Women & Creativity Film Festival - Call for Submissions - Deadline: Dec. 3

The Annual Women and Creativity Festival put together by NHCC and the Harwood Arts Center is a great multi-day event (with some special guests you're really going to like).  This year to make things even more exciting, they've added a film festival -- it's a really good opportunity. More info below -- and coming soon.

 

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Call for Submissions

 

Women and Creativity Film Festival

 

Deadline: December 3, 2007

 

 

The National Hispanic Cultural Center and the Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico seek film/video submissions for the Women and Creativity Film Festival to take place in March 2008. We are interested in works that utilize the art form for original storytelling of the diverse experiences of girls and women. The film must be directed or co-directed by a girl or woman.

 

For further details, see the attached PDF or refer to the website: http://www.nhccnm.org (select: Programs/Media Arts).

 

Feel free to forward this information to anyone who may be interested. We look forward to hearing from you!

Women and Creativity Film Festival Committee

Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail, including all attachments is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited unless specifically provided under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of this message. -- This email has been scanned by the Sybari - Antigen Email System.

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For more information about NM Media-related Events, visit: http://nm-media.blogspot.com/
--

Eric Renz-Whitmore, Program Coordinator
ARTS Lab
505-277-2253
http://artslab.unm.edu

Working with ARTS Lab @ the Garage this Friday 2-4:30 PM

Hi all... And welcome to the next ARTS Lab Friday announcement!
(info on following Fridays below)
Please distribute to faculty, staff, students and potential collaborators!

The Art, Research, Technology and Science Lab -- ARTS Lab -- is an interdisciplinary center for research and development of digital media at UNM.  Its facility, the ARTS Lab "Garage" includes the gDome, a fulldome theater for student, staff and faculty production, and a blackbox theater with advanced theatrical lighting, an 8 camera Motion Capture system, and an 18' x 30' Greenscreen studio.

Can students, staff and faculty get access to these facilities?

Are they available to outside organizations and commercial productions?

Are ARTS Lab staff available for work on UNM and other projects?

The answer to these questions is yes, but for specifics on proposing a project to ARTS Lab, using the space and more, we invite you to attend our next ARTS Lab Friday session, November 16th from 2-4:30 PM when ARTS Lab Program Coordinator Eric Renz-Whitmore will go over the project proposal form, cost structure and more.

The ARTS Lab Garage is located at 131 Pine St., NE, one block west of University Blvd., and half a block north of Central Avenue.

Friday, November 30:  FULLDOME 101 w/ David Beining (Limited Seating)
Friday, December 6:  The Digital Rights Management Game w/ Greg Heileman
Friday, December 13: TBA
Friday, January 11:  4th Annual Media Industries Conference

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--
For more information about NM Media-related Events, visit: http://nm-media.blogspot.com/
--

Eric Renz-Whitmore, Program Coordinator
ARTS Lab
505-277-2253
http://artslab.unm.edu

HALO 3 @ ARTS Lab -- whew!

what a night...

Over 60 attendees, 47 players

And it came down to a tie.

--and a three minute sudden death elimination.

Apparently our winner is nationally ranked -- #48?

Many thanks to Microsoft and the uPublic

and the students of the UNM Advanced Graphics Lab!

[Gfx-cafe] Halo3 Party sponsored by AGL and ARTS Lab

AGL/ARTS Lab Halo3 Party Friday November 9, 2007
7pm-11pm, Black Box Theatre, ARTS Lab

Food will be served

Join us for an evening of prizes and fun as we hold the
first annual Halo3 competition co-sponsored by the Advanced
Graphics Lab and the ARTS Lab. The stations will be set
up for play starting at 7pm and the tournament-style
competition will start at 9pm. Prizes will be awarded
at the conclusion of the competition.

The ARTS Lab's Digital Media Garage is located at
131 Pine St., NE, just north of Central and one block
west of University.

See you there!

