Skip to main content

News Archives

   

OpenSceneGraph 2.0 release introduces a new multi-threaded, multi-gpu viewer library which integrate with a wide range of windowing toolkits, a new shadow library, a new interactive manipulator library and new threading models that make the most of modern multi-core CPUs. The latest release also includes and wide range of feature and performance enhancements including updates to COLLADA and OpenFlight support. OpenSceneGraph v2.0 supports OpenGL 1.1 through to OpenGL 2.1, including OpenGL Shader Language and Vertex/Pixel/FrameBufferOjbects, and runs on Windows, Linux, OSX, Solaris, IRIX, HP-Ux, AIX and FreeBSD.

   

ArcGIS 9.3 is being incrementally released in a series of service packs with emphasis on refining and improving workflows; the bulk of the product is to be released next year. ArcMap being one of the additions shared during the ESRI User Conference: Label placement for contour maps will better match what users of USGS quad sheets expect. In particular, the contour elevation labels appear on the major contour intervals and do not overprint the line work. The new release introduces WYSIWYG editing for line work and improvements will be made to street number placement, support for Asian language characters, multiple view windows, labeling on 3D services, the speed of import of Web services, tracking in 3D, textured COLLADA and schematic diagramming.

   

Google Earth adds shading to all SketchUp models to make them look more realistic. For something like my sky-dome model this is problematical because it means the texture is unevenly lit and too dark. With some very minor editing of the Google Earth ( COLLADA ) model file in a text editor, it’s possible to turn this shading completely off for individual textures. This was exactly what I did for the Skydome Google Earth file posted a couple of days ago. The split-screen picture shows the before and after. The original is on the left.

   

Big Nerd Ranch Europe announced today the first offering of Rocco Bowling’s five-day OpenGL Bootcamp at the old monastery Kloster Eberbach near Frankfurt, Germany, for September 10-14, 2007. In modern application development OpenGL has become the standard-bearer in the visualization of 2D and 3D images in a wide spectrum of fields, from visually enhanced user experiences in general, to medical research and pharmaceuticals, rich data visualization, in addition to video gaming. Today, everyone doing any work concerning graphics must know OpenGL. Through the vision and dedication of the OpenGL community and the OpenGL ARB, OpenGL excels in cross-platform portability and scalability, adaptable to a variety of hardware environments from individual workstations to supercomputers.

   

Lightsprint, developer of realtime global illumination middleware, integrated all of its products into single Lightsprint SDK, including unique realtime global illumination engine, precomputed global illumination, lightmaps and ambient occlusion maps with infinite light bounces and color bleeding, COLLADA support, significant portion of source code and more.

   

The fourth edition of OpenGL Pipeline—the quarterly newsletter covering all things the OpenGL standards body has “in the pipeline”—covers a bunch of exciting news and tips: from updates about OpenGL “Longs Peak” to mobile shaders and debugging.

Topics in this issue include:

  • Climbing OpenGL Longs Peak, Camp 3: An OpenGL ARB Progress Update
  • Shaders Go Mobile: Announcing OpenGL ES 2.0
  • Longs Peak Update: Buffer Object Improvements
  • Another Object Lesson
  • Transforming OpenGL Debugging to a “White Box” Model

   

The big news of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s annual DevStation 07 conference was the session on the rollout of features for the Home community service. Currently undergoing a closed beta, it will launch globally in October. In between now and then, there will be monthly SDK releases, as more advanced features are rolled out. The current pre-release version only supports the use of Maya for the creation of 3D assets, while v1.0 will add 3ds Max and COLLADA support.

   

Tom Hume over at www.tomhume.org has done a quick round up of comments from some major players in the Mobile phone market. Here are a couple of out-takes. Oscar Clark, nVidia: “OpenKODE is important because it lets you do source portability. Java was supposed to do this, but hasn’t delivered the full power of it.” Bill Pinnell, Product Manager, Graphics & Gaming, Symbian: Khronos API allows hardware manufacturers to target a single platform as well as software developers. Read the complete round up.

   

Aplix a global leader in Java™ technology for mobile and embedded devices and SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp a major Japanese wireless communication operator, recently announced their agreement to co-develop a common software platform named “Portable Open Platform Initiative” (POP-i™), which will allow value-added applications to run consistently upon multiple mobile platforms being adopted by handset manufacturers, including EMP OPA, Linux®, Microsoft® Windows Mobile®, QUALCOMM® AMSS/BREW®, Symbian™ OS.. Aplix has been contributing to SOFTBANK MOBILE’s “POP-i” specification work, and will provide a corresponding framework for SOFTBANK MOBILE’s next-generation mobile multimedia service offerings. Applying OpenKODE®, a key API standard for multimedia applications, “POP-i” provides a cross-platform abstraction layer for various media technologies.

   

A new 300 page Jon Peddie Research Report on Semiconductor Opportunities in Handheld Market is now available. The report Identifies Sectors for Growth, Predicts Consolidation, Forecasts Trends. Marketing and consulting firm Jon Peddie Research announced the release of its latest 300-page report, Handheld Multimedia Devices 2nd Edition. The report is based on two years of extensive research and identifies opportunities in multimedia for semiconductor, IP, software, sensors and tuner suppliers in handheld devices such as mobile phones. JPR has been studying, lecturing worldwide, and reporting on the handheld market since 2000 and has widely canvassed the companies and individuals in this field to obtain product information, trend data, market sizing and forecasts, and competitive issues for the current report.

   

DX Studio announces the release of DX Studio v2.0. DX Studio is a complete integrated development environment for creating interactive 3D graphics on Win2k/XP/Vista. The system comprises of both a real-time 3D engine and a suite of editing tools, and is the first product to offer a complete range of tools in a single IDE. Some of the features include full COLLADA support for models, new per-pixel lighting model, per-pixel bump and specular map support, fully integrated model editor including extrusion, lofting, UV mapping, boolean operations and much more, materials, animations and skins, new material editor and much more.

   

Adobe Systems Incorporated and Google Inc. announced the Photoshop® CS3 Extended plug-in for the Google 3D Warehouse, enabling Adobe® Photoshop CS3 Extended users to take further advantage of the software’s powerful compositing, painting and image-editing toolset for editing 3D content. Once downloaded, the plug-in opens a dialog box that connects directly to Google’s 3D Warehouse via the Internet. Users can browse and search the 3D Warehouse for content, and download and save selections to their hard drive. Downloaded models will be saved in the COLLADA format. With support for industry standard 3D formats, including COLLADA, Photoshop CS3 Extended opens 3D models as 3D layers. The plugin is available here.

Loading...

End of content

No more pages to load