SGI, which is based in Fremont, Calif., lost $2.3 million, or 7 cents per share, in its fiscal second quarter, which spans October through December. If not for certain accounting items, the company said it would have earned 4 cents per share, Even on that basis, the results were far below the average earnings estimate of 25 cents per share among analysts polled by FactSet.

I’ve had a chance to glance over the transcript of the call, and it’s a bit odd.  Analysts are a bit peeved that after Barrenechea left they were assured they would maintain their financial guidance, and then again shortly thereafter.  Then they drop the bombshell of their failing European division, along with other “certain accounting items”.  Unfortunately, no one from SGI was really able (or willing?) to elaborate on what that meant.

With SGI currently under leadership of an interim CEO and now dropping 25% of their stock price, and planning for a reorganization of their European division and probably some product realignments, could SGI be about to change hands again?

via SGI shares plunge 23 pct as profit margins fall – CBS News.

Death Fall – Nothing is Real but the Girl

US Open Data Initiatives fall Victim to Budget Cuts

20 Sensational Accounting Infographics

As the leaked chart shown, die size of GK110 is 550mm², which is not only bigger than 365mm² of Radeon HD 7970, but also 30mm² larger than its GF110. It’s said that GK110-based GeForce GTX 680 will be up to 45% faster than AMD Radeon HD 7970. As for the price, GTX 680 is set at US$649, US$100 higher than HD 7970.

Expected to drop in April & May, they’re showing numbers around 45% over Radeons HD7970 for $650.  Of course, without public confirmation it’s anybody’s guess.

via Entire NVIDIA Kepler Line-up Unearthed – Expreview.com.

Infographic: What if Fukushima had Leaked Solar Panels?

Embracing Uncertainty in Two-Line Charts

Apple refreshes MacBook Pros, Drops NVidia for AMD/Intel

For DARPA’s part, Innovega is working as part of the Soldier Centric Imaging via Computational Cameras (SCENICC) program, which aims to eliminate the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability gap at the individual soldier level. 

You can get some good details in the video below.  Still neat technology, but not quite what most people think from the headline.

via DARPA Invests In Megapixel Augmented-Reality Contact Lenses | Popular Science.

Augmented Reality App For Filing Librarians

Augmented reality system for learning chess

Augmented Reality Ad Puts You With Angels

If your HDTV or projector can play regular non-3D games and Blu-ray movies then the 3Dfury will work for you and will turn your existing HDTV or projector into a 3D home theater!

If your HDTV or projector cannot play HDMI content because it lacks of a HDMI input, 3Dfury can still turn it into a 3D home theater, thanks to the embedded HDMI to analog converter based on HDfury technology. The 3Dfury supports every 3D signal type in existence today including frame-packing, side-by-side, top-bottom.

Not so sure how well this will work honestly, but it’s an interesting option.  It supports frame-packing, side-by-side, top-bottom, and others, and includes updatable firmware to add even more.  The gadget will retail for $399.

via 3DFury converts old TV sets to 3D.

Wireless Graphics card – KFA2 GTX 460 WDHI review

ProjectionDesign’s new F35 AS3D

GTX 590 Triple Projector GeForce 3D Vision Surround Gaming Setup

If you’re not already familiar with the bills, visit the Stop American Censorship website.  In addition, you can help spread the word by sharing links to VizWorld to your friends (which will appear in their Censored form, helping to spread the word).

SOPA: The Death of the Internet Infographic

75 Years of American Finance 1861-1935

The Modern American Worker

Click for Fullsize

In what is a surprising throwback to VR of the 90′s, Sensics is demonstrating their new “Smart Goggles” at CES this week.  A classic head mounted display that combines head-tracking with 3D visuals, this one adds the twist of supporting Android 4.0 apps.

The Smart Goggles graphics arent very good the Wii puts them to shame, really, but the company promised that its games would get more immersive and more impressive over time. Sensics is also planning to completely remove your controller from the equation, so instead of pressing a button to punch youll actually punch. No word yet on pricing, or when the Smart Goggles will be available they seemed rather unfinished in our time playing with them, but were hoping theyre expensive — otherwise were going to be seriously dangerous to others while we crush the city around us.

via Sensics Smart Goggles put your head in the game hands-on pictures and video | The Verge.