--
Pradeep Sen
Assistant Professor
Advanced Graphics Lab
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of New Mexico
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[Gfx-cafe] GFX Cafe Seminar Friday Nov 9, 2007

GFX Café Seminar Friday November 9, 2007
12noon, ECE118

Food will be served

TITLE:
Toward Greater Artistic Control for Interactive Evolution
of Images and Animation
by David Hart, Disney Interactive Studios

ABSTRACT:
We present several practical improvements to the interactive
evolution of 2D images, some of which are also applicable to more
general genetic programming problems. Two new expressive mutation
types are given, and genotype transforms are introduced as a way to
make genotypes more receptive to mutation. For evolving animation, we
introduce tree alignments in order to eliminate previous limitations
using the genetic cross dissolve. We create an algorithm for
constructing the dissolve expression using an alignment, and present
several alignment methods, each with different advantages. The goal
of these improvements is to strengthen the interactive evolution
toolset and give the artist greater control and expressive power.

BIO:
David A. Hart earned his B.S. in computer science with honors from the
University of Utah in 1997, and M.S. in computer graphics with honors
from Cornell University in 1999. After completing the M.S., he
returned to the University of Utah to work with the Scientific
Computing and Imaging group for a year researching remote
visualization techniques. In 2000, he joined the effects department
at PDI/DreamWorks where he developed and animated effects for a half
dozen feature films including the "Shrek" series, and led new shader
development for "Madagascar". David again returned to Utah in 2005,
and currently develops console video games for Disney Interactive
Studios.

--
Pradeep Sen
Assistant Professor
Advanced Graphics Lab
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of New Mexico
_______________________________________________
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Game Events @ UNM / Land of Entrapment @ the Guild (11/4)

A few game events next week at UNM -- please take a look:

The week start's off with the Novint Falcon "Swoop" tour. 
http://home.novint.com/swooptour/
Monday 11/5 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
UNM SUB Mall
You've probably heard of Novint's Falcon, their haptic 'force feedback' device for gameplay, but if you haven't had a chance to play with it yet (or would like to get a little more comfortable with the terms 'haptic' and 'force feedback') here's your chance.
Novint is a local company with ties to UNM and Sandia Labs (they're also among the NMITSA IT Excellence Awards nominees), and the device and the games they've developed are really cool.  They've recently partnered with Merscom games and put together a nationwide tour to demo their product so... they're one of the small companies helping spread the idea of cool and innovative work here in New Mexico.
For more information visit their website or call 277-5602

On Wednesday, the XBOX GAMES U TOUR visits UNM.
November 7th, SUB Atrium, 10am-2pm, FREE!
Apparently college students enjoy electronic entertainment -- who knew?!
UNM's Student Events group has known this for quite some time, and we're getting more and more visits from these game demo tours.  If you don't have an XBox of your own, and are a little hesitant to visit your nearest Ninja Monkey Gaming Center, this is a good chance to play a few cool games (I'm pretty sure they'll have Guitar Hero III out too).  It's also a good opportunity to get a feel for the people who play games.
Stop by the SUB Atrium to play the newest XBOX games on over 40 flat screen tvs! For more information call 277-5602. View their website by clicking here.

HALO 3 Tournament at ARTS Lab
November 9th, ARTS Lab Garage, 7:00 PM - 11:00 PM FREE!
We're also working with UNM's Advanced Graphics Lab to have a little HALO 3 Tournament of our own.  We won't have 40 kiosk systems, but if you want to meet some of the people who will be programming and designing the next generation of games -- or get the inside scoop on how to master HALO 3, this is your chance.
Visit http://artslab.unm.edu/igda to sign up.

But sooner than all that, this Sunday... another local film opens at Albuquerque's Guild Cinema.
From the folks at 505 Films (another local group that's really producing)

WE HAVE A PREMIERE!!!

