Qualcomm's prototype reference mobile devices

From the world of high-powered mobile devices/UMPCs two prototypes from Qualcomm that look particularly appetizing. The company is showing off a pair of reference designs showcasing its new Snapdragon chipset, a heap of silicon said to offer one of the best power to performance ratios in the mobile world. First up, the Fairbanks, Qualcomm's idea of what a next-gen dedicated GPS unit might look like, equipped with a 3 megapixel still / video camera, TV tuner, and microSD expansion on some sort of custom Windows CE base.

Next up, the Anchorage (pictured above) does the typical slide-out QWERTY smartphone concept in pure style with one critical difference - this one is humming along at a staggering 1GHz. It's got pretty much every kind of radio one could want or need and apparently has enough horsepower to hoist a full operating system. While these two will not see the retail market for some time, they do showcase in the best way where next-gen smartphones or even UMPCs are heading in the next year/year and a half...

Making of: The Old Fox

Another very interesting urban modelling making of, this time however of an individual building, can be found at the excellent 3D Total website, by Sandro Ghezzani. According to Sandro his influences on this particular piece of work was American, English and Norwegian architecture revivals: neo-gothic and neo-classic.

Being impressed by these styles, he began to do some research using the Internet as well as using some reference pictures from books. After that he came up with some sketches which would be the starting ground for the modelling. So the Old Fox cottage was born...

What is particularly interesting with this is that this tutorial/making of focuses on a single-building project thus highlighting a lot of the smaller, finer details sometimes lost in similar project overviews that cover whole scenes... Well worth a look if you decide to model a building of any era or style in a manual way!

The tutorial can be found at:

http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials_2/makingof_theoldfox/oldfox_01.asp.

Wii remote coupled with Virtual Earth?

As of September 2007, Nintendo has sold over 13 million Wii game consoles. This significantly exceeds the number of Tablet PCs in use today according to even the most generous estimates of Tablet PC sales making the Wii remote one of the most common computer input devices in the world. It also happens to be one of the most sophisticated containing a 1024x768 infrared camera with built-in hardware blob tracking of up to 4 points at 100Hz. This significantly outperforms any PC webcam available today. It also contains a +/-3g 8-bit 3-axis accelerometer also operating at 100Hz and an expandsion port for even more capability.

Bearing all this mind, it is of no surprise that the Wii remote is an area ripe for research other than gaming. One of the most interesting mini projects I've seen so far is the following which couples the innovative device with Virtual Earth.

Virtual Earth is the 3D interface to Microsoft's Live Maps service. Normally this control is loaded via the web browser and allows interaction with a keyboard, mouse, and Xbox 360 controller. In the video above, the Virtual Earth control is taken out of the web browser, used in a WinForms application and controlled with a Nintendo Wii Remote (Wiimote). The results are in my opinion fascinating.

For a technical breakdown of the project check the following link http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2007/10/18/5506286.aspx.

High quality 3D foliage libraries available

Graphics studio and publisher Marlin Studios has released two new libraries of low polygon photorealistic tree models: TreeFarm Deciduous Trees on DVD and TreeFarm Palm Trees on CD-Rom. Available in max, obj and lwo formats, the textured models can be used in most any 3D software application. The tree models are particularly useful to animators involved in visualisation, game development, virtual reality, film and video, and any mainstream animation project.

The roots, trunk and limbs of each tree have been meticulously modeled and textured with multiple maps. The twigs and leaves are planar objects mapped with alpha textures and bump maps, with additional maps for diffusion, specularity and sub-surface scattering (translucency). The result is up to nine texture maps per tree. The multiple mapping results in photorealistic effects previously only available in high polygon count trees that are 30 times the size and 10 times the price per tree. Plenty of landscaping and full, natural trees are available.

“Since 3D trees were first created, there has always been a tradeoff between high and low poly trees,“ said company president and art director Tom Marlin. “You either got low quality with a high quantity of trees, or high quality only with a just a few trees. Now the paradigm shifts with TreeFarm models, offering photorealism with low poly trees”. TreeFarm Deciduous Trees offers 1450 pretextured tree models, consisting of 58 tree objects, with five distinct leaf types and five colors per leaf. With seven optional bark textures and a bonus leaf texture, the total number of combinations could exceed 10,000 different looking trees. A comprehensive browser-based index, including animations and thumbnails, is available with each library.

