IGDA December Event: Child's Play Fundraiser @ O'Niell's

The Rio Grande IGDA chapter is glad to announce our 2nd annual holiday
fundraiser for Child's Play (http://www.childsplaycharity.org/).

More details to come, but for now, save the date:

When:    Thursday, December 11th, 6-9PM
Where:   O'Niells Pub, 4310 Central SE Albuquerque

Since 2003, over 100,000 gamers worldwide have banded together through Child's Play, a community based charity grown and nurtured from the game culture and industry. Over two million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children's hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since our inception.

For more information about "Child's Play" visit their website at: http://www.childsplaycharity.org/
Local donations benefit New Mexico's Children's Hospital.  Can't make it?  You can also donate at http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html/?_&id=21EIN5ZGOFY3U

Want to help out?  Please visit our group site if you'd like to volunteer or help sponsor.
We're at http://groups.google.com/group/riogrande-igda?hl=en

[Gfx-cafe] GFX Cafe Seminar Friday Nov 14, 2008

GFX Café Seminar Friday November 14, 2008
12noon - 1:15pm, ECE 118

Food will be served

TITLE:
Playing in the Sandbox: 3D table visualization and other interfaces
for community decision making
by Stephen Guerin, Redfish Group and Santa Fe Complex

ABSTRACT:
This talk will demonstrate recent work by Redfish Group at Santa Fe
Complex developing multiuser interactive 3D sandtable interfaces. The
sandtable is used by community stakeholders to visualize dynamic
geographic data streams and to interact with agent-based models of
urban systems.

An opensource structured light approach for scanning a 3D surface
using a projector and webcam will be shown. An alternative method will
also be demonstrated using the 3DV ZCam which will be available to the
game market in spring 2009. Lastly, I will discuss a preliminary
approach for mapping machine vision events in camera coordinates to
projected images on non-planar surfaces.

This talk will include a broad invitation to individuals to come play
at sfComplex and collaborate on interesting projects.

BIO:
Stephen Guerin is President of RedfishGroup <http://www.redfish.com>,
a R&D consultancy applying the emerging science of complex adaptive
systems. His work centers on visualization, modeling and the design of
self-organizing systems. He is the founder of Santa Fe Complex
<http://www.sfcomplex.org>, a non-profit project workspace that
fosters connections in technology, science and art. He lectures on
agent-based modeling and visualization as a faculty member of Santa Fe
Institute's Complex Systems Summer School.

Stephen lives in Santa Fe with his wife, Alison, and two young sons.

LOCATION:
The ECE building is located on the campus of the University of
New Mexico (building 46 on the campus map). Directions can be found
here: http://www.ece.unm.edu/visitors/parking.htm

--
Pradeep Sen
Assistant Professor
Advanced Graphics Lab
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of New Mexico

_______________________________________________
gfx-cafe mailing list
gfx-cafe@lists.eece.unm.edu
http://lists.eece.unm.edu/mailman/listinfo/gfx-cafe

New local UX Group Meet-up Next Thursday

Building our local networks and connections between them is, we believe, a key part of growing our local creative media community. And this one is particularly fun -- please check it out.

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USER EXPERIENCE (UX) SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP -- IxDA LOCAL PRELIMINARY MEETING

=======================================

Are you an avid reader of IxDA mail list? Or do you design the behavior of digital products, websites, applications and software? Or are you an Interaction Designer, User Experience Designer or Information Architect? Or do you call yourself something else like Usability Engineer or UI Designer? Maybe you don't have a fancy title, but are totally into user experience and interaction design?
If so join us for the inaugural meet-up of the IxDA New Mexico Local Group.

We're meeting at Savoy Bar and Grill at 10601 Montgomery Blvd NE in Albuquerque (we'll be in the bar) for an initial meet and greet at 5:30pm on November 19th.

Come meet with other UX Professionals to chat about all things UX and to discuss building a local IxDA community here in New Mexico.

The IxDA (Interaction Designers Association) is a member-supported organization committed to serving the needs of the international interaction design community. With more than 5,000 members since 2004 IxDA hosts a vibrant online community. To find out more about IxDA go to: www.ixda.org

For more information about the IxDA New Mexico Local Group contact
kevin at clearwired dot com.

