by Lidia Paulinska | Sep 1, 2015
August 2015, Siggraph – Chris Edwards is the Founder and CEO of The Third Floor, the world’s leading pre-visualization studio services up to 40 major studio feature films each year. He is also Co-Founder/CEO of The VR Company. In addition to the two companies, he has extended his qualifications into the content area. Over the last 10 years he has been building a massive database of 3D assets, and servicing the world’s top Directors. He began his career in digital cinematography at Disney Studio and then he worked for George Lucas at Skywalker Ranch. His credits include Marvel franchises like Avengers and X-Men, the new Godzilla and Gravity.
“In the previsualization studio, we are working in real time to create scenes ahead of production, so a director can try one and have other options to choose from” said Edwards. . He explained that his company helps incubate concepts and package production for VR. The studio is experimenting with master layer imagery, which is combining CGI with live action photography for VR.
“Every time you go to see the Broadway play you feel like you are transformed by this amazing experience. We need to bring back that kind of language. Before we had cinema”, he continued, “we had a rectangle on the wall to display, dream, and still entertain us. That was called theater or play or some performance. It usually happened in front of the audience. The actors stayed sometimes on the front, or they go around. When you see Cirque du Soleil they come from above. The director uses all the tricks that work: sound design, blocking the characters and how they move around you, and lighting.”
by Lidia Paulinska | Sep 1, 2015
August 2015, Siggraph – David Karlak, a filmmaker based in Los Angeles, sees VR as an extension of the dreams that we have always had. He predicts that beyond VR, there will be additional technologies that will give us more immersive experiences. These experiences will include characteristics and senses from the physical world, such as smell. The opinion of the panel was that VR is not a necessity to be pushing innovation, but it is instead a wish fulfilling technology. For now, access to VR is not affordable to 99% of the world, but over time it will be more popularized and democratized.
Karlak has been exploring the confluence of virtual reality and science fiction cinema. He directed the short film “Candidate” that created a lot of buzz in the industry. Following this success, he raised funds on Kickstarter for his next project “Rise”, a film about a robot revolution in the future, told from the perspective of the robots. He sold the original story concept to Warner Brothers. Soon after sale of “Rise”, he sold a second original pitch titled “Outliers” to 20th Century Fox.
When he talked about VR he reminded the audience about the scene from “Reservoirs Dogs” by Quentin Tarantino. There was a scene in the film where all the characters were sitting on the table and the cameras was on a dolly which was rotating from one character to another. Having that camera calling out the characters in that moment is like having a camera on the table. “It actually make things simpler”, said Karlak . ”There is more emphasis on blocking of your actions in oppose to blocking of the camera. The camera in some ways disappeared leaving the viewer deeply immersed in the dialog and action of the scene.” He sees VR as alternative to Facebook or Instagram. People instead on spending time posting on social media, they will be “physically immersed” and connected in VR.
by Lidia Paulinska | Sep 1, 2015
August 2015, Siggraph – Allen Bolden, CGI artist and visual effects veteran with credits including “Marvel’s The Avengers,” “Iron Man” and other blockbuster productions, agreed that everyone has a dream or story in their head. He recently developed a real time intelligence system named Tina to help those dreams or stories to get out to the screen. He worked on that program for the last 10 years and now gets “textual input, visual output”.
“My team”, explained Allen, “took all those tedious things and put it into this simple program. For example, if we type “bowl on the table”, the software creates a CGI image of a bowl and of a table. The beauty is the more you work with Tina, she learns more about you and your preferences. Tina is an intelligent work companion that is handy and works with us towards our goals. People see things in subjective ways, so the CGI image can be different from what they expected. There is a way to change the image and improve program to make the image the way we like it.
by Lidia Paulinska | Aug 21, 2015
August 2015 – One of the major announcements at this year’s IDF was the availability and applications of the Realsense stereo 3D camera system in modules, tablets, and laptops. The technology was featured in a large section of the conference area and the display areas.
Targeting consumer applications, they were showing off the speed and accuracy of the technology with a couple of different exhibits. One was a 3D printing demonstration. It featured taking a 360 degree Stereo 3D photo of a person’s head, and then in real time transferring it to a 3D laser printer. The printer carved the image into a block of Lucite and producing an embedded 3D likeness of the person. The demonstration was so popular that they had to go to rotating time and call back system to get the images taken and printed. While the image capture is fast, under a couple of minutes, the laser printer averages about 20-25min per print which is what caused the queue for the demo.
One of the other heavily attended demo was a mirror with the integrated RealSense camera. The camera would take a 3D image of the person in front of the mirror. The mirror is actually a half mirrored display that can then superimpose jewelry on the person in the mirror. The system allows for the selection of earrings and necklaces on the people in the mirror. This system was very quick on setup – under 1 minute and very responsive to movement. The system is a prototype and had some challenges if there was more than 1 person in the view of the camera, but on the whole it worked well.
There were a number of other RealSense applications targeted at consumers being shown highlighting the measurement capabilities, depth & relative location capabilities, and virtual showroom/furniture capabilities. These have been shown in prior shows, and second generation software was the main display for these technology applications.
by Lidia Paulinska | Aug 9, 2015
July 2015 – At the IMEC Technology Forum prior to the start of Semicon West 2015, President Luc Van Den Hove started his presentation with bringing the times when the servants were on service for rich people. They were “invisible” eyes and hands that were ready for any request. Today, the role of technology is to take that place. Just like the servants years ago nowadays technology has to learn how to become smarter and serve the needs of people better. The only difference he said, is that instead of creating a comfortable living for just a few people, technology can make many people on our planet happy and comfortable.