TreeFarm Palm Trees offers 90 pretextured tree models, consisting of 18 different palm tree objects and five colors per palm frond. The average palm tree model contains 1600 polygons and palm frond maps are also 1024×1024 pixels. Mixing and matching palm fronds and barks result in hundreds of different looks for the palm trees. TreeFarm Deciduous Trees sells for a special introductory price of $299 USD plus s/h, while TreeFarm Palm Trees sells at the introductory price of $239.

http://www.marlinstudios.com/products/treefarm/treefarm.html

Papervision, the new VRML?

Being fed up with the limitations Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML), an essential part of my current research work, is posing, especially when it comes to delivering quality real-time graphics, it is interesting to see where 3D web plug-ins can go in the future. While VRML to this day seems to be the main proposition (and has been for a number of years now), the new kid on the block, offering a lot more potential than its older counterpart, is Papervision.

The engine entered public beta in July 2007 with a number of tutorials and demos emerging online at an ever increasing pace with the key to Papervision according to many being its open source nature and its integration with Flash, a plugin that to be honest is no longer a plugin but an essential component of many websites. What I personally find even more interesting in Papervision is the added graphical features it has compared to the aged VRML, the support of bump mapping being one prime example.

While it is anyone's guess whether Papervision will replace VRML as the standard 3D web plug-in of choice, it remains a very exciting proposition indeed. For more information check the official site here.

Making Of: Dead City

It is sometimes very easy to forget how effective manual urban modelling can be, especially when championing/researching (delete the appropriate one!) automated or semi-automated methods. However, mini-projects like the one described in this post serve as a great reminder as to how precise manual modelling can be, especially when tackling smaller urban areas.

In form of an excellent, making-of-structured, tutorial, Andrej Majewski takes us through the development of an urban scene titled Dead City, an area resembling a ghost town, taken entirely from photographic material and then translated in 3D using Photoshop, Softimage XSI and the VRay renderer.

Andrej covers all the important aspects of the workflow followed including texturing, lighting, modelling and creating assorted details such as vegetation and street structures. It should be noted here that the attention to detail throughout is impeccable, something that can be easily seen in the results, which brings me to the question whether an automated urban modelling system could ever be developed that can replicate a process like this (including the dedication shown to it) fully...

In any case, the tutorial can be found here and is well worth checking out, especially if you've ever attempted to model a real-world urban area in a photorealistic counterpart.

Article in IEEE Virtual Reality 2008 Workshop on Virtual Cityscapes

I've just received confirmation that I will be presenting a position statement paper I authored at the IEEE Virtual Reality 2008 Workshop on Virtual Cityscapes, a workshop taking place during the very prestigious annual IEEE Virtual Reality conference. This will be taking place on March the 8th and 9th at the Silver Legacy Resort Casino at Reno Nevada, USA.

The title of the publication I am presenting is "Towards Rapid Generation And Visualisation Of Large 3D Urban Landscapes for Mobile Device Navigation" and is quite fitting with the overall theme of the workshop which focuses mostly on key research issues in modeling large-scale immersive urban environments. For more information check the link below, I will of course post a full report on the workshop when I return from it, so check this space for an upcoming post on this!

http://gamma.cs.unc.edu/VR08_Cityscapes/

Computer graphics & Virtual Reality related journals

Picking up from the previous posts on conferences that focus on the computer graphics and virtual reality field, here's a list of scientific journals that address the same area. While the list is by no means comprehensive, (and any suggestions for additions are more than welcome!) it is a collection of a number of publications that will interest people, like myself, intending to submit their research results to something other than conferences...