[Gfx-cafe] GFX Cafe Seminar Friday Nov 7, 2008

GFX Café Seminar Friday November 7, 2008
12noon, ECE 118

Food will be served

TITLE:
SIGGRAPH @ UNM
Performance Capture from Video

ABSTRACT:

Details in mesh animations are difficult to generate but easy to observe.
In this GFX Café, we take a look at recent work presented at this year's
SIGGRAPH conference on capturing mesh animations from video streams.
Specifically, we will show the presentations for the following three
papers:

- Articulated Mesh Animation from Multi-view Silhouettes
by Daniel Vlasic, Ilya Baran (Massachusetts Institute of Technology),
Wojciech Matusik (Adobe Systems Inc.), Jovan Popovic (Massachusetts
Institute of Technology)

- Performance Capture from Sparse Multi-view Video
by Edilson de Aguiar, Carsten Stoll (Max-Planck-Institut Informatik),
Christian Theobalt (Stanford University), Naveed Ahmed, Hans-Peter
Seidel (Max-Planck-Institut Informatik), Sebastian Thrun (Stanford
University)

- Markerless Garment Capture
by Derek Bradley, Tiberiu Popa, Alla Sheffer, Wolfgang Heidrich
(University of British Columbia), Tamy Boubekeur (TU Berlin)

LOCATION:
The ECE building is located on the campus of the University of
New Mexico (building 46 on the campus map). Directions can be found
here: http://www.ece.unm.edu/visitors/parking.htm

Camera Mapping at Next AniMotion NM

AniMotion NM meeting November 11th at 7pm at the ARTS lab located at 131 Pine St. (northwest corner of University and Central)

UNM Instructor Brad Swardson will be presenting a lecture on camera mapping at the 11/11 AniMotion NM meeting. Brad holds a bachelor's degree in art studio with a concentration in electronic arts from UNM and is completing his master's degree in broadcast design and motion graphics through the Savannah College of Art and Design. He works as a Maya generalist for Boeing and teaches 3d animation and visual effects at UNM.

Description:

In a small production group the number of artists and time allowed for production may be limited, but the expectations of the customer are not. As such, we must develop techniques and work flows that allow us to create the best visuals in the least amount of time. This must be done while keeping the final product competitive with groups that are much larger and have more resources.

One of the many time saving techniques available to artists is called "Camera Mapping." This technique is widely used in film and television, in conjunction with digital matte painting, to bring non-existent environments to life without having to generate the entire environment in 3D. This presentation will include examples and walkthroughs of this technique being used in Maya and After Effects for use in both environmental creation and live set extensions.

Where: ARTS Lab Garage - 131 Pine Street NE, Albuquerque
(just north of Central and one block west of University)
When: 7:00 PM Tuesday, 11 November
Cost: FREE
Web: http://artslab.unm.edu/where.html

Check out "THE SPECTRE SERIES: Experimental Music Series Thurs. November 06"

This Thursday at ARTS Lab...

ARTS Lab presents the first in a series of experimental music concerts featuring composer-performers who work inside (and outside) the musical fields of Electroacoustic, Acousmatic, Noise, and Free improvisation.

The first evening features a collaborative performance by Raven Chacon and William Fowler Collins and a set by Luperci. Doors are at 7:00 PM, with the first performance starting by 7:30 PM.

Where: ARTS Lab Garage - 131 Pine Street NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106, just north of Central and one block west of University
When: 7:00 PM
Cost: $5-10 sliding scale
Web: http://artslab.unm.edu/where.html

For more information, visit: http://artslabmusic.blogspot.com/

The Excitement: an Event Update

Hi everyone...

Been a little while, but after this Tuesday's excitement (Please VOTE, if you haven't already), there are a few things we're involved with that we'd like to share some information on...

Thursday, November 6th
ARTS Lab Experimental Music Series

ARTS Lab presents the first in a series of experimental music concerts featuring composer-performers who work inside (and outside) the musical fields of Electroacoustic, Acousmatic, Noise, and Free improvisation.

The first evening features a collaborative performance by Raven Chacon and William Fowler Collins and a set by Luperci. Doors are at 7:00 PM, with the first performance starting by 7:30 PM.