That's right, at long, long last, Land of Entrapment is nearly finished and we've scheduled a showing! The premiere will be at the Guild Cinema on Sunday, November 4, at 1:00 p.m.. Tickets are $7 general, $5 for students. Most of the cast and crew will be there, so bring a few friends, check out the flick, and meet the people who made it!

Here's the blurb I'm sending out to summarize the plot. I simultaneously hate and am terrible at summarizing anything, but I'm pretty happy with this:

Clint is about to graduate from UNM and is looking forward to a dream job teaching English in Japan. But his plans hit a snag when he finds out that Jessica, his longtime girlfriend, won't be going with him. As he struggles to decide whether to follow his dreams or stay with his girlfriend, Clint navigates the perils of life in the student ghetto, from flaky roommates and dead-end jobs to empty one-night stands.

The cast is good, their short "Duke City Nights" has been picked up by the Santa Fe Film Festival... Check it out if you can.  More info at their blog:
http://www.505films.com/Blog.html

Finally... Tromadance is coming, November 16-18th

And then there's a little thing called the Santa Fe Film Festival...


--
For more information about NM Media-related Events, visit: http://nm-media.blogspot.com/
--

Eric Renz-Whitmore, Program Coordinator
ARTS Lab
505-277-2253
http://artslab.unm.edu

[Gfx-cafe] GFX Cafe Seminar Friday Nov 2, 2007

GFX Café Seminar Friday November 2, 2007
12noon, ECE118

Food will be served

TITLE:
Application of signal processing techniques to reflection mapping
by Pradeep Sen, Advanced Graphics Lab

ABSTRACT:
Since Ramamoorthi et al.'s seminal paper in 2001 which proposed a signal
processing framework for analyzing the reflection from complex surfaces,
researchers have been building on these ideas to solve problems in a
wide range of areas, from inverse rendering to real-time rendering. In
this talk, I will present an overview of recent approaches that try to
model reflection in an efficient manner by leveraging this framework. We
will examine the use of spherical harmonics and wavelet methods for
representing the object's bidirectional reflectance distribution function
(BRDF), and see how they can be applied for both the efficient encoding of
the irradiance map and for precomputed radiance transfer. The talk will
cover the work done at Microsoft Research by Peter-Pike Sloan and at
Stanford University by Ravi Ramamoorthi and Ren Ng.

BIO:
Pradeep Sen is a new faculty member in the Dept. of Electrical & Computer
Engineering with a joint appointment in Computer Science. He is a
researcher in the Advanced Graphics Lab, which investigates the science
and technology of computer graphics, visualization, computer vision, and
imaging.

--
Pradeep Sen
Assistant Professor
Advanced Graphics Lab
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of New Mexico
_______________________________________________
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Maratini: Ecotone Marathon Performance today | tonight

WHAT: Maratini: A Twelve Hour Improvisation Marathon
with Ecotone Physical Theatre
WHEN: Friday, October 26, 2007, noon to midnight

WHERE: 516 Central Avenue SW, between 5th & 6th Streets, Downtown Albuquerque

IMAGES: Please contact Suzanne Sbarge, 505-242-1445

PUBLIC INFO: 516 ARTS: tel. 505-242-1445, www.516arts.org

HOW MUCH: Free

516 ARTS is pleased to host a twleve hour Improvisation Marathon with
Ecotone Physical Theatre. The pubilc is invited to view the
performance for any amount of time through the front windows of 516
ARTS on Central Avenue in Downtown Albuquerque. The group will perform
continuous improvised materials for twelve hours straight. Ecotone
merges dance, music, technology, video and drama into a style of
theatre all its own.