IEEE Computer Graphics And Applications (Publisher: IEEE)

IEEE Transactions On Visualization And Computer Graphics (Publisher: IEEE)

ACM Transactions On Graphics (Publisher: ACM)

The Visual Computer journal (Publisher: Springer)

Virtual Reality journal (Publisher: Springer)

Computing And Visualization In Science journal (Publisher: Springer)

Computer Graphics Forum journal (Publisher: Blackwell Publishing)

Journal Of Virtual Reality And Broadcasting (Publisher: Digital Peer Publishing)

Computer Animation And Virtual Worlds journal (Publisher: Wiley)

The International Journal Of Virtual Reality (Publisher: IPI Press)

Graphical Models journal (Publisher: Elsevier)

Computers And Graphics (Publisher: Elsevier)

Sony's Home: the answer to Second Life?

An interesting piece of news and a long-awaited product launch on this is expected from Sony, who hoping to replicate the success of social networks and Second Life in particular is working on a PS3 feature called Home. Playstation 3 gamers will be able to meet, chat and share content with friends inside a 3D universe. "It's about community, collaboration and customisation," said Sony's Phil Harrison at the recent Game Developers Conference, in San Francisco. Gamers can buy furniture and clothes, while publishers and retailers are also expected to offer 3D spaces. A teaser clip can be seen below.

Mr Harrison also debuted titles for PlayStation 3 at the San Francisco conference that would leverage the success of social networks such as MySpace and FaceBook. For example, an online version of karaoke title Singstar will let gamers share video clips of their vocal efforts and leave comments for other players. "The industry is on the threshold of a new era of creativity, collaboration, communication and commerce embedded into an experience to empower games," Mr Harrison said.

My personal opinion on this is that apart from the obvious benefits of having another virtual reality world portal out there, Sony is also trying to push the graphics capabilities of such an excursion to its very limits (unlike Second Life that seemed dated in that area almost from the day it was launched!), witness features such as real-time shadows etc. as shown on the YouTube link above...

Upcoming computer graphics-related conferences in 2008 Part 2

Following from November's post here's another few links of some interesting computer graphics conferences taking place in the first half of the next year. Note that most of them have their upcoming deadlines in the next few weeks/months!

SBIM 2008
Fifth Eurographics Workshop on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling (Annecy, France)

EGITA

6th Eurographics Italian Conference (Salerno, Italy)

CAE 2008

International Symposium on Computational Aesthetics in Graphics, Visualization, and Imaging (Lisbon, Portugal)

EGSR

19th Eurographics Symposium On Rendering (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina)

CONVR 2008

8th International Conference on Construction Application of Virtual Reality (Kuala Lampur, Malaysia)

SCCG 2008

24th Spring Conference on Computer Graphics (Bratislava, Slovakia)

GraphiCon 2008

18th International Conference on Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, Image and Video processing (Moscow, Russia)

EGUK 2008

26th Eurographics UK chapter conference (Manchester, UK)

EGVE 2008

14th Eurographics Symposium On Virtual Environments (Eindhoven, Netherlands)

3DTV 2008

International Conference On The True Vision, Capture, Transmission And Display Of 3D Video (Istanbul, Turkey)

Virtual Manchester

I have tried to feature other UK virtual city models in the past, here's another attempt, this time at rainy Manchester...

The model is created by ARUP, a global firm of designers, engineers, planners and business consultants providing a diverse range of professional services to clients around the world. They have a long reputation in city modelling through their in-house research teams and the Manchester model is testament to this.

While I would like to gripe a bit about the lack of textured meshes, there are several things great about the work shown in the movie above, most notably the transport planning section shown half way through the movie. The model covers 4562 buildings and 15 spatial zones so understandably on a large scale such as this one roof structures and textured facades are somewhat lacking. Even so this remains a fine effort on modelling a major UK city in 3D and well worth checking out.

How to build a 3D virtual city in 5 minutes tutorial

For what is the first post of 2008 (happy new year everyone by the way!) something I spotted on the excellent Digital Urban blog a few days ago. Have you ever wondered on how you could create a detailed, textured 3D virtual city model for an impressive demo visualisation in under 5 minutes? Well courtesy of YouTube and FreeTutorials, you can now have a go at that!

While the modelling package used in the video above is Bryce (which personally I have little experience of), I found it easy enough to adapt the technique to something like Discreet's 3D Studio Max. Indeed I would imagine the technique of using simple height maps to generate the basic mesh could be adapted to just about any other package.