Where: ARTS Lab Garage - 131 Pine Street NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106, just north of Central and one block west of University
When: 7:00 PM
Cost: $5-10 sliding scale
Web: http://artslabmusic.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, November 11th
AniMotion NM

ARTS Lab hosts this monthly meeting of the local animation and visual effects community, with guest speaker Brad Swardson. More info to come...

Where: ARTS Lab Garage - 131 Pine Street NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106, just north of Central and one block west of University
When: 8:00 PM
Cost: always FREE
Web: http://www.nmaug.com/

Tuesday, November 11th
Rio Grande IGDA: An Evening with Novint Technologies
This month the Rio Grande IGDA proudly presents an evening featuring Novint Technologies, creators of the critically-acclaimed Novint Falcon.

Born out of haptics (3D touch) research conducted at Sandia National Laboratories, Novint Technologies has made it possible to simulate realistic sensations of touch through a low-cost consumer device. Recently, Novint Technologies has been a buzz in the game development world, with major publishers such as Electronic Arts and Valve signing up to have the Falcon integrated into their respective titles. Along with these titles, Novint has self-published several games featuring the Falcon, and just released the Pistol Grip addition to the Falcon, giving a new experience to the first person shooter genre. Representatives will be on hand discussing the latest developments at Novint and have plenty of Falcons on hand for attendees to try.

From the company website:

"Novint Technologies, Inc. (NVNT) is the pioneer of 3D touch for consumer computing. Novint is developing a new category of products that add high-fidelity interactive three-dimensional touch to computing, beginning with our introduction of the award-winning Novint Falcon. The Novint Falcon is a first-of-a-kind game controller that lets you experience realistic 3D touch and force feedback when playing touch-enabled games."

What: Rio Grande IGDA Meeting: An Evening with Novint Technologies
When: November 11, 2008. 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm (meeting starts promptly at
7:00).
Where: Arts Center Design College (5000 Marble Ave NE)
Cost: Free!
Web: http://groups.google.com/group/riogrande-igda?hl=en


Thursday, November 13th
NMITSA Tech Lunch: IT Projects as a Catalyst for Change

For our November luncheon, NMITSA is pleased to welcome Dr. Chelle Stringer in a preview of her talk to the Ninth International Conference on Knowledge, Culture and Change in Organisations:

IT Projects as a Catalyst for Organizational Changes: The Other Side of IT Projects

There is a synergistic relationship between information technology projects and organizational change. Organizations decide to implement new technology in order to achieve something they are not currently achieving or to continue performing in a changing environment. The technology implementation usually initiates and often requires changes to policies and procedures, job duties and responsibilities, communication channels, and use of terminology. Additionally, the technology design should address the organizational need which prompted the technology project in the first place.

This presentation will outline five hurdles that IT projects face and strategies for overcoming each hurdle. These strategies have been proven in both private and public sector organizations.

WHEN: Thursday, November 13th 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM (Presentation begins at noon)

WHERE: Technology Integration Group (TIG) 2731 Broadway St NE Suite F

COST: $25 for members of NMITSA Organizations (1 free each); $40 for other guests

WEB: http://www.nmitsa.org

Also coming up with NMITSA (full disclosure, I'm a board member), we're pleased to kick off both our Santa Fe meeting series and relationship with the Santa Fe Complex with our December event:

Friday, December 12th
NMITSA Launches Santa Fe event series with Tech Legislation Preview

As part of NMITSA's efforts to better serve our Northern New Mexico members, we're launching a quarterly luncheon in Santa Fe at the Santa Fe Complex Friday December 12th with our annual Tech Legislation Preview.

From the NM Supercomputer to broadband access and other technology initiatives, the 2009 NM legislative session will shape our tech business landscape for years to come. Featuring State Science and Technology Advisor Tom Bowles, Economic Development Department Director for Science and Technology Stephan Helgeson, and others in technology development, this special NMITSA membership luncheon will provide attendees with a rundown of legislation to watch and the players involved.

WHEN: Friday, December 12th 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM (Presentation begins at noon)

WHERE: Santa Fe Complex, 624 Agua Fria, Santa Fe

COST: $25 for members of NMITSA Organizations (1 free each); $40 for other guests

WEB: http://www.nmitsa.org


And... in January, the NM Media Industries Conference returns on Saturday, January 17th as "MIX" at UNM's Student Union Building. Please save the date.