Add a nostalgic look to your next movie using Nostalgia Suite ($49). Choose from 10 vintage color presets or even create one of your own. Add a natural, organic lens flare to your footage with the included Flare Builder, a powerful light flare tool. Choose from 13 different real light flares. Control the opacity and color of the flares to give it a strong or subtle look. Nostalgia also comes with a choice of 4 different slide effects and a slide sound effect.
With Screen Stitch ($49), you can choose from 36 different split screen effects right from the convenience of your generators browser in Final Cut Pro X. Vertical split, horizontal split, diagonal…two clips, three clips or more, change background color, scale images…
Every SketchUp model is made up of just two things: edges and faces. Edges are straight lines, and faces are the 2D shapes that are created when several edges form a flat loop. For example, a rectangular face is bound by four edges that are connected together at right angles. To build models in SketchUp, you draw edges and faces using a few simple tools that you can learn in a small amount of time. It’s as simple as that.
Push/Pull: Quickly go from 2D to 3D
Extrude any flat surface into a three-dimensional form with SketchUp’s patented Push/Pull tool. Just click to start extruding, move your mouse, and click again to stop. You can Push/Pull a rectangle into a box. Or draw the outline of a staircase and Push/Pull it into 3D. Want to make a window? Push/Pull a hole through your wall. SketchUp is known for being easy to use, and Push/Pull is the reason why.
Accurate measurements: Work with precision
SketchUp is great for working fast and loose in 3D, but it’s more than just a fancy electronic pencil. Because you’re working on a computer, everything you create in SketchUp has a precise dimension. When you’re ready, you can build models that are as accurate as you need them to be. If you want, you can print scaled views of your model, and if you have SketchUp Pro, you can even export your geometry into other programs like AutoCAD and 3ds MAX.
Follow Me: Create complex extrusions and lathed forms
You use SketchUp’s innovative, do-everything Follow Me tool to create 3D forms by extruding 2D surfaces along predetermined paths. Model a bent pipe by extruding a circle along an L-shaped line. Create a bottle by drawing half of its outline, then using Follow Me to sweep it around a circle. You can even use Follow Me to round off (fillet) edges on things like handrails, furniture and electronic gadgets.
Paint Bucket: Apply colors and textures
You can use SketchUp’s Paint Bucket tool to paint your model with materials like colors and textures.
Groups and Components: Build smarter models
By “sticking together” parts of the geometry in your model to make Groups, you can create sub-objects that are easier to move, copy and hide. Components are a lot like Groups, but with a handy twist: copies of Components are related together, so changes you make to one are automatically reflected in all the others. Windows, doors, trees, chairs and millions of other things benefit from this behavior.
Shadows: Perform shade studies and add realism
SketchUp’s powerful, real-time Shadow Engine lets you perform accurate shade studies on your models.
Sections: See inside your models
You can use SketchUp’s interactive Sections feature to temporarily cut away parts of your design, enabling you to look inside. You can use Sections to create orthographic views (like floorplans), to export geometry to CAD programs using SketchUp Pro, or just to get a better view of your model while you’re working on it. Section Planes can be moved, rotated and even animated using SketchUp’s Scenes feature.
Scenes: Save views and create animations
We created Scenes to enable you to easily save precise views of your model so you can come back to them later. Need to create an animation? Just create a few Scenes and click a button.
Look Around and Walk: Explore your creations firsthand
SketchUp lets you get inside your model with a set of simple navigation tools designed to give you a first-person view. Click with Position Camera to “be standing” anywhere in your model. Use Look Around to turn your virtual head. Finally, switch to Walk to explore your creation on foot; you can even climb and descend stairs and ramps, just like you’re playing a video game.
Dimensions and Labels: Add information to your designs
You can use the super-intuitive Dimension and Label tools to add dimensions, annotations and other glorious detail to your work.
The Instructor: Catch on quickly
SketchUp’s Instructor dialog box, which you can choose to activate at any time, provides context-sensitive help.
