Ray tracing has been used in games for some time, but as baked in images. Ray tracing, even at 30 fps, is a computational challenge that has befuddled and frustrated hardware and software engineers for decades. With clever algorithms, Moore’s Law, and dogged perseverance, computer graphics companies have pushed the envelope further every year, with 2018 marking the breakout year … Read more
Really really big
Nobody said gamers would stop gaming. The detail is simply, like audiophiles used to have much higher end equipment than what anyone else could afford, or a high-end cell phone was different than a low end, technology being a great equalizer has made consoles, “good enough.” In the bad old days of the 80's when computer memory was still measured … Read more
We just got a glimpse at what might be coming in the new Sony console. That’s exciting, and so is the new that there will be a new console. Rumors about the PS5 have been floating around for almost a year now. After Nvidia’s big push for its ray tracing technology, AMD has been cautiously quiet on its plans for … Read more
The Foundry is making collaboration an important feature in their portfolio of projects. The company’s pre-production tool Flix is an early example of how the company enables people to work together on a project. At the time of its release, the Foundry and Imageworks talked about how the browser-based Flix enables everyone on a project to iterate quickly and maintain … Read more
Maybe you've read that VR is fading. Certainly, the hype is fading, and here at Siggraph that doesn't seem like a bad thing. The lines for VR applications are not so crazy, though they do exist. People aren’t so eager to put a headset on and look around. They’ve been able to do that with cardboard viewers for years now. … Read more
Sony recently announced the IMX586 stacked CMOS image sensor for smartphone cameras featuring 48 effective megapixels[1], and claiming to be the industry’s highest pixel count. The new product achieved a world-first (according to Sony research) ultra-compact pixel size of 0.8 μm The IMX586 is surprisingly tiny given its megapixel count. (Source: Sony) onto a 1/2-type (8.0 mm diagonal) unit, thereby … Read more
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) has partnered with Dell, Deloitte Digital, and Intel to launch Innovation Studios being built on its Sony Pictures lot in Culver City, CA. Innovation Studios is expected to be operational early this Fall. SPE is saying that Innovation Studios will be new state- of-the-art digital technology facility featuring R&D in areas like volumetric video and customizable … Read more
Now that all the heavy breathing about how VR was going to take over and change the world has finally worn down, the market has pretty much done what we said it would and become an interesting niche for a few enthusiasts. Within that niche, which we estimate at about 3 million units total to date, PlayStation, owned by SONY, … Read more
Outward AR is an interesting approach Microsoft’s Beamatron was one of the fist AR projection systems in 2012 using a fixed location projector (video here). Valve spinoff, Cast AR, was the first in 2013 to try using a projector as part of an AR headset. Microsoft tried it again in 2014 with their RoomAlive project. The idea was to turn … Read more