--
For more information about NM Media-related Events, visit:
http://nm-media.blogspot.com/
--

Eric Renz-Whitmore, Program Coordinator
ARTS Lab
505-277-2253
http://artslab.unm.edu

[Gfx-cafe] GFX Cafe Seminar Friday Oct 26, 2007

GFX Café Seminar Friday October 26, 2007
12noon, ECE 118

Food will be served

TITLE:
Scale Invariant Raster Image Representation Through Topological Encoding
by Warren Hunt, graduate researcher, Advanced Graphics Lab

ABSTRACT:
Raster images have proved themselves to be a pervasive and necessary
medium, however their fixed resolution and band-limited "digital" nature
impose significant limitations. Vector graphics formats achieve resolution
independence and can represent discontinuous image features, but at the
cost of real-time performance. A desire for interactive and real-time
performance, coupled with a need for scale invariant rendering, drives the
search for improved 2D and 3D dataset imaging techniques.

This work leverages a topological encoding of a dataset to attain scale
invariance from a rasterized representation. This technique, called IStar,
is a novel application of topology that captures the semantic
characteristics in a graph-like structure. This structure, along with a
reparametrized and sampled representation of the segmented dataset, is
packaged as a standard raster image which can then be substantially
downsampled and compressed. To view or render an IStar image, the encoded
image is upsampled and the topological structure is used to reconstruct
the original dataset. Unlike traditional raster approaches, this
representation can preserve sharp discontinuities at any level of
magnification, much like scalable vector graphics. Because this technique
is raster-based, it is well suited to the real-time rendering pipeline.
This technique is demonstrated, along with several extensions of the
rendering function made possible by the topological encoding.

This work was done in collaboration with Joe Kniss and Pradeep Sen.

BIO:
Warren Hunt is a New Mexico native with a diverse professional background.
Originally trained in communications, Warren has worked as a television
broadcast technician, disk jockey, and video editor. While working in the
Los Angeles Post Production industry, Warren's clients included Walt Disney
Studios and several television shows. His background also includes
designing and building contemporary hardwood furniture, and serving
champagne as old as he is, in some of New York's finest restaurants. While
completing his Masters degree in Computer Science, Warren develops and
supports visualization software at Sandia National Laboratories. His
research interests are in Scientific Visualization and High Performance
Computing. Warren is the father of two children and enjoys living close
to the Rio Grande river.

--
Pradeep Sen
Assistant Professor
Advanced Graphics Lab
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of New Mexico
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NALIP Documentary Workshops @ NHCC, Nov 16-18

This looks like another solid opportunity for NM Filmmakers, especially those planning or working on documentary projects...

NALIP (the National Association of Latino Independent Producers), the National Hispanic Cultural Center, LPB, IAIA, the New Mexico Film Office, KNME, New Mexico Office of African-American Affairs, the NMFI and Albuquerque Hispano Chamber, in association with ITVS, NBPC, PIC, CAAM and NAT Present

Doing Your Doc: DIVERSE VISIONS, REGIONAL VOICES

A Weekend Seminar to Kick-Start Your Documentary
DOING YOUR DOC: DIVERSE VISIONS, REGIONAL VOICES

Don't miss this unique chance to work with story consultant Fernanda Rossi, the Documentary Doctor, author of the book "Trailer Mechanics", plus receive project mentoring on your proposal, trailer or documentary idea. This intensive 3-day workshop is right for you, whether you are just beginning, have already shot footage, or are seeking finishing funds.

"Doing your Doc" is designed especially for media makers in the diverse communities of New Mexico, preparing you to receive production funding and apply to national professional programs while developing your unique stories and views.
Do you have a personal documentary idea, or social change community project that needs development?

Are you considering public television funding sources or need R&D $$??

Join us in Albuquerque – November 16 - 18 – Friday night through Sunday at 5 pm

REGISTER at www.nalip.org

Questions? Call 310.395.8880

Doing Your Doc: 3-day Workshop Fee
Early Registration by November 15 - $100; Student w/ Valid ID -- $50
Includes lunches, workshop materials, books & private project mentoring
At the door Registration -- $125; Students -- $75
Venue Address: 1701 4th St. S.W., Albuquerque, New Mexico
SPECIAL SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE FOR NEW MEXICO RESIDENT FILMMAKERS
See Registration Page Online for Details!