Layers and the Outliner: Stay organized
When you’re building a big, complicated model, things can get messy very quickly. SketchUp provides two useful ways to keep your geometry manageable:
Google Earth: See your models in context
SketchUp and Google Earth are part of the same product family, meaning you can exchange information between them easily. Need a building site for your project? Import a scaled aerial photograph, including topography, directly from Google Earth to SketchUp by clicking one button. Want to see your SketchUp model in context in Google Earth? Click another button, and you can. Anyone can use SketchUp to build models which can be seen by anyone in Google Earth.
Sandbox tools: Work on terrain
SketchUp’s Sandbox tools let you create, optimize and alter 3D terrain. You can generate a smooth landscape from a set of imported contour lines, add berms and valleys for runoff, and create a building pad and driveway.
3D Warehouse: Find models of almost anything you need
The Google 3D Warehouse is a huge, online repository of 3D models which you can search through when you need something. Why build something when you can download it for free?
Import 3DS: Get a head start on your modeling
You can import 3DS files directly into your SketchUp models. Have a piece of furniture in 3DS format that you’d like to use? Import it in, then keep on truckin’.
Import images: Paint walls with photos
With SketchUp, you can import image files like JPGs, TIFFs, PNGs and PDFs. You can use them by themselves (kind of like posters), but you can also stick them to surfaces to create photo-realistic models of buildings, package designs, and more.
Export TIFF, JPEG and PNG
SketchUp lets you export raster images up to 10,000 pixels square, so generating an image which you can send in an email, publish in a document, or project on a wall is as easy as choosing a few options and clicking Export.
PRO Import and Export DXF and DWG: 2D line drawings and 3D models
Google SketchUp Pro allows you to import and export DXFs and DWGs, giving you an easy way to move plans, sections, elevations or even your whole model into (and out of) your favorite CAD program. Imported and exported geometry remains at 1:1 scale, and layers are preserved.
PRO Export PDF and EPS: 2D vector images
With the Pro version of Google SketchUp, you can export views of your models in PDF and EPS format, allowing you to continue to work on them in vector editing programs like Illustrator and Freehand. For 2D images that need to be resolution-independent, nothing beats exporting to these formats.
PRO Export 3DS, OBJ, XSI, FBX, VRML and DAE
If you’re using Google SketchUp Pro, you can export your models to a number of useful 3D formats. Pros use a number of different tools, and these exporters allow SketchUp to join most professional workflows by offering interoperability with just about every popular 3D modeling application in existence.
Discover Adobe® Kuler® — the web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you’re creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community.
DID YOU KNOW…
Adobe Kuler is now available as a tablet app
The Adobe Kuler app, an extension of the full Adobe Kuler service, enables you to generate and view color themes on the go. Initially available for Android only.
Kuler is available online at no charge
Explore, create, and share color themes. Try Kuler now
Kuler is accessible from your favorite Creative Suite 5 software
Explore, search, and create new color themes right where you work with the Kuler panels built into Adobe Illustrator® CS5, Photoshop® CS5, InDesign® CS5.5, Fireworks® CS5, and Flash® Professional CS5.5 software. See more features
Looking to learn the basics of using the Arduino starter board? Well be sure to watch this informative video hosted by Massimo Banzi, one of the Co-Founders of Arduino.
The video explains how to build a basic circuit with the Arduino board, and how to use each of the basic components such as LEDs, switches, and resistors. So if you are new to engineering, or have only recently purchased the Arduino started kit, this video is a must-watch!
Artec 3D scanner InstructionsStep by step instructions on how to use the Artec scanner booked out at DMC Bartlett.
How to scan
How to process data
General info
file types
This section contains ‘How to’ guides for every part of an artist’s career. From exhibiting, to earning money and more. Everything you need to know about sustaining a career as a practitioner is here.
These paper and fabric speakers are made by running 5-9V amplified sound signal through a very conductive coil in close proximity to a magnet. Unlike most speakers that have the wire coil wrapped cylindrically and placed around the magnet, here the coil is in the plane and directly adhered to the membrane that moves the air creating sound.
Also see: etched fabric speaker, carved and engraved wood speakers, plated seashell speakers:
Slade alumni and artist Sam Belinfante has shared this great guide on how best to back up your computer data and files, giving many different options. The guide has been written by an artist specifically for artists. This is a must read for anyone using a computer.
