A ray traced version of Imagination Technologies’ headquarters building Imagination has had ray tracing capabilities since 2010 when they acquired the boutique ray tracing company Caustic. Caustic had developed a hardware accelerator which Imagination turned into an RTL core and added to their stable of IP accelerators. The company has built out their ray tracing SDK and, in the … Read more
Tinkercad was born of a desire to extend 3D CAD and along the way 3D printing to the world. Original founders Kai Backman and Mikko Mononen were determined to break the logjam that has grown along with interest in 3D design. They could see that there was huge interest in 3D design to enable 3D printing, create rendered visualizations, and … Read more
Source: Pico Beijing-based Pico Interactive has released its Pico Neo 3 Pioneer Edition VR All-in-One headset with a 256GB SD. The HMD uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 XR2 (the same processor used in the Oculus Quest), and there is optical tracking interpupillary distance adjustment. It offers Wi-Fi 6 streaming VR. The company’s Pico Store has over 400 apps, including … Read more
HTC has announced two new VR headsets (HMD): one for gamers and one for business/scientific. HTC showed the HMDs at its May 12–13 inaugural l Vivecon 2021 event. Both units, the Vive Pro 2 (an upgraded version of the Vive Pro launched in 2018) and the Vive Focus 3 have a 5K display resolution (2,448 × 2,448 (6.0MP) per eye) … Read more
Adobe’s latest release adds new features for Audition and Premiere Pro along with the usual enhancements for performance and improved collaboration. These are cross-platform improvements. Adobe has been phasing in support for Apple’s M1 machines so we’re also seeing more of these. Adobe now says Premiere Pro, Audition, and Premiere Rush have full native support for M1. The company says … Read more
Trimble has once again rejiggered its SketchUp lineup and is creating a powerful design and visualization tool in SketchUp Studio, its top-of-the line option. The big news for SketchUp Studio is the integration of Chaos rendering from V-Ray and also support for point cloud data. However, with the update comes a limitation. SketchUp Studio is now a Windows-only product. … Read more
Shapr3D is a capable 3D modeler for engineers, designers, and hobbyists. The company has debuted its news version for the M1 Macs. (Source: Shapr3D) Shapr3D started out as a mobile-first product for CAD design and, inevitably enough, it is moving up to M1 powered Macs. Winner of the Apple Design Award, Shapr3D has been featured in Apple’s recent keynotes … Read more
Apparently, Autodesk’s developers have not been waiting out the pandemic. In response to user requests and experiences during the pandemic, Autodesk has taken advantage of emerging technologies to add more than 40 improvements to Flame 2022. The company has taken advantage of Machine Learning (ML) to make significant improvements to Flame’s camera tracking capabilities, finishing, and color grading. In fact, … Read more
Over the years of computer graphics, stretching back to Ed Catmull’s pioneering 1974 paper that introduced the concept of subdivision, wrapping, and unwrapping, the CG industry has been trying to find ways to make texture mapping faster and more efficient because it is such a powerful tool. It led to Jim Blinn’s famous 1978 paper on bump-mapping and other developments. … Read more
Workstations have proved their mettle during the pandemic—sometimes by their absence. People, who have had to relinquish their powerful computers to work on home computers, have found out how much the workstation’s power, processing, and fast access to data means to them. Others have found it’s well worth the inconvenience to take the office machine home if that’s part of … Read more
Unreal is staking out more ground in the Metaverse as they see it during their Unreal Build Automotive Event, which, of course, this year was virtual. Unreal has been pitching the automotive industry with Build conferences in Munich and Detroit. The Munich events have been held in 2018, 2019, and in 2021, this virtual event brings in the world to … Read more
Corel, a venerable player in vector graphics, has signaled a reset by rolling out the latest version of the software with an introduction by the CEO Christa Quarles who took over the reins at Corel. The company has spiffed up its corporate look quite a bit, which was evident in the presentations given by the company’s executives. Corel really should … Read more