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For more information about NM Media-related Events, visit: http://nm-media.blogspot.com/
--

Eric Renz-Whitmore, Program Coordinator
ARTS Lab
505-277-2253
http://artslab.unm.edu

ARTS Lab Related Events This Week (10/22-26)

There's a whole bunch!

First, ARTS Lab is a long-time organizational sponsor of High Desert Venture Camp which produces workshops for students and 'emerging' entrepreneurs and helps start tech-oriented business here in New Mexico.

Our latest event with HDVC is the Advance Invention to Venture Workshop from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance -- it runs November 28th through December 1st at UNM. Interested? Want more information?
Visit our website at: http://www.highdesertventurecamp.com
or come by during our information session this Wednesday (10/24) from 5:00 - 6:30 PM at the UNM Student Union (Mirage / Thunder Room)

On Thursday (10/25), we're part of the Albuquerque IGDA Chapter's Membership Kick-Off event from 6:00 - 8:00 PM at Sauce/Raw downtown with special guest, Radical Entertainment CEO Kelly Zmak. For more info, visit the chapter site at: http://www.igda.org/albuquerque or sign up at: http://artslab.unm.edu/igda

Interested in working with green screens? Our ARTS Lab Fridays kick off this Friday (10/26) with a session for indie filmmakers and others interested in doing green screen work for film, events and... can you come up with other interesting possibilities?
For more info, visit our events page at: http://artslab.unm.edu/newsevents (and please sign up if you're coming!

Interested in other ARTS Lab and local events? Visit our news and events page, this blog, or sign up for our events listserv by emailing us at artslab@unm.edu (or do all three, several times a day).

[Gfx-cafe] GFX Cafe Seminar Friday Oct 5, 2007

GFX Café Seminar Friday October 19, 2007
12noon, MECH 208

* NOTE THE CHANGE OF ROOM *

Food will be served

TITLE:
Immersive Experiential Content: Hologram to Holodeck
by Pete Rogina, WorldScape

ABSTRACT:
The Star Trek Holodeck is often heralded as the holy grail of
immersive media. Join Peter Rogina, President of WorldScape, for an
interactive discussion on the driving vision and technical challenges
of enabling real world-based immersive imaging. This talk will cover
topics ranging from fundamental enabling technical concepts to
practical considerations for the proliferation of experiences to the
in-home masses.

BIO:
Peter Rogina received a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Stevens
Institute of Technology in 1984. He is an accomplished holographer,
stereo photographer, and has spoken at and/or chaired numerous
industry events related to Virtual Reality as a catalyst for human
comprehension. During the early days of his transition from being a
holographic artist to developing a medium based upon real-world
experiences, Mr. Rogina realized the importance of both burgeoning
compression technologies and advanced computing technologies and
architectures. In January 2000, he began full-time efforts with
WorldScape, a company he formed in 1994 to pursue real world-based
immersive imaging.

Prior to WorldScape, Mr. Rogina was with Hewlett Packard where he
was, among other things, responsible for starting and managing a
telecommunications systems business in the U.S. that grew to over
$100M. Upon leaving HP in the late 90's, he ran a publicly trading
wavelet compression company and then was President of Cambridge
Parallel Processing, a SIMD computing company.

WorldScape has gone on to secure numerous government contracts
totaling over $6 Million for the development and demonstration of
advanced image, signal, and sensor processing hardware and
software. Complemented by private investment and other commercial
business, WorldScape has been developing a real-world capture system
based on large arrays of high-resolution imagers and a real-time
scene reconstruction engine based on scaled-SIMD technology. The
goal is to capture and deliver photorealistic immersive
experiences. With an initial focus on the enabling technologies for
practical hardware implementations, the Company established it's
logo, "If a picture's worth a thousand words, what's reality worth?"

