highest-resolution flat-panel monitor. The 22.2-inch display allows for a viewing area of two 8.5- by 11-inch pages side by side. Some 9 million...

Autodesk (San Rafael, CA) has signed an agreement to acquire Buzzsaw.com, a privately held company that provides online collaboration applications to the building industry.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Autodesk (San Rafael, CA) has signed an agreement to acquire Buzzsaw.com, a privately held company that provides online collaboration applications to the building industry. Buzzsaw.com was spun off from Autodesk in 1999....

Engineering and construction software developer Bricsnet.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Engineering and construction software developer Bricsnet (Portsmouth, NH; Gent, Belgium) has closed the first part of its acquisition of Constructeo.com SA (Paris, France)....

Viewpoint Corp.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Rich media developer Viewpoint Corp. (New York) has announced that it has entered into a broadcast licensing and distribution agreement with online service provider America Online (AOL), The agreement states that AOL will pay annual license...

Executives from Disney and special effects studio Digital Domain have created Rebel Arts.(Company Business and Marketing)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... Executives from Disney and special effects studio Digital Domain have created Rebel Arts (Calabasas, CA), a new technology and software developer with a proprietary platform initially designed to serve multi-user gaming.

benchmark.(Buyers Guide)
September 1, 2001... Top 10 DX-06 Performers Below are the 10 workstation and graphics card combinations that recently earned the best performance scores per system for the Data Explorer DX-06 subset of the SPECviewperf 6.1.2 benchmarks. The DX-06 subset is...

Send in the Clones.(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... An animation-cloning technique gives facial models something to smile about "Reduce, reuse, recycle." The battle cry of environmentalists may soon be the mantra of computer animators. The expression is an apt description of a technique...

Smoke Signals.
September 1, 2001... Engineering principles help blow smoke into digital animations No matter how you look at it, smoke is a nuisance. In reality, it burns your eyes. In virtual reality, it bothers your eyes, mostly because it rarely looks real enough to burn...

Interoperability: The Key to Collaboration.
September 1, 2001... Manufacturing today requires a highly collaborative product creation environment to enable innovative and competitive products to be brought to market rapidly. The need for collaboration, or getting the necessary resources on board to...

Preserving THE PAST.
September 1, 2001... To ensure that history can repeat itself, researchers are using digital technology to virtually preserve the world's history and culture Imagine the historical and cultural toll if a flood suddenly decimated the Egyptian temples of King...

digital magic.(magician applies 3D imaging technology)
September 1, 2001... An illusionist performs hocus-pocus with a digital focus Marco Tempest's act, like that of most illusionists, includes traditional techniques using sleight of hand. But unlike his colleagues, Tempest performs his prestidigitations with help...

Linux invades Hollywood.
September 1, 2001... Ten years ago, Linux was a student's hobby. Now it's becoming the film industry's operating system of choice Shrek was the first major motion picture created primarily using Linux. It won't be the last. Linux is rapidly becoming the...

move for move.(motion picture industry employs 3D imaging for special effects)
September 1, 2001... In a perfect world, effects artists compositing 3D imagery into live-action footage would receive all the data they needed to create a convincing scene. After each shot was carefully planned, the set would be surveyed, and when each shot was...

Lighthearted.(Erisa Kiba employs 3D graphics for computer-generated images)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... There is a light side and a dark side to digital artist Erisa Kiba's work. In fact, lighting plays an important role in the creation of her images, reflecting contrasting moods and styles--classical vs. futuristic, Western vs. Eastern, tough...

Opening Doors.
September 1, 2001... Software testing spawns an animated production The product development team's goal when creating the animated segment "Passage" was to stress-test the new features in Maya 4.0. The results, though, netted far more: a visually detailed,...

Freeze Frame.(3D imaging technology in TV commercials)
September 1, 2001... Artists turn a television commercial into a chilling experience To demonstrate the fresh taste of Dentyne Ice chewing gum for a recent 30-second television commercial, director Steve Horn "froze" an intimate moment between a young couple at...

