Paul Debevec is perhaps the most influential of the pioneers of photogrammetry techniques (and holograms… and hdrs / exrs… and… ) and I can’t imagine anyone who has a greater understanding of the information contained in light and how to access it. Now you can learn from the master. fxphd is offering access to its courses – including interviews with Paul Debevec – for only $199. Worth. It.

Read more about it here, and soak up Mike Seymour’s video interview with Paul discussing the infamous light stage.

Can you spot what’s wrong with the following picture?

Right! There’s no credit. A simple click will transport you over to artEvolved where Craig Dylke walks through the various options of accreditation. Valuable overview for artists and fans alike.

Craig’s been on a roll lately…. go check out his recent burst in productivity here.

Doug Henderson is having an art sale. Grab some beautiful originals or affordable prints. Its fantastic to explore his many sketches to discover motifs I’m unfamiliar with… it really shows how productive the man is!
edit: I have to add, Doug is the master of tonal composition!

One of the key issues in non-photorealistic imagery is the process of selective abstraction, a characteristic shared with data-mining and – as shown wonderfully in this article by Robert Kosara – information graphics. The level of abstraction profoundly effects the interpretation of content. Fantastic article.

Plastination can produce some beautifully revealing imagery. Just look at this turkey… the air sacs in the vertebrae, the nostrils, the feather attachment sites… can look for ages.
From real anatomy.

Fantastic animation by Richard Hogg for the Royal Observatory Greenwich explaining how we know how far we are from various things in the universe.

We used inexact adders to process images and found that relative errors up to 0.54 percent were almost indiscernible, and relative errors as high as 7.5 percent still produced discernible images.

Christian Enz

One of the advantages of NPR techniques is that it is efficient. Instead of following the arms-race of ever-increasing numbers ray-tracing (times x bounces) it works with approximations. It also swallows errors within the look determined by the artist. So when I read about this very efficient but imperfect computer chip developed at Rice University (link above to the gizmag review), I couldn’t help but exclaim: “Wow! An NPR chip!” For the first time, I find myself longing not just for NPR software, but an NPR computer to boot.

In times of dodgy media, it’s wonderful to see a site that does simple, straightforward fact-checking of politician’s comments. I’ve been visiting Politifact for years now, and you should too. In fact, I’d love to see a German or European counterpart. Maybe it even would serve as a role-model for a science-in-the-media fact-checker.

Once again, it’s time for me to gush about Creature Cast, as I have done in the past and will certainly do again. They’re that good. This time, Henry Astley talks about brittle star locomotion. The video is so successful because it posits a clearly formulated question and answers it just as clearly. No more, no less. It’s also colorful and vibrant – in service of the question at hand. Very well done!

I’ve been slow to get involved in crowdfunding projects. I participated in Nick Cross’s film, and just got word that the revolve I pitched in on has gotten its budget. (Expect some smooth films once my current projects are worked off). I’m also an interested follower of the scifund projects, though I haven’t participated yet. And now a student has jumped in with a very cool project at startnext – a German crowdfunding site.  I find the whole model incredibly appealing. It functions just as the pitching process at the academy does: cool projects build momentum and get made. So I have no doubt that Nicolas Palmer and his team will soon be making their film.

Most papers appear to me as a tasty little something tightly wrapped in a a few hours of work. Not this one… it has me salivating. Just what the artist ordered:

Inside Out: Modern Imaging Techniques to Reveal Animal Anatomy

Now at a Plos near you…
(via ScientificIllustration)

Great soundbytes by Niel DeGrasse… about being usurped by the atheism movement and the oddness of atheism as a term, and cites how odd it would be for non-golfers to organize and talking about how they don’t play golf. I had to laugh at that because – yeah, non-photorealism.

For the record, I find that to be an unfair representation of the atheist agenda. I perceive of the large majority of atheist lobbying as a reaction to wanton influence on the political system by religious parties, such as exemption from taxation or safety checks, not to mention their attempts to force IntelligentDesign on public education.

Alex Wild’s post about the possibility of infringement on his photography is burgeoning a new discussion of where the limits of copyright lie – legally, ethically, artistically. Very interesting read… the contributions range from thought-provoking evaluation to mind-boggling underrepresentation of the process of staging a photograph like Alex’.

What was copied from the photograph was simply the knowledge of what the ant looks like, and indeed the photo contained very little beyond that to begin with. It’s a catalogue-style shot… the only thing that was copied is the photograph’s subject, which Wild didn’t create.
…
I don’t think this is really a question of copying art so much as repeating facts

Leigh Beadon

Go HERE for the video (embedding disabled).

Okay… I’m an animator. I love this shit. Look at those lines, the anticipation, follow-through, the timing. Gorgeous. Just… The idea of evolution shown here embodies pretty much every misconception, every perpetuated falsity that it… is repulsive.

The wrongs? Evolution as a linear process from A to B to C – with a dinosaur turning into a mammal. Adaptations driven by a white, male hand which mysteriously appears to give that decisive push into the next stage of development, even occasionally threaten man with the loss of his manhood or toss him into an all-encompassing flood.

Such wonderful line work deserves more attention to content, and throws me completely out of the zone. Am I simply not the target audience (despite my impressive collection of drawing utensils?)? Am I being unduly picky? Have I crossed the line from animator to science communicator? Feedback welcome.

The Spiegel has an article about two jurassic fleas (Pseudopulex jurassicus und Pseudopulex magnus) that specialized on pterosaurs. Sounds like a regurgitated press release, but its cool that they cover it nonetheless. Of interest: they credit the artist Wang Cheng directly. Sounds a bit obvious, but many of these reports don’t.  The Oregon State University’s press release is in English (and reads a bit smoother).

Okay…. Jason’s been holding out on us. Check out this stunning Troodon in this Smithsonion article by Brain Switek – also a very good read. But first things first… this Troodon raises the bar. A beautiful, haptic animal rendition. Congratulations, Jason! Even if you stealthily avoided posting it on your blog.