100+ pages of everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask – an essential guide to buying and using Bolex H16 cameras
PDF: Bolex Bible
booru WebCam 2.0 will assist you in capturing images from your web camera, publishing them on your homepage, archiving them on your harddrive or storing them on the Internet. The program makes it easy to apply effects such as picture and text overlays to the camera image. The main purpose of booru Webcam is to increase the fun factor and usefulness of webcams!
Party Cam: Use your web camera as a party cam, documenting the party to your local hard drive. You can later on look through the archive to find all the highlights from yesterday’s party. Or why not share your fun with others on the Internet?
Surveillance: Use your web camera as a simple surveillance camera, documenting the things happening in its view.
Share in Style: Publish images on the Internet with dynamic text and custom made overlay images.
Free: The program can be freely downloaded below for private, non-commercial use. No nagging, no trial period. See the online manual for installation instructions.
Bundled, Buried & Behind Closed Doors is a short documentary explaining internet infrastructure, focusing on the art deco building 60 Hudson Street in Tribeca, which is now one of the most concentrated carrier hotels in the world. The internet has an “ironically very limited geography in terms of big strategic concentrations,” explains Stephen Graham, professor of cities and society, Newcastle University, in the short film. “The big affluent high tech information rich regions” is where the infrastructure is densely located. And 60 Hudson Street was especially ideal as a hub, given that the building was already designed to accomidate cables as it was first fitted for pneumatics tubes, then telegraph cables and telephone lines.
In an interview with The Atlantic’s Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg, director Ben Mendelsohn explains, “The issue of how this infrastructure is hidden fascinates me. Andrew Blum has a book coming out in May about physical Internet infrastructure, which I’m very excited for. He was giving a lecture and handing out postcards of “data monuments” in New York City, and I asked him: if these are monuments, what do they reveal about the culture that built them? Their message is really one of ambivalence. Service providers need to let potential clients know where they are, but they generally decline to make their presence widely known beyond that marketing purpose. Andrew did say that he envisions ”brewery tour” style visits or class field trips to Internet buildings in the future, and I think that would be great, but the industry is not there yet.”
It’s a web-based, interactive programming tutorial that holds your hand and walks you through the basics of JavaScript. At this point it’s just getting started — the lessons only go as far as ‘While’ loops — but it clearly has loads of potential for one key reason: it actually feels fun.
a major new website examining the celluloid legacy of British colonialism. The website, www.colonialfilm.org.uk, houses over 30 hours of newly digitized films drawn from the archives of the British Film Institute, the Imperial War Museum, and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. It is made freely available, worldwide. The project research team sifted through thousands of records to extract a comprehensive list of any and every film that contained footage, however brief, of a British colony before independence, and from this pre-existing but unsorted data a new joint catalogue was assembled, and is presented on the website in a fully searchable form. All told there are some six thousand film records. The earliest titles in the collection date from the 1890s. The most recent show the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. Between these dates were found a dazzling array of moving pictures. Few of them had been looked at in any great detail. There are films of all places, and of all genres: documentaries, educational and instructional films, industrial films, propaganda, fiction, missionary and amateur films. We have digitized films from across all these categories.
Alongside the films and catalogue are a series of enhanced catalogue entries that give an account of the production and making of selected films, and integrate this into wider historical contexts, paying special attention to the visual aspects of the films and examining how their messages are conveyed. Four hundred or so entries are available online, written principally by the post-doctoral research team of Tom Rice, Richard Osborne, and Francis Gooding. There are also texts detailing the most important production companies that worked in the colonies or under the aegis of the colonial power, and the catalogue can also be searched both by historical themes, such as Empire and War, and by film genre.
The project’s primary aim was to illuminate the colonial past through the examination of material visual evidence, to link this evidence with deep and wide ranging research in colonial and international history, and to begin the process of making these historically important films available, often for the first time since they were originally released. To further these goals, two collections of essays examining the integral role cinema played in the control, organization, and governance of the diverse geo-political space of the British Empire have also recently been published. Empire and Film, and Film and the End of Empire are both edited by Lee Grieveson and Colin MacCabe and published by the British Film Institute. (Further details about these are online at http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=488135 and http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=489076).