Maya 4.(Evaluation)
September 1, 2001... Alias|Wavefront pursues ease of use IN THE FEW YEARS that Maya has been around, it has become a 3D modeling and animation package that effects artists rely on heavily for feature film and broadcast production. It seems that every Siggraph...

GeForce3.
September 1, 2001... Nvidia tackles more than games OVER THE PAST two years, Nvidia has come from nowhere to become the leading vendor of PC graphics cards. Its boards are technically advanced, fast, and reasonably priced. For the average consumer, they are...

SolidWorks 2001.(Evaluation)
September 1, 2001... Windows-based solid modeler gets overhaul THE MID-RANGE MCAD market resembles a game of leapfrog as companies such as Autodesk, SolidWorks, and UGS continue to improve Inventor, SolidWorks, and Solid Edge, respectively. Users come out as...

Pulse Animation Studio.(Evaluation)
September 1, 2001... Developing 3D Web content PULSE ENTERTAINMENT develops three products for creating and viewing interactive streaming 3D content on the Web: Creator 4.3, for authoring; Producer 4.4, for exporting content from Discreet's 3ds max; and Player...

Hand-sketch simulation.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN] With Squiggle 4.0, designers can create from CAD programs images that look hand drawn. Users can vary the width and/or color of up to 255 lines/pens and then apply an unlimited number of hand-drawn styles to each line. A choice of seven...

Solid Design.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... More than 200 customer-driven enhancements highlight the new release of SolidDesigner 2001. For instance, with the Rapid Design feature, designers and engineers can work directly with native and imported 3D design data, using drag-and-drop...

Go with the flow.(Airpak 2.0 computational fluid dynamics software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN|UNIX|LINUX] Airpak is a computational fluid dynamics tool that enables users to accurately model air flow, heat transfer, contaminant transport, and thermal comfort in ventilation systems as well as external building flows. The latest...

Ironcad enhanced.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN] IronCAD v4.2 incorporates numerous enhancements for 3D modeling and 2D drawing, plus more than 150 quality improvements. For instance, users can now directly import IGES wireframe data for use as reference geometry during model creation....

Best behavior.(GeoMate introduces Geomate 4.5 CAD software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... With Geomate 4.5, users can specify performance results such as area, moment of inertia, volume, cost, position, weight, clearance, distance, tolerance, stress, and deflection as behavioral goals, and have the computer build the optimal...

Smooth surfaces.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... CopyCAD is a reverse engineering system that incorporates a range of new tools designed to help users produce smooth CAD surfaces from digitized data that can then be used in a range of product development applications. For instance, new...

Revolutionary plug-ins.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN|MAC] Designed for use with Adobe's After Effects and with other applications that support After Effects plug-ins, Elements of Anarchy: Text is a three-filter plug-in set that enables users to create text elements for film and television...

Shake it up.(Shake 2.4 compositing software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN|LINUX|IRIX] A professional compositing tool, Shake Version 2.4 boasts several new features and enhancements. The new procedural, vector-based paint node enables users to paint in-context on the same screen where the composite is being...

Voice recognition.(DreamTeam's Typhoon animation software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... VocalTrack, DreamTeam's automated voice recognition module for its Typhoon software, supports nine facial expressions in real time, can recognize both male and female voices, and is speaker-independent. The system works with all known languages...

Flashier Animo.(Animo 4.0 animation software from Cambridge Animation Systems)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN|IRIX] 2D animators can export their projects to the Web with Animo 4.0, which now features Macromedia Flash output capability. Users still retain independent control of painted regions, and they can control the color, width, and generation...

Updated Boris.(version 6.0 of the Boris FX visual effects and image processing application)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN|MAC] Now shipping, version 6.0 of the Boris FX visual effects and image processing application has been enhanced with auto-animated filters including Clouds, Fire, Rain, Snow, Comets, Sparks, and Stars as well as lighting filters that...

Watery textures.(Dosch Textures: Animated Water from Dosch Design)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN|MAC] Targeted at animators, 3D artists, and graphic designers, Dosch Textures: Animated Water ($69) provides 25 animated and loopable water textures, including ocean, swimming pool, river, waterfall, and calm and stormy as well as deep and...