WorldScape is expanding into New Mexico and expects to continue its
leadership in the areas of capture and processing hardware systems
for government and commercial applications. One of Mr. Rogina's
goals is to travel around the world and produce meaningful
experiences that leverage the power of the new medium to educate,
entertain, and catalyze social change.

--
Pradeep Sen
Assistant Professor
Advanced Graphics Lab
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of New Mexico
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[Gfx-cafe] No GFX Cafe seminar this week

Hi everyone,

We will not be holding our weekly GFX Cafe seminar this week because
of Fall Break. Have a good break and see you next week.

-Pradeep

--
Pradeep Sen
Assistant Professor
Advanced Graphics Lab
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of New Mexico
_______________________________________________
gfx-cafe mailing list
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http://lists.eece.unm.edu/mailman/listinfo/gfx-cafe

Best in the SW @ the Embassy Suites

Sometimes it's good to get out of the office -- and great to see the group that's attending the Best in the SW animation and motion graphics conference/event.

Su Hudson has over a dozen students out from the Public Academy of the Performing Arts, Half-Life Digital is on hand helping out, as is Brad Stoddard, and it's always good to see the folks from the Art Center Design College.

Yesterday at the session I attended, Chris Georgenes showed quite a lot of Flash techniques that were over my head, but enough tips and tricks to get me excited about getting into Flash again. Even more exciting was this morning's talk about some of the capabilities likely in the next version of Flash -- looks like some of the tools in After Effects like Inverse Kinematics will now be available inside Flash, and really enhance its already formidable abilities for animation.

Best in the SW, Wednesday Night @ ARTS Lab

Hi.

ARTS Lab is helping with Best in the SW this week -- and as part of all that we're having a reception at the ARTS Lab Garage this Wednesday night from 8PM - 10PM (the ARTS Lab Garage is at 131 Pine St., NE) with some food, some dome content, light show, music from Soma and CK Barlow, and more...

Tickets are required, but we'll put a list out if you're interested -- and I'll see you as soon as the Shins show is over!

e

--
For more information about NM Media-related Events, visit: http://nm-media.blogspot.com/
--

Eric Renz-Whitmore, Program Coordinator
ARTS Lab
505-277-2253
http://artslab.unm.edu

Bob Dylan has a message for you, from ERIC

Hi ARTS LAB, You have been sent a message from ERIC. Click on the large text above to retrieve it. NOTE: You will need Flash to view the message – if you do not have flash you can click here to download it.

IGDA Chapter Membership Meeting 10/25

Hello everyone... We're please to announce the membership kick-off meeting for New Mexico's first Independent Game Developers Association (IGDA) on October 25th.  With the success of film and digital media in New Mexico, we're seeing more and more interest in building a local game development cluster, and we believe this new IGDA chapter can help make that happen.  We hope you'll join us on the 25th.

More info to follow, but big thanks meanwhile to Abalone Studios' Glyn Anderson for lining up our speaker
and to Global Haptics' Mike Wallace for securing the venue...

Please pass this along as widely as possible!

RADICAL ENTERTAINMENT CEO TO SPEAK AT IGDA KICK-OFF

Radical Entertainment CEO Kelly Zmak will speak at the Albuquerque Independent Game Developers Association (IGDA) chapter kick-off event on Thursday, October 25th. Founded in 1991, and headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Radical Entertainment has grown to become one of North America's largest developers of interactive entertainment. Radical is dedicated to bringing creativity and innovation to every aspect of its business from technology to philanthropy, gaining press recently for the highly anticipated game, "Prototype".

Reflecting New Mexico's small but growing game development community, IGDA organizers include more traditional game companies, but also educators and people working in training, modeling and simulation development at the national labs. The kick-off event will help connect local game developers; it's scheduled to run from 6:00 - 8:00 PM at Sauce in downtown Albuquerque.