Puss in Boots: head in the clouds

Virtual Reality with a Pico Projector & Head Tracking

Craft Animation in NASCAR: The Game 2011

Vermeer is a novel interactive 360° viewable display suitable for a tabletop form factor from Microsoft Research Cambridge. It provides viewpoint corrected stereoscopic 3D graphics to simultaneous users 360° around the display, without the need for eyewear or other user instrumentation. In contrast to other systems, Vermeer allows users for the first time, to reach into and directly touch 3D objects inside a display volume. It also enables simultaneous users 360° viewing of the 3D object. Inherently other 360° systems restrict interactions to outside the display volume behind a protective glass or plastic dome.

From the description in the video, it looks like an electronic version of the “Hologram Chamber” illusion.  A clever trick, but the size of it keeps it restricted to rather small displays.

via Vermeer Interactive Display – YouTube.

ZECOTEK Awarded new 3D Display Patent

DARPA’s 3D Holographic Display Technology

Resource Of The Week: Interactive Visualization Techniques

With a 2,13 meters diagonal, the new LG 3DTV will occupy 183 cm by 103 cm of your living room wall estate ! The probability to see this monster at your nearby TV outlet is still extremely slim. And if it appears one day, expect the price way north of 10,000$…

via Worried about Passive 3DTV Resolution?.

Consumers Prefer Passive 3DTV to Active 3D 4 to 1

DisplayMate shootout prefers passive 3D glasses

Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color?

“LG is pushing the limits of home entertainment innovation with this 3D UD TV,” said Havis Kwon, President and CEO of LG Electronics Home Entertainment Company. “We are bringing together all our Smart TV and 3D knowledge in the 3D UD TV in order to demonstrate to the CES audience that LG is committed to being the world’s leading brand for immersive home entertainment in 2012 and beyond.”

This is the “get them in the booth” item so you can see their real 55-inch OLED TV and new “Smart TV Ecosystem” products.

via DailyTech – LG to Reveal 3D UD TV at CES 2012.

The 2012 Visual Budget

Clarification on SolidWorks 2012 and GPU hardware acceleration

Holographic 3-D looks tantalizingly closer in 2012

In their nanoscale system, they work with chips made by growing a layer of silicon oxide on to silicon wafer. They etch square patches of the silicon oxide. The result is a checkerboard-like pattern where etched-away pixels are nanometers lower than their neighbors. A reflective aluminum coating tops the chip. When laser light shines on the chip, it bounces off of the boundary between adjacent pixels at an angle. Diffracted light interferes constructively and destructively to create a 3-D picture where small mirrored platforms are moving up and down, many times a second, to create a moving projection.

They hope to have their first “proof of concept” designs in 2012, although I imagine a marketable version of the tech is a good 4-5 years away.  Check out their demo video from IEEE Spectrum below.

via Holographic 3-D looks tantalizingly closer in 2012.

The 2012 Visual Budget

Clarification on SolidWorks 2012 and GPU hardware acceleration

LG to Reveal 3D UD TV at CES 2012

The DM92 series showcases a premium design by employing the slim bezel of LG’s technology- and design-driven CINEMA SCREEN whose aesthetic superiority is accompanied by the lustrous chrome stand. During the monitor TV’s attractive 27-inch display, users can access files on their PC, play games or just chill and watch theirfavorite TV show

I can’t find any mention of the 1mm bezel in the Press Release, and no mention of price either.  Guess we’ll have to wait until next month to see what really materializes.

via LG DM 92 Borderless 3D Monitor.

Eizo’s New 36-inch 4Kx2K Display

Real or Render? Can you tell the difference?

Talking about Maya at iGEM

Quantum dot phosphors are larger than a water molecule, but smaller than a virus. Embedded in a sheet of plastic these tiny phosphors convert blue light from a standard GaN LED into different wavelengths based upon their size. Larger dots emit longer wavelengths (red), while smaller dots emit shorter wavelengths (green). Blending together a mix of dot colors allows Nanosys to engineer a new spectrum of light. This enables LCD manufacturers to accurately match their LED backlight to their LCD color filters to achieve the best possible color and efficiency. The result is professional photo and cinema level color performance found in high-end monitors from Dolby, HP, and NEC.