Mobile devices used as a barcode to replace paper tickets?

An interesting piece of news I spotted this week is that the UK Chiltern Railways line has set-up a system where you can prebook tickets and have the barcode stored on your mobile device (and by that I mean PDA and not cellphone) removing the need for paper tickets. To my knowledge this is the first time I see this in the UK. However another company in the travelling sector, Continental Airlines in the US, is also trialing this. Could this be the latest trend in mobile device usage?

It's certainly an exciting concept and I will be curious to see what the outcomes are and indeed whether anybody else will be keen to adopt this... According to many, a number of organisations have in the past tried to use mobile devices as barcode scanners with not a lot of success, usually because of the challenges of lighting conditions.

This reversal however seems very useful as long as the passengers are using mobile devices capable of displaying a barcode. Also this could well be extended to commercial applications beyond travelling such as event tickets etc.

Virtual worlds and the US elections

One of the best indications of the importance of virtual worlds in everyday life is their recent, albeit tentative, involvement in US politics. As part of a much broader online poll, Senator Hillary Clinton is asking participants about their gaming and virtual worlds habits. The campaign asks "which of the following have you visited or played online? Sim City, Second Life, Sims, None of the above, Other, Don't know."

It should be noted that while some other Democratic presidential candidates, like Kucinich, have made entrances into campaigning in Second Life, more frequently strategists seem to be recommending against that. Clinton's strategist didn't participate however so it may well be that she's also gearing up for a virtual campaign. Another possibility is that with virtual worlds taking on more of a role in government and government taking a role on in virtual worlds, that this could be associated more with questions about policy. Finally, it could simply be taste polling to determine what's hip nowadays with the Web kids.

In any case it is fascinating to see virtual landscapes taken so seriously these days as to actually be a part of the US election process, it certainly makes a huge difference from them being regarded as outlet for computer geeks, which was certainly the case a few years ago.

Earthmine, a new approach to rapid 3D urban modelling

Recently I was made aware of a new, and seemingly incredibly effective, automatic rapid 3D virtual city modelling approach called Earthmine. In short, the system adopts use of stereo panoramas to extract 3D information thus presenting a rapid way to both create and populate a 3D model in a way that is easily understandable. The video below can take you through the process in a more detailed manner.

Earthmine has just put out a release that states: "earthmineinc., 3D street side mapping company today announced it has finalized an exclusive agreement with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to license 3D data generation software and algorithms created by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and utilized on the Mars Exploration Rover Missions. earthmine recently unveiled its ground-breaking technology for collecting and delivering street-level three dimensional geospatial information for cities. The agreement with JPL and Caltech includes an exclusive and perpetual license for photogrammetric technology that allows for the creation of very dense and accurate 3D data from stereo panoramic imagery."

I am eagerly awaiting a more developed proposition from Earthmine as this piece of news, plus of course the method demonstrated in their vid, definitely looks like the way forward for rapid urban modelling, till then keep checking their site at http://earthmine.com/.

VirtuSphere, the future of immersive virtual reality?

The Redmond-based company VirtuSphere has developed a unique virtual reality sphere which allows a person to walk, jump and even run while wearing a special wireless VR glasses. This device which can only be described as ultra-immersive VR has already been tested by the U.S. Office of Naval Research and is currently on the market for whoever can afford the $50-100k price tag.

So, how does it work? The VirtuSphere consists of a large hollow sphere that sits on top of a base allowing the sphere to rotate 360 degrees. Wearing a wireless, head-mounted display, users can step inside the sphere to fully interact in immersive virtual environments. The VirtuSphere enables 6 degrees of freedom so one can move in any direction, walk, jump, roll, crawl, run over virtually unlimited distances without encountering any real-world physical obstacles.

The VirtuSphere was designed for multiple applications and possible consumers including a military simulator for training exercises, VR technology for the electronic gaming industry and also an advanced tool for professionals such as architects, real estate agents and all others who can use virtual walkthroughs in a 3D environment.