To learn more about IGDA and the local chapter, attend the membership kickoff event or visit http://www.igda.org/albuquerque/
People interested in being part of the organizing team can visit us at http://groups.google.com/group/riogrande-igda?hl=en

For more information about Radical Entertainment, visit http://www.radical.ca/index.cfm

WHAT:        IGDA Membership Meeting & Kick-Off Event
WHERE:     SAUCE/RAW Nightclub, 405 Central Ave., NW
WHEN:       Thursday, October 25th, 6:00 - 8:00 PM
WHO:         Professional and Aspiring Game Developers from age 18 and up

###

--
For more information about NM Media-related Events, visit: http://nm-media.blogspot.com/
--

Eric Renz-Whitmore, Program Coordinator
ARTS Lab
505-277-2253
http://artslab.unm.edu

GFX Cafe Seminar Friday Oct 5, 2007

GFX Café Seminar Friday October 5, 2007
12noon, ECE 118

Food will be served

TITLE:
Visualizing Uncertainty
by Joe Kniss, Advanced Graphics Lab


ABSTRACT:
Visualization users are increasingly in need of techniques for assessing quantitative uncertainty and error in the images produced. Statistical segmentation algorithms compute these quantitative results, yet volume
rendering tools typically produce only qualitative imagery via transfer function-based classification. This paper presents a visualization technique that allows users to interactively explore the uncertainty, risk, and
probabilistic decision of surface boundaries.

Our approach makes it possible to directly visualize the combined "fuzzy" classification results from multiple segmentations by combining these data into a unified probabilistic data space. We represent this unified space, the combination of scalar volumes from numerous segmentations, using a novel graph-based dimensionality reduction scheme. The scheme both dramatically reduces the dataset size and is suitable for efficient, high quality, quantitative visualization. Lastly, we show that the statistical risk  arising from overlapping segmentations is a robust measure for visualizing features and assigning optical properties.

BIO:
Joe is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science an member of the Advanced Graphics Lab at UNM.  His research focuses on interactive visualization of large datasets, light transport, and computer graphics.   His current research investigates methods for capturing and displaying uncertainty introduced by the data processing pipeline, and frameworks for representing non-linear features in band-limited raster image data.

Please subscribe to the GFX Cafe mailing list if you haven't already:
http://lists.eece.unm.edu/mailman/listinfo/gfx-cafe

--
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


--
For more information about NM Media-related Events, visit: http://nm-media.blogspot.com/
--

Eric Whitmore, Program Coordinator
ARTS Lab
505-277-2253
http://artslab.unm.edu

Vicon Update

http://blog.digitalcontentproducer.com/briefingroom/2007/09/27/pixel-liberation-front-taps-vicon-motion-capture-for-high-quality-previz-animation/
PIXEL LIBERATION FRONT TAPS VICON MOTION CAPTURE FOR HIGH QUALITY PREVIZ ANIMATION
Filed under:
News

Company Announcements

Cameras

Visual Effects
— kraz on September 27, 2007
New VICON FK Extreme System Enables PLF to Produce Mo-Cap Cost Effectively for Pre-Viz, Commercials and Game Cinematics

VICON, developer of Academy Award®-winning motion capture systems, announced that its new low-cost motion capture system, the FK Extreme, has been installed at Venice, Calif.-based animation and pre-visualization studio Pixel Liberation Front (PLF). The company is currently using its eight-camera FK Extreme system on game cinematics, film pre-visualization projects and television commercial projects.

“Purchasing a VICON system was a strategic business decision for us. Our goal was to incorporate mo-cap into our pipeline so we could get a high level of capture detail without investing huge amounts of time, labor and money, which is better spent focusing on perfecting sequences and shot design,” said Sean Cushing, Executive Producer, Pixel Liberation Front. “We chose VICON after evaluating several options—the FK Extreme system is priced very competitively, is incredibly robust, and is virtually plug-and-play. It hasn’t required a ton of R&D to get it operational, and was up and running within a week of purchase.”

