Virtual Reality News: 10th January 2002Virtual Reality News: 10th January 2002
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Users, Applications
& Projects
01 Eight Visualization Labs for Andarko
02 Three Rendering Devices for Korean Culture
03 Grant for Surgical Simulation
Quote of the Issue
04 Quote of the Issue: Superscape
Products &
Services
05 Glove Peripheral in Final Design Stage
06 Maya Personal Learning for Free (Alias|Wavefront)
07 VIZ 4 (ex 3D Studio VIZ) Available (Adobe)
08 Collaboration Tool for Elumens' Users
09 After Effects 5.5 Ships
10 First FIRE GL 8800s to HP
Appointments &
Opportunities
11 Funded Place at University College London
Events & Calls for Papers
Anadarko and Mechdyne Corporation have begun installing eight visualization laboratories in Anadarko's new building under construction in Texas, USA. Anadarko has dubbed the labs the "IDEA" system, which stands for Image Delivery for Enhanced Awareness. The IDEA labs allow Andarko to maximize modeling tools to better evaluate drilling prospects and investment options. Our thanks to Lee Warren of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation for bringing this to our attention.
Advanced Rendering Technology (ART) has delivered three of its RenderDrive RD5000 high-end 3D rendering appliances to the Korean Culture and Contents Agency for inclusion in the "Korea Cultural Contents Promotion Center" established by the agency in Seoul in July 2001. The systems were purchased by the agency through Korea Visual Co Ltd, ART's reseller in Korea. In November 2001, The Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced that it would be working to develop the cultural contents industry as a next-generation growth industry by injecting a total of $269.23 million into the industry during 2002. The move is designed to give a big boost to the cultural content fields, including 3D animation.
URL: http://www.kvisual.co.kr
URL: http://www.art-render.com
Dimensional Media (DM) has been awarded a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the Department of the Army to develop a surgical simulation workstation. The workstation will be built around DM's DepthCube technology. With this round of government funding, the final system could be adopted into the sustained training of military medical personnel for combat casualty care skills. The resulting prototype will provide a surgical training environment with field of view for both a user and instructor. The system will also support glasses-free, full-color and parallax 3D images that project into free space to provide access for force-feedback interfaces. For the next six months, DM will receive monthly payments totaling $70,000 to develop a functioning prototype of the workstation. At the six-month mark, the company will be eligible for an additional investment to further the technology's development.
"We are currently redeveloping our web site to reflect our new focus on wireless 3D" - Superscape.
Essential Reality has shown the final product design of its P5 glove peripheral. The P5 uses Essential Reality's proprietary bend sensor and tracking technologies to enable interaction with a 3D environment. Fully USB compliant, the first generation P5 is designed for compatibility with the Microsoft Windows 98, Windows ME and MS 2000 operating systems. Additionally, the Company expects that the P5 will be compatible with the Microsoft XP, MAC OSX and OSIX operating systems, as well as the PlayStation2 and Microsoft Xbox game consoles.
Alias|Wavefront is developing the Maya Personal Learning Edition which will provide users of Windows and Mac OS X with unlimited, free access to Maya. Maya Personal Learning Edition will give 3D graphics and animation students, current industry professionals, and those interested in breaking into the world of computer graphics an opportunity to explore Maya Complete software, in a non-commercial capacity.
Autodesk VIZ 4 software, a new release of the 3D modeling, rendering, and animation tool formerly known as 3D Studio VIZ, is now available worldwide. Unlike previous versions of 3D Studio VIZ, Autodesk VIZ 4 fully integrates a new generation of global illumination rendering technology and physically based lighting within the application. With physically based lighting, designers can position lighting fixtures in their scenes as they would in the real world, and evaluate the lighting effects of a given design both visually and quantitatively. Light intensity can be specified in photometric units (for example, lumens, candelas), industry-standard IES (Illuminating Engineering Society) data formats for manufactured lighting fixtures, or with daylight standards. Using Autodesk's i-drop technology, customers can drag virtual lighting fixtures directly from manufacturers' websites into their Autodesk VIZ scenes.
VirtualE3D has announced TruView Pro, a visual collaboration tool that enables engineering product development teams to visualize, analyze and collaborate with 3D content using the Elumens VisionStation series of products.
Adobe Systems is shipping After Effects 5.5, its motion graphics and visual effects software. After Effects 5.5 enhances productivity with native support for Apple Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows XP and optimization for the Intel Pentium 4 processor. Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Classic is included with the After Effects 5.5 Production Bundle and Standard to Production Bundle upgrade, allowing users to turn 2D artwork into 3D elements without leaving the After Effects environment.
The initial shipments of ATI Technologies' FIRE GL 8800 are going to Hewlett-Packard for inclusion in upcoming technical workstations. The FIRE GL 8800 affords a choice of software drivers for the most popular workstation operating system environments: Windows 2000/Windows NT and Linux with fully hardware-accelerated OpenGL capabilities.
Also, ATI has introduced THEATER 200, an advanced single chip analog video decoder and stereo audio processor supporting major worldwide broadcast standards. The THEATER 200 is designed for use in consumer electronic equipment requiring high quality video and audio capture such as multimedia PC to TV video graphics cards, Set-Top Boxes, Analog Personal Video Recorders, LCD TVs, and other multimedia platforms.
URL: http://www.ati.com
There is a funded PhD place available in the Department of Computer Science, University College London, UK. This is to research into any aspect of mixed-reality/virtual reality environments. The research that is under way includes VR/mixed reality systems, interaction in urban environments (mixed reality settings), psycho-therapy applications (social phobia, agoraphobia), rendering large crowds and general issues of rendering. The research is funded under the Equator project. Since this is funded by the UK research agency EPSRC, only EU citizens are eligible to receive funding support.
URL: http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/research/equator/
URL: http://www.epsrc.ac.uk
URL: http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/research/vr
For extensive information about events relevant to the European VR/i3D community, see the events pages on El.pub: for Europe: base05.htm, for the rest of the world: connone.htm
| About VREfresh news Each edition of virtual reality news is now published on a separate page, ensuring that links (particularly from VREfresh) continue to remain current. To view news from previous issues, please use the navigation buttons below. |
VREfresh Email alerter of news items and associated URLs, send an email with your name, organisation, country (and for the US a zip code) to the Editor via the link above. |
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