*** Apologies for Cross Posting *** On Friday, 22nd September, we will host two seminars, both to be broadcast over the Access Grid.
1. "From a Small Formula to Cyberworlds" Dr Alexei Sourin, School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Friday, 22nd September 2006, 1100-1200 (1000-1100 UTC) G95, Kilburn Building The talk covers projects on function-based web visualisation and visualisation on Grid. We have proposed and implemented function-based extensions (FX3D/ FVRML) of X3D and its predecessor VRML which allow for defining time-dependent geometric shapes, their appearance and transformations with analytically defined parametric, implicit and explicit functions. The function-defined shapes can be used together with the standard X3D and VRML shapes. Besides defining shapes by analytical functions, we have developed interactive function-based shape modelling tools. We have extended these interactive shape modelling tools to work on the Grid. We have also developed Grid-based portal for rendering animation scene files. Rendering computer animation frames is a very time consuming job. Using parallel computing on clusters and render farms is a common solution to this problem. In this project we developed a framework for Grid rendering services. We have also developed a novel lossless 3D compression method which allowed us to transfer gigabytes of scene representation files (Renderman (.rib) and mental images (.mi) files). 2. "High Dynamic Range Image Capture, Representation and Display" Greg Ward, BrightSide Technologies Friday, 22nd September 2006, 1400-1500 (1300-1400 UTC) Room 1.10, Kilburn Building Conventional digital imaging is constrained to lie within the limited gamut and dynamic range of a standard CRT monitor, whereas the human eye can see roughly twice the sRGB color gamut and 100 times the dynamic range. LCD monitors are already claiming contrast ratios of over 1000:1, and true high dynamic range displays capable of 10,000:1 with 16-bits/channel are in the works. On the capture side, multiple exposures from a conventional digital camera can be used to create an HDR image, though issues such as image alignment and ghosting must be addressed. The speaker will describe and demonstrate techniques for hand-held HDR image capture using the Photosphere application he developed, and explain the various HDR image formats available along with their strengths and weaknesses. The audience is invited to ask questions on related topics, such as image-based lighting, tone-mapping, and what HDR means for the future.