A great selling point of the device and also something I see as hugely revolutionary is that unlike other events taking place in the virtual world (such as say shooting enemies in Half-Life) here one will actually feel the pain of the fall! VirtuSphere claims that in 99% of the cases you should be able to get up by yourself and that falling in the VirtuSphere may be less traumatic, as by design the sphere rotates on the supporting platform and a lot of the fall impact is absorbed. Still not so sure I want to try that (isn't the sphere made of steel!?!) but the concept of this does nonetheless sound amazing!

Obviously, the main issue holding up mass adoption of this immersive VR technology is the price but as with all new technologies as time goes by prices will drop and the technology will become more wide spread. I for one am looking very forward to see this sphere involved in research projects as it looks like it could assist in exploring avenues that were virtually impossible to access before...

GPS for the iPhone?

With the exciting rumour of a TomTom GPS for the iPhone doing the rounds recently now sadly shot down in flames, it is exciting to see someone else rising up to the challenge. After all as a navigation aid, the iPhone offers way too much potential, not to mention market place, not to be developed in a commercial proposition. Engineering firm partfoundry is taking a confirmed stab at developing a custom, purpose-built GPS module that slots into the iPhone's port, delivering 16 channels of satellite reception to the software of the user's choice.

The last part does sound a bit like partfoundry will be requiring jailbreaked phones and also a large reliance on the developer community to serve up applications capable of processing the module's output and making decent use of it. At the moment the current plan is to get these GPS modules out in February, priced at a modest $89. Finally, plans are already underway for a stylish plastic enclosure as well. Check the following link for more details http://partfoundry.com/iphonegps.html

GPS-enabled cruise control car by Nissan

While I have featured posts on GPS navigation before, here is something different albeit in the very same field. While radar-based cruise control systems are quickly becoming par for the (luxury!) course, Nissan is upping the ante with a new setup that integrates the on-board navigation system to adjust vehicle speed. The system works by capturing route information from the Sat Nav, anticipating curves and then adjusting speed for the corner plus also resuming acceleration once the turn is complete.

A highlight of the system is the Distance Control Assist feature. This essentially ensures that drivers are aware of an impending disaster, even with their foot on the accelerator, by pushing the gas pedal against the driver's foot. When and if the system detects things are going to go sour, it will play audio warning and also display a message telling the driver to hit the brakes pronto!

While the automation the GPS cruise control system Nissan seems to be inclined to introduce does take a lot of fun out of driving it has to be said that it does use the technology in an ideal way while pushing forward GPS car applications to their very limits. Also, let's face it, when cruise control was introduced it was greeted with a lot of sceptisism too and that didn't seem to deter a number of car manufacturers using it on their higher-priced vehicles to this day...

Turning Torso building SketchUp tutorial in 3D World magazine

For all urban modellers out there, there is a fantastic tutorial on issue 99 (which just came out in the UK) of the excellent 3D World magazine. Tim Danaher shows you how to model, in Google's SketchUp, your own version of one of the world‘s most striking modern buildings: the 'Turning Torso'. Designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, this 54-floor skyscraper in Malmo, Sweden, presents a unique challenge to SketchUp artists.

In the walkthrough in the magazine, Tim explores how to create a single storey of the building, twist it, duplicate it into a six-storey module, then use this as a building block for the finished model.

You can download the full-sized screenshots and supporting files from the link below, while you're at it there's many other free tutorials on the mag's site well worthy of every modeller's attention.

http://mos.futurenet.com/resources/3dworld/TDW99.t_sketchup.zip

NVIDIA launching GeForce 9 series in February

Details are unsurprisingly light on this one, but DigiTimes (http://www.digitimes.com/) has it that nVIDIA is gearing up to launch its next-generation GPU in a few months time.

According to reports and sources close to graphics card makers it has been revealed that the GeForce 9 series will include the D9E, a "high-end product that adopts 65-nanometer manufacturing", supports DirectX 10.1 and Shader Model 4.1 and the mid-range D9P, which will supposedly adopt 55-nanometer processing.

Apparently, the former will be the first product in the new family, while the latter won't see light until June. All this, while more or less on rumour and speculation stage at the moment, is an indication where one of two biggest graphics card makers is heading at in the New Year.