Easy 2D animation.(FlipBook SE graphics utility from DigiCel)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2001... [WIN] With FlipBook SE, 2D animators can scan or shoot their drawings under a camera, or digitally draw them using the program's built-in light-table feature. As the drawings are captured, they're automatically positioned in a traditional-style...

Causing a tremor.(Nothing Real's Tremors animation software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN|LINUX] Tremor is a non-linear compositing system featuring real-time I/O in 601 and HDTV formats. Compatible with Nothing Real's Shake, Tremor also features timeline and EDL support and ships with two industry-standard keyers, Keylight...

Easier procedural mapping.(Digimation's Flatten)
September 1, 2001... [WIN] Mapping inside Discreet's 3ds max is now easier, with Flatten. The tool exists as a set of object modifiers that work with existing mapping channels to unwrap a model and then collapse the channels down to a single map. Flatten works with...

Fooling with Mother Nature.(e-on software's Vue d'Esprit 4.0 CAD software)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN] Chief among the new features in the Vue d'Esprit 4 (Vue 4) 3D scenery animation and rendering software are a new volumetric atmosphere system for creating volumetric clouds, materials, and lights; and a new terrain editor featuring a...

Stereo rendering plug-in.(StereoVue-3ds from StereoGraphics)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN] Now users of 3ds max and 3D studio viz R3 can render their creations in stereoscopic 3D. The new StereoVue-3ds plug-in allows the creation of two virtual cameras to create the left- and right-eye images required for stereo views. These...

Sports broadcasting tools.(viz arena graphics/imaging utility from vizrt)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN] viz [arena] is targeted at sports program producers who want to improve their on-air look with dynamic, perspective-correct, field-of-play graphics including virtual advertising, game analysis, and graphics insertion. Sport-specific...

Suite video production.(MainActor from Dazzle)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... [WIN] MainActor is a fully integrated suite of applications ranging from video capture and sequencing to editing, playback, and output. Targeted at professional videographers, the software features video and audio filters, a built-in morphing...

60-inch projection system.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... The 60-inch Holo AirSho System provides an innovative way to display graphics and data to large audiences. The system features a high-lumen (1700-2200), single-lens Hitachi projector with 35-degree keystone adjustment capability, so the...

Multiple monitors.(IBM T540 LCD display)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... Key characteristics of the T540 flat-panel monitor include a 15-inch viewable image size, a flicker-free 1024 by 768 resolution, a tilt stand, and an analog interface. Delivering a 17-inch viewable size, the T750 flat-panel monitor boasts 1280...

In sync.(7-inch SyncMaster 760vTFT from Samsung Group)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... Measuring only 2.5 inches thick and 7.2 inches at the base, the new 17-inch SyncMaster 760vTFT monitor incorporates such features as a 400:1 contrast ratio, a brightness of 250 cd/m [is less than or equal to], and Sun and SGI compatibility. A...

High-res LCD.(Eizo Nanao Technologies' 16-inch FlexScan L461 flat-panel display)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... The new 16-inch FlexScan L461 flat-panel display provides 1280 by 1024 resolution, a .248mm pitch, and user control over hue, saturation, and gain. A 160-degree horizontal viewing angle and DVI-I analog or digital video input round out the list...

Storage and editing.(DataLifePlus 4.7GB DVD-recordable drive from Verbatim Corp)(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
September 1, 2001... Users can edit and incrementally update their data using DataLifePlus 4.7GB rewritable DVD disks. Designed for use with DVD-RW drives from Pioneer and other manufacturers, the new discs incorporate Super-Eutectic phase-change recording layer...

insight.(turbulence research at NASA's Glenn Research Center)
September 1, 2001... TURBULENCE IS generally not considered to be a pilot's best friend. Randomly fluctuating airflow velocities and pressures can wreak hawse on the outside of an aircraft, However, these same turbulent properties can help keep disaster at bay...