Friday, December 31, 2010
Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST)
FAAST is free software that uses the OpenNI framework (www.openni.org). The developers at USC are currently preparing the toolkit for an open-source release. You can download FAAST at: http://people.ict.usc.edu/~suma/faast/
Evan A. Suma, Belinda Lange, Skip Rizzo, David Krum, and Mark Bolas
Institute for Creative Technologies
University of Southern California
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Kinect-like technology for the iPad
Elliptic Labs to bring Kinect-like technology to the iPad
via:edibleapple.com
Microsoft’s Kinect add-on to the Xbox 360 certainly provides a new twist to traditional gaming. In case you’re unfamiliar, Kinect enables gamers to control on-screen action by using their bodies. Kinect works via 3D motion sensing technology which can detect an array of gestures and even facial features - and now comes word that similar gesture-recognition technology will be hitting the iPad, though not directly from Apple.
MobileMag reports that Elliptic Labs will reveal their Touchless Gesture User Interface technology at CES 2011. Elliptic Labs sprung forth from the signal processing environment at the University of Oslo and what they’ve come up with is an iPod dock which creates a “touchless zone” that extends out about 1 foot in front and to the sides of the iPad screen. Users can then initiate a number of gestures to manipulate onscreen content. As an example, users can swipe their hands in the air to scroll threw icons or various pages on an app. Another supported gesture is the ability to start and stop a song from playing by pushing one’s hand towards the iPad.
via:edibleapple.com
Thursday, December 23, 2010
MicroVision SHOWWX+™ Laser Pico Projector App Demo - RAGE HD
The number of companies developing pico projectors now stands at 18, and is growing. The list includes pico projection heavy weights like Himax, Micron Displaytech, Microvision and Texas Instruments.
The Heads up Display (HUD) market represents another and potentially larger and more disruptive opportunity for this technology and Microvision. The company has established partnerships with tier 1 automotive companies to develop the next generation of HUD displays for vehicles and recently inked a deal with Pioneer to collaborate to commercialize HUD using its PicoP® technology. The HUD market is not limited to the auto market as there are similar applications in aviation and marine vessels. The company is also applying its projection technologies to Head Worn displays for military and other mobile device eyewear.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Kinect & Avatar Control
Openni Sinbad Sample Application By Primesense
This Israel-based company’s flagship product is a microchip that hears sounds and reads real-world motions and translates them into a 3D grid that devices can process. Founded in 2005, PrimeSense gained prominence last March 2010 when Microsoft announced it would be using its motion sensor technology in Kinect, its 3D videogame system.
http://www.primesense.com/
This Israel-based company’s flagship product is a microchip that hears sounds and reads real-world motions and translates them into a 3D grid that devices can process. Founded in 2005, PrimeSense gained prominence last March 2010 when Microsoft announced it would be using its motion sensor technology in Kinect, its 3D videogame system.
http://www.primesense.com/
All Quiet on the Martian Front
From: okreylos | December 20, 2010 | 54,097 views
Remote collaboration between two sites. 3D video is generated by one Kinect camera at each site.
Many thanks to Dr. Serban Porumbescu, who took time out of his busy schedule finishing multiple iPhone apps to ham it up with me in the virtual world.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Imagination Technologies buys ray-tracing company Caustic Graphics
Imagination Technologies has bought Caustic Graphics in what could be a major boost to the graphics on future iPhones and Android devices.
Now this is interesting since Imagination & now Caustic are in a chip battle with ARM for the low power, Smartphone/Pad/Tablet market, not unlike Nvidia and AMD/ATI in the PC world. I believe we will see realtime CG quality graphics on low power devices before we see widespread addoption on PCs & Laptops since the mobil market is were all the action really is today. I am afraid Intel & Microsoft (Windows 8) are already late to the party.
Does LL & SL have a future or will it be left behind?. Comments welcome.
Read more at electronista:
From electronista.com
Read even more:
TI's dual-core 1.5GHz OMAP 4440 promises 1080p 3D for phones
updated 11:25 am EST, Wed December 8, 2010
TI unveils dual-core OMAP 4440 for phones, tablets
TI teased a major performance boost for smartphones and tablets today by unveiling the OMAP 4440. The design uses a dual-core, up to 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor at its heart, already representing a leap, but also adding two Cortex-M3 cores to shoulder tasks that need to be handled in real-time. It marks a 50 percent overall speed boost over current chips and is fast to enable 3D video, even in 1080p, and 3D photos from two 12-megapixel cameras.
The design should load websites about 30 percent faster and catches up to rivals with a PowerVR SGX540 core that should be about 25 percent faster for games and other 3D-intensive tasks. It can handle HDMI 1.4 video output, including 3D, and supports two-way 1080p 2D video chat or multiple users at 720p.
Test samples should reach companies early next year and should lead to full-scale production in the second half of that year. TI didn't name companies making phones and slates with the OMAP 4440, but Motorola and Palm have been the two most eager adoptees of the OMAP line and could see major leaps in performance.
In the nearer term, the OMAP 4430 is due to reach finished devices early next year and will have much of the same design but at a lower 1GHz speed that limits it to 720p 3D. It may be the heart of Motorola's Android 3.0 tablet and possibly webOS devices like the HP PalmPad.
