I ran across this product and had to include it in the inspirational blog somewhere. This is such a great example of a well executed simple idea. Inspired product + well designed execution = success!
Link to website
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Powerfully Simple - IdeaPaint
I ran across this product and had to include it in the inspirational blog somewhere. This is such a great example of a well executed simple idea. Inspired product + well designed execution = success!
Link to website
Unique MCPC business concept - Writing on the wall
Here is a great example of a well executed simple concept making a mark in the world of Mass Customization and Personalization (MCPC).
Link to Wonderful Graffiti
With new funding by Caterpillar, robots are closer to building our homes
via 2modern.comIf Behrokh Koshnevis has his way we may soon see the first house entirely constructed by robots. Koshnevis, a professor of engineering at the University of Southern California is revolutionizing the process of CAD/CAM technology, which 'prints' out a computer model as 3-D object using layers of plastic. Kohsnevis' Contour Crafting automated system uses a giant computer-guided nozzle to lay down layers of concrete, while the machine's robotic trowels give the walls shape.
Now Caterpillar, the world's biggest maker of construction equipment, has announced it will fund research of Koshnevis' robotic building machines through a grant to the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. The goal is to build a complete house in just a single day. This not just a way to crank out cheap suburban tract homes-thought that's clearly on the minds of executives at Caterpillar. Koshnevis makes the case that this technology could provide affordable housing for millions in poverty or for those who find themselves victims of a natural disaster.
The idea of a robotic building machine sounds like a nightmare for architects, but the invention of any new technology has always been met with trepidation, not to mention howls of derision. Painters swore photography meant the end of painting. Instead, artists started using cameras in unorthodox ways and painters felt free to push the medium far beyond the need to be representational. There is no doubt architects will find ways to creatively engage the robot builders of the future. The fate of human construction workers may not be so bright.
link to video of actual machine
link to Center for Rapid Automated Fabrication Technologies (CRAFT)
Sketch Furniture by FRONT
Not sure how comfortable this would be, but conceptually an awesome concept in designing straight from the fluid imagination.
excerpt from Front's website:
Is it possible to let a first sketch become an object, to design directly onto space?
The four FRONT members have developed a method to materialise free hand sketches. They make it possible by using a unique method where two advanced techniques are combined.
Pen strokes made in the air are recorded with Motion Capture and become 3D digital files; these are then materialised through Rapid Prototyping into real pieces of furniture.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Textured graphics can be captured in a flash
Colin Barras via newscientist - 12:30 27 August 2008
The virtual worlds in computer games provide a realistic backdrop to the action. But step too close and the effect is lost – you'll see that textures and patterns are usually displayed on flat surfaces that look dull and artificial.
A simpler way to add depth to textured surfaces could change that.
The new technique can reconstruct the depth of a surface simply by taking two photos of it – one with a flash and one without (see video, right). Merely analysing the resulting shading patterns can capture the surface's 3D texture.
Until now making realistic textures required the use of bulky and expensive laser scanners, says Mashhuda Glencross at the University of Manchester, UK. And the process is really time-consuming, she adds.
Link to article
Link to Advanced Interfaces Group
The virtual worlds in computer games provide a realistic backdrop to the action. But step too close and the effect is lost – you'll see that textures and patterns are usually displayed on flat surfaces that look dull and artificial.
A simpler way to add depth to textured surfaces could change that.
The new technique can reconstruct the depth of a surface simply by taking two photos of it – one with a flash and one without (see video, right). Merely analysing the resulting shading patterns can capture the surface's 3D texture.
Until now making realistic textures required the use of bulky and expensive laser scanners, says Mashhuda Glencross at the University of Manchester, UK. And the process is really time-consuming, she adds.
Link to article
Link to Advanced Interfaces Group
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Rising Demand for 3D in Theatres
(story copied from Engadget.com)
Digital Cinema Implementation Partners (DCIP) -- representing AMC, Cinemark and Regal Cinemas -- has worked out a deal to finance the installation of thousands of digital movie screens starting next year in the U.S. with the help of Lion's Gate, Paramount, Fox, Universal and Disney. Not participating, at least for now, are Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures, with the latter expected to announce a separate deal soon involving the installation of Sony 4K SXRD projectors around the world. Key to the deal? "Virtual print" fees, meant to help defray the expect $70,000 cost to switch to 3D-ready digital projection setups, as the studios will kick in the $800 - $1000 they would have spent on old school movie prints to finance the changeover. In the future they save by distributing only digital prints, not to mention having somewhere to show the dozen 3D flicks expected to debut next year. Both sides are betting the $1 billion package will help pull us away from the HDTVs and back into a movie theater, but until they work out a payoff with that one guy who won't stop talking, we're not sure how likely that is.
Read - Wall Street Journal
Read - Reuters
Read - Variety
Link to article in Engadget
Digital Cinema Implementation Partners (DCIP) -- representing AMC, Cinemark and Regal Cinemas -- has worked out a deal to finance the installation of thousands of digital movie screens starting next year in the U.S. with the help of Lion's Gate, Paramount, Fox, Universal and Disney. Not participating, at least for now, are Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures, with the latter expected to announce a separate deal soon involving the installation of Sony 4K SXRD projectors around the world. Key to the deal? "Virtual print" fees, meant to help defray the expect $70,000 cost to switch to 3D-ready digital projection setups, as the studios will kick in the $800 - $1000 they would have spent on old school movie prints to finance the changeover. In the future they save by distributing only digital prints, not to mention having somewhere to show the dozen 3D flicks expected to debut next year. Both sides are betting the $1 billion package will help pull us away from the HDTVs and back into a movie theater, but until they work out a payoff with that one guy who won't stop talking, we're not sure how likely that is.
Read - Wall Street Journal
Read - Reuters
Read - Variety
Link to article in Engadget
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