The first QDEF monitors and televisions should start hitting shelves next year.  Can’t wait to see them for myself.

via GraphicSpeak » Quantum dot filter displays are the next big thing.

Wipeout via Quantum Levitation: Physics or VFX?

User Issues in Stereoscopic 3D Displays

Visualizing the future: Lab team develops New Displays

Infinite Z says it is initially focused towards the digital/product design, scientific, medical, GIS/geospatial, and government markets. For now it ships only with drivers for Maya and Showcase, but Infinite Z says other software vendors are on board and the number of products zSpace supports will grow rapidly. A proof-of-concept zSpace demo for Autodesk Alias Design software also ships with the product.

Impressively, the system is available today for a mere $6,000 and works out-of-the-box with Autodesk Showcase and Maya. Check out their demo video below.

zSpace – A Virtual-holographic Experience from Infinite Z on Vimeo.

via GraphicSpeak » Infinite Z launches zSpace virtual holographic 3D display for designers.

DARPA’s 3D Holographic Display Technology

Holographic 3-D looks tantalizingly closer in 2012

3Di’s New Autostereoscopic Touchscreen Display

FireUser.com has a user-contribution from Antonio Fontenele benchmarking a Quadro 1800FX against the AMD FirePro v5800 in a variety of tests.  In an interesting twist he compares the various vendor “optimized” drivers against their counterparts provided by Autodesk (Both of these cards are Autodesk approved), and finds a startling different in performance.

In Cadalyst Systems Benchmark 2011 test, Quadro a little faster than FirePro while using AutoCAD default drivers due c2011_8.dwg file score, but it was slower than FirePro in the other files (where FirePro was 102.32% faster). However, using AutoCAD optimized drivers, Quadro earned 613 points while FirePro earned a higher score equal to 2060 points. This is means about 336.05% faster in AutoCAD 2011.

Get all the numbers in the article.

Performance Comparison in AutoCAD between NVIDIA Quadro FX 1800 and AMD FirePro V5800 | FireUser Blog.

AMD FirePro V7900 and NVidia Quadro 4000 in CATIA

AMD FirePro, Eyefinity & OpenCL technology at SIGGRAPH

AMD FirePro certified for Abacus finite element analysis

In this article, Anders Isberg from Sony Ericsson’s Technology Reseach department explains more about WebGL and what to think of when you develop 3D web applications for touch-enabled devices. If you scroll down, you will also find three WebGL examples that you can browse to from the Android browser, if you have the latest software on your 2011 Xperia™ phone. You can also check out how it looks in the video above.

via Xperia™ phones first to support WebGL™ — Developer World.

An introduction to WebGL from Dev.Opera

WebGL: kill it before it grows?

This Week in Viz 7/10/11: WebGL – Delight or Danger?

“3D mice revolutionize the way people interact with digital 3D content,” said Antonio Pascucci, vice president of products, 3Dconnexion. “We are committed to developing products that meet the needs of 3D users. SpaceMouse Pro provides a professional 3D navigation experience, enabling users to better understand their 3D content, while its new advanced ergonomic design ensures a comfortable working experience.”

It’s available now for $299 for pretty much every OS in mainstream use.  Get the full details after the break.

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Read the rest of 3Dconnexion Announces the SpaceMouse Pro (583 words)

3Dconnexion : Win a Trip to AU

AMD Announces New GPGPU Programming Tools

Cebas announces finalRender and Hair Farm

With powerful algorithms, Sectra Visualization Table identifies a bone or a bone fragment, according to the user’s touch interaction, and removes it from the image. Accordingly, orthopaedic surgeons can gain an overview of the joints, thereby facilitating pre-operative planning specifically in orthopaedic surgery. As with the rest of the functionality, the new segmentation tool is operated using the fingertips.

I love technology like this, even though it’s reminiscent of Immersadesk displays.  However, a nice visualization method is only half the problem: Convincing doctors to do a lengthy & expensive CT or MRI instead of a cheap & quick x-ray is the bigger hurdle.

via Sectra Visualization Table to support real-time bone segmentation | Cision Wire.