PLF specializes in previz, VFX and compositing services for feature films, commercials, games and music videos. The company originally planned to purchase a mo-cap set-up exclusively for its feature film previz projects—noteworthy credits include Spider-Man 3, Die Hard 4: Live Free or Die Hard, Superman Returns and the Matrix sequels—but has seen a recent upswing in demand for videogame cinematic work, which requires a level of detailed character animation ideally achieved through motion capture.

The company also recently worked with NY-based visual effects house Mass Market to provide stadium crowd motions for a digital crowd sequence created using the Massive AI-driven animation system. Mass Market recently completed the “Yawn Call” spot for Pepsi Max directed by Traktor via BBDO. PLF put its new FK Extreme system to the test, capturing 1,000 seconds of mo-cap footage, shooting a single performer for a day and a half while he performed over a 100 different actions. PLF currently houses their system in a 12 foot x 12 foot room at their studio, but because of FK Extreme’s extensibility, PLF will be capturing two performers simultaneously in a larger capture volume for an upcoming project.

2007 Year in Review

It's been a pretty full year here at ARTS Lab:

NM Lambda Rail Kick-off (1/18)
NM Governor Richardson, UNM Vice Provost for Research and Economic Development Terry Yates and other dignitaries and VIP's visited the ARTS Lab Garage @ UNM to officially announce New Mexico's participation in the National Lambda Rail. This next generation network offers nearly unlimited bandwidth (compared to existing technologies) to connect New Mexico's research community with leading institutions around the country and world.

Media Industries Conference (2/2)
UNM's ARTS Lab organized New Mexico's third annual conference for the state's Media Industries Strategy Project (MISP), bringing together over 300 attendees from film, education, games, technology, design and other areas.

CineMas (2/16)
The ARTS Lab was a key sponsor for the inaugural year of CineMas, New Mexico's International Latino Film Festival, with film showings, discussions and events throughout Albuquerque (including one at the Garage). Our own Enrico Trujillo was among the organizers, joining Festival Director Dorothy Baca (also Director of the Arts of the Americas Insititute) and others to help build CineMas into one of New Mexico's most promising events.

"Limbo" by Ecotone Physical Theatre Company (2/16 & 2/17)
The ARTS Lab's Hue Walker and Enrico Trujillo brought their artistic minds and multimedia skills to the latest improvisational performance by Ecotone Physical Theatre Company, led by Donna Jewell and Kevin Paul.

Haptic Launching Architecture Event (2/20)
Architecture Studio 302, led by Christopher Kaltenbach, has embarked on an exciting course: to imagine the environments we will want and need as we move to the next phase of our exploration of other planets and space. Lectures from Thomas Daniell, an architect and critic practicing in Kyoto, Japan, and Dr. Mark Nelson, who lived in and helped design Biosphere 2, helped the Haptic Launching team and a full house of attendees understand some of the many considerations imposed by closed systems and limited space.

"Finding a Pose" by Min Kim Park (2/23-24; 3/2-3)
The current show in the ARTS Lab Garage, "Finding a Pose" is a video installation by local artist and graduate student Min Kim Park, that considers how both models and audience members respond to the female form.

A Celebration of NM Entrepreneurship (2/28)
One way the ARTS Lab supports NM Economic Development is through its support and participation in High Desert Venture Camp (HDVC). As part of Entrepreneurship Week USA, HDVC (and many others) are presenting this event on February 28th at the MTTC, UNM Research Park South.

It's unlikely that we'll keep up this pace of public events (there are classes, training, demos and other projects to do), but I like to think that the variety of these events (and their audiences) provides a good picture of the ARTS Lab approach: bringing many different disciplines together through projects, education and other events to explore the interplay of arts and technology, and provide a foundation for New Mexico's creative growth.

For more information, visit our website: http://artslab.unm.edu
To stay posted on upcoming events and activities, drop us a line at: artslab@unm.edu