One of the groups that really see the changes in their standard of living by using technology in the form of electronics devices, are senior citizens. The market for wearables is going to reach $80B USD by 2020. A heavy focus of the market will be on that segment. It is important that the use of wearables fade into our life and be se seamlessly integrated, intuitive and minimally simple. IMEC’s advanced wearable solutions laid the foundations for the creation of intuitive environments. They are bridging the technology gaps in the platform of sensors by evolving them from being just smart to being intuitive. In concluding on the sensors, he stated that in order to serve properly, the sensors have to be: invisible, low cost, ultra-low power, manage multiple parameters and be accurate in normal operation. As an example Mr Van Den Hove described the use of wearables that have utilized IMEC technology as such: a textile-integrated health patch, an EEG platform that provides quality and comfort for users, the Samsung Simband with IMEC Sensing Technology and the Embracelet taking a role of a personal assistant for the elderly.
The presentation continued to show that the logical extension to the use of those technology will be heading in the direction of context-aware sensing & smart personalized algorithms. These will require seamless heterogeneous wireless connectivity that includes cloud communication that will be driving the evolution of higher data rates with short latency. This will create an infrastructure-centric communication environment that is supported by “zero” maintenance along with both data and connection safety and security. To help support this trend, IMEC has developed technology for software reconfigurable radios for 4G and 5G cellular use as well as radios for zigbee and smart metering WiFi sensors. The person-centric communication environment is evolving towards lower power data transfers that the resulting big data & analytics. As a side light at the presentation they showed advancement in the area of data and low power communication was the IMEC developed world’s lowest power BLE solution.
As we know happy people worry less. The presenter observed that technology does not solve some of the societal stress factors such as money, work or economy. Technology however, is definitely helpful to address and solve some of concerns related to health problems. Advance technology development for the investigation of cancer issues range from electronics for the separation and identification of cancer cells to combating metastatic cancer. IMEC is bridging the technology gaps required by the creation of high-throughput high-content cell screening. As an example they showed a solution developed with Nano-electronics that sorts 20 million cells/sec and classifies them in real time at the rate of 2000 images/sec. Transportation is another are that technology has put its footprint on, and is being used to address a holistic approach to the field. The Holy Grail, of course are autonomous cars that can operation in the cross paths of safety, comfort and efficiency. But autonomous driving would not be gaining momentum nor achieve ubiquitous use, without low-cost mass-produced radars. Technology is heading towards the production of high performance radars in a single CMOS chip. IMEC presented the world’s first high-resolution 79GHz CMOS radar module. Another step towards bridging the required technology gaps is the creation of new user interfaces. These include a 3D vision skin and the use of acoustic holograms. Searching into nature, researchers chose to mimic the view seen in the eye of a fly and combine it with echo-location. This has created a vision and ultrasound system integrated in flex 3D vision skin. The skin is composed of arrays of thin-film photodetectors & piezo-electric devices & with distributed control electronic.
Next part of the presentation of Mr Van Den Hove focused on sources and technology for renewable energy. Solar photovoltaic PV conversion outputs for silicon solar cells are currently efficient to rates below an average of 20%. For energy storage, solid-state Li-Ion batteries are required to be compact, safe, high power & have a high energy density. New technology is working on 3D solid-state batteries where the challenges are to create them to be fast, reliable and safe charging. The future that will use these technologies is being driven by smart cities heading towards the design and building of net zero-energy buildings. To help address this, IMEC has developed a solar cell that has a World-record efficiency of 22.5% with an N-pert silicon solar cell. Final food production was addressed as an area that will require a activity and high attention. IMEC has created solutions including compact hyperspectral imaging electronics and cameras that can be attached to the drones. These imaging solutions are being used in inspection of the food on the field to help increase yield from the crops.
by Lidia Paulinska | Aug 9, 2015
At the North America Intersolar Conference that took place in San Francisco, LG Electronics announced the innovative solar system LG NeON2 that will be available in US in August 2015. The LG NeON 2 was already awarded last month with the Intersolar Europe Photovoltaic Award. It is equipped with their newly developed “Cello” technology. “Cello” stands for Cell Connection, Electrically, Low Loss, Low Stress and Optical Absorption Enhancement.
During the press conference David Cheng, Senior Product Manager identified four (4) big improvements that come with the LG NeON 2 technology: increased reliability, upgraded durability, enhanced performance and improved efficiency in space management. The innovative cello technology utilizes 12 connection wires instead of just 3 busbars, which was the technology used in the previous LG solar panels. The new wiring design allows the panels to utilize scatter light more effectively for better absorption, while reducing the electrical loss by spreading the current over 12 cell busbars. As a result, of the improved temperature handling and power distribution, the LG NeON 2 can generate more electricity on a sunny day and performs better on cloudy days than prior panels. Whereas conventional p-type silicon modules suffer from Light Induced Degradation, the NeON 2 modules use n-type silicon material and uses the Multi–Wire Busbar cells for increased performance and reliability. This combination allow the annual degradation to be reduced by a up to 2 percent the first year and not more than 0.6 percent per year in the following 24 years. In addition they re-manufactured the design to give it a reinforced frame. As a result LG has extended the product warranty up to a 12 full years.
In San Francisco LG presented the flagship NeON 2technolgy that is available as a 320W residential panel. This product is ideal for the homeowner who wants to maximize the energy production potential within a limited roof space. Along with the residential product they introduced the Mono X NeON 72, well suited for commercial applications. Two models of the Mono X NeON 72 are designed to deliver outputs of 360 and 365 watts, in 72 cell 77-inch by 39-inch panel. This new series builds on the success of LG’s award winning 60-cell Mono X NeON panel.
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