Now this is interesting since Imagination & now Caustic are in a chip battle with ARM for the low power, Smartphone/Pad/Tablet market, not unlike Nvidia and AMD/ATI in the PC world. I believe we will see realtime CG quality graphics on low power devices before we see widespread addoption on PCs & Laptops since the mobil market is were all the action really is today. I am afraid Intel & Microsoft (Windows 8) are already late to the party.
Does LL & SL have a future or will it be left behind?. Comments welcome.
Read more at electronista:
- http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/12/14/imagination.buys.caustic.boosts.powervr.video/#ixzz18BXMFLKf
- http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/12/14/imagination.buys.caustic.boosts.powervr.video/
Apple partner Imagination acquires 'cinema quality' graphics chipmaker Imagination, the maker of the PowerVR SGX graphics processor found in Apple's iOS devices, has acquired the developer of real-time ray tracing graphics technology, which could end up in future Apple hardware.From Hexis.net
Imagination Technologies on Tuesday announced the acquisition of Caustic Graphics for $27 million. Caustic creates ray tracing technology, a technique for rendering three-dimensional graphics with complex and more natural lighting models.
The company said the ray tracing technology allows for "cinema quality 3D," and photorealistic graphics that are impractical with current graphics technology.
"Ray tracing is a key additional technology that traditionally has been regarded as the exclusive domain of specialized markets and non real-time applications," said Hossein Yassaie, chief executive of Imagination. "We intend to change that.
Yassaie said the acquisition for $27 million will allow Imagination to create even more advanced graphics technology in the future. Caustic's patented hardware and software technology allows for more powerful and less expensive ray tracing.
When contacted by AppleInsider, a spokesman for Caustic said any comments would need to come from Imagination. A request from Imagination was not returned as of Tuesday morning.
In 2008, AppleInsider revealed that Apple purchased a 3 percent stake in Imagination Technologies Group, maker of the PowerVR mobile graphics hardware. Last June, the Mac maker bumped its stake to 9.5 percent. The iPhone maker is also a licensee of the company's technology.
"The most exciting consumer technologies have always started in the professional industry until someone finds the right way to cost engineer and optimise power consumption of those technologies," said Imagination CEO Hossein Yassaie. "Ray-tracing is a key additional technology that traditionally has been regarded as the exclusive domain of specialised markets and non real-time applications. We intend to change that."
"We are therefore delighted to have reached agreement to acquire Caustic with its outstanding engineering team. The acquisition will enable us to accelerate our plans to be the leading supplier of all forms of graphics technologies in all markets and to continue our mission of delivering the most advanced graphics technologies to mainstream markets."
So, at some time in the future, Caustic technology will be integrated into Imagination's POWERVR cores, which are licensed by the likes of TI and Intel, and we'll be viewing photo-realistic animations on our mobile phones. Cool. And let's not forget, Imagination also licenses its cores to the games console market and clearly has its sights set on other, larger, computing devices.
From electronista.com
Read even more:
- http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/12/08/ti.unveils.dual.core.omap.4440.for.phones.tablets/
- http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/12/14/imagination.buys.caustic.boosts.powervr.video/
TI's dual-core 1.5GHz OMAP 4440 promises 1080p 3D for phones
updated 11:25 am EST, Wed December 8, 2010
TI unveils dual-core OMAP 4440 for phones, tablets
TI teased a major performance boost for smartphones and tablets today by unveiling the OMAP 4440. The design uses a dual-core, up to 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor at its heart, already representing a leap, but also adding two Cortex-M3 cores to shoulder tasks that need to be handled in real-time. It marks a 50 percent overall speed boost over current chips and is fast to enable 3D video, even in 1080p, and 3D photos from two 12-megapixel cameras.
The design should load websites about 30 percent faster and catches up to rivals with a PowerVR SGX540 core that should be about 25 percent faster for games and other 3D-intensive tasks. It can handle HDMI 1.4 video output, including 3D, and supports two-way 1080p 2D video chat or multiple users at 720p.
Test samples should reach companies early next year and should lead to full-scale production in the second half of that year. TI didn't name companies making phones and slates with the OMAP 4440, but Motorola and Palm have been the two most eager adoptees of the OMAP line and could see major leaps in performance.
In the nearer term, the OMAP 4430 is due to reach finished devices early next year and will have much of the same design but at a lower 1GHz speed that limits it to 720p 3D. It may be the heart of Motorola's Android 3.0 tablet and possibly webOS devices like the HP PalmPad.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Another Great Kinect Hack
MIT engineer Garratt Gallagher developed a way to use the Kinect sensor to distinguish both hands and individual fingers in a cloud of more than 60,000 points, at speeds up to 30 frames per second.
The system uses the Kinect and the libfreenect driver for interfacing with Linux. "The graphical interface and the hand detection software were written at MIT to interface with the open source robotics package 'ROS,' developed by Willow Garage (willowgarage.com)," according to MIT's CSAIL page on YouTube.
"The hand detection software showcases the abilities of the Point Cloud Library (PCL), a part of ROS that MIT has been helping to optimize."
via: XtremeTech
Friday, December 10, 2010
Small Houses
I have been using Tumblr like a scrapbook. Here is a link to one of these collections: http://kissdesign.tumblr.com/archive
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
From the AMD Graphics Blog: - Tessellation for All
"Tessellation is a terrific tool to deliver more realism and visual fidelity. However, careless use of the technology can quickly overwhelm the GPU and cause it to perform less efficiently with no visible benefit in image quality. Here are some potential pitfalls that can happen when tessellation is employed incorrectly:"
Read it HERE:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)