Twin Lens HD-3D Video Camera Set for Release

via engadget.com

You know that 3D bandwagon you're still hesitant to jump on? We get the feeling that this year's NAB show may just push you over the top. Shortly after hearing of Fujifilm's newest P2 memory cards comes this, a conceptual camcorder in which to eventually slot 'em in. Currently, Panasonic's 3D Full HD Camera Recorder is merely a prototype, but it's made clear that the company intends to bring this to market as soon as possible. Essentially, the device will boast a twin-lens system for capturing 3D footage natively in 1080p, and all of the video streams will be stored on Panny's professional P2 cards. It's hard to say if this would even be useful for 2D shooting on the side, but with practically every major studio at least considering (if not committing to) 3D production, we'd say it's a solid investment on Panasonic's part either way.

The Power of Photography and Story

An inspiring video presentation by David Griffin at a recent TED conference. The the title of the presentation is "Photography connects us with the world".

The New Economy - By Joseph Pine

Joseph Pine is regarded as one of the greatest minds in regards to the direction of the new economy. He coined the term "mass customization" based on his best selling books Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition, and The Experience Economy. I had the privilege of meeting Joe in 2007 at a the Mass Customization and Personalization Conference (MCPC) at MIT. His ability to track the direction our culture is heading with regards to the shift in our economic offerings is inspiring.

The following is a video of Joe speaking at a recent TED conference I believe is quite valuable.

Beowulf 3D: a case study Rob Engle

I had the privilege of seeing Beowolf3D twice while it played at the theaters some time ago. It was an immersive and engaging experience that left me feeling I was transported into another world - the wild visions of Director Robert Zemeckis.

At any rate, I found this technical talk of Rob Engle, Sony Pictures Imageworks. It was presented 29 January 2008 at the annual Stereoscopic Displays and Applications (SD&A) conference, San Jose, California, USA.

Rob's talk discusses the creative and technical challenges encountered during the production of "Beowulf 3D," director Robert Zemeckis' adaptation of the Old English epic poem and the first film to be simultaneously released in IMAX 3D and digital 3D formats.

3D Desktop + Organizational Tools

I ran across the following research projects demonstrating a new level of engagement with our digital media. Increasing the overall experience, while demonstrating the unique relationships between our data will open up the doors for new possibilities. I am sure we will see this implemented for commerce sometime soon.

Integration of Virtual + Real = Enhanced Experience

via timovirtanen.com "More than just creative marketing, this new advertisement for MINI uses augmented reality (AR) technology to create a truly interactive media piece out of a 2-dimensional magazine ad. “

All you need is a copy of the ad (download), a webcam, and a web browser (Internet Explorer/ActiveX only) to view the 3-D AR (augmented reality) effect.So why don’t you try it yourself.

Photo Illusion- software for creating 3D prints

The following from Photo Illusion's website:
"Paint depth right into a 2D image. Simple depth maps can result in fantastic 3D images. Put on some 3D glasses to view the results of the simple depth map in this example. All layers in Home illusion support their own depth maps so every layered object can have many levels of depth within itself."

"When working in Home Illusion you can wear 3D glasses while painting and see the depth change as you paint. Paint the earth forward and it pops out as you move the brush. Paint space with the far setting and it sinks into the screen right before your eyes. This allows for the artistic creation of 3D in an interactive way."

Link to website
Link to Photo Illusion videos

The A-B-C’s of Mass Customization

Link to full article here (via Replicatorinc.com)

A - Aviary is the most advanced online photo editor providing tools that rival desktop apps like Photoshop at a more affordable price. This gives consumers powerful tools to create online before having their creation manufactured.

Also see: ArrowEye, manufacturers of custom greeting, gift, and credit cards.

B- Build-a-Bear workshop has created a half billion dollar business in what was a slow growth industry by offering a customized experience.

Also see: Blurb, print on demand pioneer. Brother, who manufacturers many of the most advanced CNC embroidering machines.

C - CafePress.com is one of the oldest and most successful print on demand companies allowing people to express their unique brand on a variety of products ranging from tshirts to coffee mugs.

Also see: Cricut, is a low cost paper plotter that can cut shapes out of thin sheet materials and the $2000 Craftsman Compucarve, which carves designs into wood based on user supplied CAD data.

Haptic Telepresence

At Siggraph 2008, I was fortunate enough to demo this product by a company called Butterfly Haptics. Although the range of motion was not great, the sensation of precision was incredible.

Papervision3D

When it comes to bringing 3D to the web, Papervision3D is a flashed based XML format that opens the doors to amazing interactive possibilities.

I decided to place a few valuable links here that are worth archiving:

Mr.doob's Papervision3D Previewer - (a great way to test a 3D scene before publishing)
3DSMax Texture Baking & Papervision3D (video tutorial showing process of creating baked 3D model for import into Papervision3D)
Installing Collada exporter for 3DS Max

Guy Kawasaki Videos

Guy Kawasaki is a first class investor and marketing genius. The following are a few presentations worth watching...

Slides (pdf): The Art of the Start
Slides (pdf): The Art of Raising Capital
Audio (mp3): The Art of Raising Capital
Slides (pdf): The Art of Selling
Audio (mp3): The Art of Rain Making
Article (pdf): Perfecting Your Pitch
Audio (mp3): The Art of Pitching
Audio (mp3): The Art of Bootstrapping

Additional Resources from Garage Ventures website:

Small is Beautiful (Slides. PDF)
New Opportunities and Challenges For Entrepreneurs and Investors, by Bill Reichert.