SIGGRAPH2011 Real-Time Live!

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time

Mark Van Moer: Advanced Application Support Visualization Services at NCSA‬‏

“Z Corporation, the leader in multi-color inkjet 3D printing, today announced that it will be acquired by 3D Systems Corporation (NYSE:DDD), becoming the first company capable of delivering an integrated platform of mixed 3D printing technologies, 3D content, and 3D design services. The news is part of a wider announcement today in which the Contex Group, a subsidiary of Ratos AB, announced that it had signed an agreement to sell its subsidiaries, Z Corporation and VIDAR Systems, to 3D Systems Corporation for USD 137m in cash. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close by the end of 2011 or early 2012.”

3D Systems has really been on the merger-run lately, acquiring lots of companies. ZCorp seems to have one of the better 3D Printers I’ve seen, so now hopefully 3D Systems can add in some extra software to improve their model management capabilities.

via 3D Systems Adds a Bit More Color, Plan to Acquire ZCorp – SolidSmack.com.

Autodesk Announces Intent to Acquire Scaleform Corporation

Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color?

SGI Marks Milestone with over 500 UV Systems Delivered

“To those of us who have spent their careers focused on workstations, NVIDIA Maximus represents a revolution,” said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions Group, NVIDIA. “Previous workstation architectures forced designers and engineers to do compute-intensive work and graphics- intensive work serially and often offline. They can now do them at the same time, on the same machine, allowing professionals to explore more ideas faster and converge quickly on the best possible answers.”

Done entirely in the driver, you can now buy a good graphics-card (Fermi-based NVidia Quadro, all the way down to the $200 Quadro 600) and match it with a nice NVidia Tesla card and let the driver map your processes entirely.  Right now the matching is a bit naive, putting CUDA/OpenCL processes on the Tesla and DirectX/OpenGL processes on the Quadro, but that alone can offer a huge boost in performance by allowing both rendering and compute processes to operate in parallel at maximum power.

The system is already tested and approved for an impressive list of engineering & CAD tools like ANSYS, CATIA, and MATLAB, along with other tools like Adobe Premiere and Bunkspeed.  For most of these tools, they’ve already got great GPU-accelerated compute aspects, and GPU-accelerated rendering features.  Unfortunately, it’s almost always been either/or and never both at the same time.  With the new Maximus drivers you can run both aspects at full-speed, without special configuration or dealing with special software settings.

They’ve also got a great list of OEM Hardware partners offering full support for hardware and software, all on day 1.    Another great feature is their new adaptive power consumption. It’s no secret that NVidia cards can be tough on a power supply, and adding two to a machine can be a real strain. With the new Maximus system, you (or the Hardware OEM provider) can specify voltage limits, preventing the cards from drawing too much power and burning out your power supply.

It’s a complete package all-around.  Get the full press release, along with some great demonstration videos of Maximus in action, after the break.

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Read the rest of NVIDIA Maximus Revolutionizes the Workstation (1,275 words)

NVidia’s Project Maximus & Monterey Technology

Remote Graphics and the Professional CAD Workstation

NVidia QuadroPlex GPU Virtualization at Santos

“CogniBlox architecture is based on multiple CM1K (1024 neuron) components allowing for constant parallel matching of vectors in 10 microseconds regardless of the number of vectors being compared at the same time,” said Bruce McCormick, co-founder, president and CEO of CogniMem.  “Recent announcements from IBM about its DARPA SyNAPSE project have rekindled interest in this exciting technology.  Based on multiple generations of IBM patented ZISC technology, we have perfected this approach for practical commercial use, providing unmatched performance at low power, and made it available now.”

With this making Exascale feasible, one has to wonder if such special-purpose machines may open the door to more mainstream general-purpose machines soon.  You could almost argue that NVidia’s development in the Tesla space could be a step towards bridging the cap (putting special-purpose hardware alongside general-purpose hardware).

Get the full press release after the break.

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Read the rest of Cognimem launches CogniBlox Massively Scalable Module (620 words)

Render Rocket Launches Mission Control 3.0 at SIGGRAPH 2011

NVIDIA 3D Vision launches Next-Gen 3D Glasses and Monitors

Lightmap launches HDR Light Studio v3.0