“The Art of the Start” 2006 Conference
The presentation slides from the conference.

Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs (Slides. PDF)
It's good to be an enthusiastic entrepreneur, but avoid using these "lies" when pitching your company.

Top Ten Lies of Venture Capitalists (Slides. PDF)
A tool for understanding what venture capitalists really mean when they use these phrases.

Made to Stick - Overview

Over the past year I have read many great editorials in Fast Magazine from the authors of the recent bestseller Made to Stick. The subject matter seems very relevant to the brand strategy of Lifeform3D and Lifeform Design. The following checklist from the book is a good reminder as the foundations of Lifeform Design continue to be laid:

SIMPLE “It’s hard to make ideas stick in a noisy, unpredictable, chaotic environment. If we’re to succeed, the first step is this: Be simple. Not simple in terms of ‘dumbing down’ or ‘sound bites.’ What we mean by ‘simple’ is finding the core of the idea. ‘Finding the core’ means stripping an idea down to its most critical essence.” (pgs. 27, 28)
UNEXPECTED “The most basic way to get someone’s attention is this: Break a pattern. Humans adapt incredibly quickly to consistent patterns. Figure out what is counterintuitive about the message—i.e., What are the unexpected implications of your core message? Communicate your message in a way that breaks your audiences’ guessing machines.” (pgs. 64, 72)
CONCRETE “Abstraction makes it harder to understand an idea and to remember it. It also makes it harder to coordinate our activities with others, who may interpret the abstraction in very different ways. Concreteness helps us avoid these problems.” (pg. 100)
CREDIBLE “How do we get people to believe our ideas? We’ve got to find a source of credibility to draw on. A person’s knowledge of details is often a good proxy for her expertise. Think of how a history buff can quickly establish her credibility by telling an interesting Civil War anecdote. But concrete details don’t just lend credibility to the authorities who provide them; they lend credibility to the idea itself.” (pgs. 138, 163)
EMOTIONAL “How can we make people care about our ideas? We get them to take off their Analytical Hats. We create empathy for specific individuals. We show how our ideas are associated with things that people already care about. We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities—not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be.” (pg. 203)
STORIES “A story is powerful because it provides the context missing from abstract prose. This is the role that stories play—putting knowledge into a framework that is more lifelike, more true to our day-to-day existence. Stories are almost always CONCRETE. Most of them have EMOTIONAL and UNEXPECTED elements. The hardest part of using stories effectively is make sure they’re SIMPLE—that they reflect your core message. It’s not enough to tell a great story; the story has to reflect your agenda.” (pgs. 214, 237)

... in closing... “Those are the six principles of successful ideas. To summarize, here’s our checklist for creating a successful idea: a Simple Unexpected Concrete Credentialed Emotional Story.

Huge Potential for 3DTV

An excerpt from IT Broadcast and Digital Cinema is definitely worth the read.

Stereoscopic 3DTV could be the next home entertainment blockbuster, the logical sequel to today's high-definition flat-screen TVs. But the path to 3DTV winds through more twists and turns than the road to the Emerald City, passing through forests of alternative file formats, compression schemes, display technologies and patents.

Market analyst firm Insight Media tracked as many as 22 unique approaches to 3D displays, and it's still early in the technology.

No one has yet figured out a low-cost way to deliver stereo 3D to LCDs. What's more, many CE giants, as well as key technology providers of digital cinema, have yet to announce their products and directions for 3DTV. Others say any approach that necessitates glasses — a requirement for high-resolution 3D images today — will never be more than a niche with consumers at home.

Nevertheless, the hunt for a mainstream standard is on, driven largely by rising interest from Hollywood. At least four major industry groups have formed this year to plough a route forward.

"You are seeing a lot of overlapping activity here because everyone sees this problem," said Chris Chinnock, president of Insight Media, who helped found the 3D@Home Consortium, an ad hoc industry group.

Real-Time Gradient-Domain Painting

The following research is done by James McCann and Nancy S. Pollard. Real-time Gradient-domain Painting, ACM Transactions on Graphics (SIGGRAPH 2008), August 2008, Vol 27. No. 3.

Abstract

We present an image editing program which allows artists to paint in the gradient domain with real-time feedback on megapixel-sized images. Along with a pedestrian, though powerful, gradient-painting brush and gradient-clone tool, we introduce an edge brush designed for edge selection and replay. These brushes, coupled with special blending modes, allow users to accomplish global lighting and contrast adjustments using only local image manipulations -- e.g. strengthening a given edge or removing a shadow boundary. Such operations would be tedious in a conventional intensity-based paint program and hard for users to get right in the gradient domain without real-time feedback. The core of our paint program is a simple-to-implement GPU multigrid method which allows integration of megapixel-sized full-color gradient fields at over 20 frames per second on modest hardware. By way of evaluation, we present example images produced with our program and characterize the iteration time and convergence rate of our integration method.



Portraits sketched by M. Mahler using Gradient-Domain Painting Program

Link to website
Link to PDF research paper
Link to video

Shading Based Surface Editing

The following research is by Yotam Gingold and Denis Zorin In Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2008, Los Angeles, USA, Aug.'08

Abstract

We present a system for free-form surface modeling that allows a user to modify a shape by changing its rendered, shaded image using stroke-based drawing tools. User input is translated into a set of tangent and positional constraints on the surface. A new shape, whose rendered image closely approximates user input, is computed using an efficient and stable surface optimization procedure. We demonstrate how several types of free-form surface edits which may be difficult to cast in terms of standard deformation approaches can be easily performed using our system.

Link to website
Link to PDF research paper (14MB)