This project was led by Colin MacCabe and Lee Grieveson. It was made possible by funds provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom. We acknowledge also the important support of the British Film Institute, the Imperial War Museum, the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum, the London Consortium, the University of Pittsburgh, Birkbeck College, University of London, and University College London.
Color calculator
Converts color data to different color standards (RGB, CMYK, L*ab, L*ch, L*uv, Hunter, XYZ etc.). All the math implemented in this calculators is available in the math/formulas page.
Create color harmonies
From your RGB colors it creates colors complements, harmonies and themes. It can be used to easily create a Web site color theme or to select good trim and accent colors for your home decorations.
From RGB values to commercial tints
Matches your computer generated RGB values to color cards, paint lines, inks, fandecks, standards and more…
Helps you find a commercial product matching your computer generated colors. Also let you get cross-products matches of paint and ink products. Transforms “virtual” colors in “real world” references.
From commercial tints to RGB values
Search through our commercial tints database for specific color codes or names.
Once selected the desired color, find the closest match in competitors’ fandecks and color cards, create harmonies or get full chromatic data.
Software and color database
We can supply software and color database to perform this site’s services without the need to be on-line all the time.
Popular chromameter interfaces are also available upon request.
Color tutorials
You will find a rich collection of color related information here. Math and formulas, FAQ, useful links, monitor resolution notes and much more… A constantly updated source of useful color tips.
Freely submit your tints
We will be glad to freely post readings of your tints samples on our pages. Before sending us your color cards, fandecks or color collection please contact us first.
This is an old post from Larry Jordan, FCP instructor
NOTE: This process changed since this was posted. See the update at the bottom. When working with PAL just use DV PAL settings in place of NTSC
Tom Porett, from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, writes:
I enjoy your newsletter greatly – thanks very much.
I have a question about converting a 16:9 format to 4:3 in letterbox format (with bars). If there is an issue of the newsletter that has that info I’d appreciate it.
I am uploading work to Google video and they require 4:3 format only.
Larry replies: Yup, it can be done. In fact, I had a client this morning that needed to convert a DVCPro-50 16:9 sequence into a DV 4:3 video. Here’s how to do it.
1) Open the sequence you want to convert into the Timeline.
2) Choose File > Export > Quicktime movie.
3) In the Save As dialog, change Current Settings to “DV NTSC 48K” — if you are working with PAL video, you would select “DV PAL 48K”. Then, make sure that Make movie self-contained. is CHECKED.
4) The movie will export — and will take a while to do so, depending upon the length of the sequence you are exporting. Use this to rediscover the outdoors and sunshine. Look out a window, or something.
5) When the export is complete, change your Easy Setup to “DV NTSC” (or “DV PAL” depending upon where in the world you live).
6) Create a new project and import your newly exported QuickTime movie. Then, edit it to the Timeline.
Ta-DAH! Your 16:9 image format is retained, but Final Cut has now added black letter-boxing at the top and bottom of the image. You are now ready to output as a standard DV file.
The best part about this process is that no additional rendering is necessary; your file is ready to output as soon as you get it edited into a new sequence.
Fast and easy.
UPDATE – Jan. 2008
As Oren Hercz pointed out:
I just wanted to mention a minor problem I discovered with your “converting a 16:9 sequence to 4:3 video” article. I was following your instructions, using FCP 5.1.2, but when I exported my anamorphic sequence as “DV NTSC 48k” and then imported it into a NTSC DV timeline, I got a stretched image inside black bars (yuck!) I discovered that I had to export using “DV NTSC 48k anamorphic” setting to make it work. I don’t know if this is a change in FCP since you wrote that article, but I thought you might want to know.
Larry replies: You are correct. Apple has now made anamorphic video a specific menu choice in the application. If you are working with 16:9, then please select “anamorphic.”
Coursea offer high quality courses from the top universities, for free to everyone. We currently host courses from Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and University of Pennsylvania. We are changing the face of education globally, and we invite you to join us.
Classes offered on Coursera are designed to help you master the material. When you take one of our classes, you will watch lectures taught by world-class professors, learn at your own pace, test your knowledge, and reinforce concepts through interactive exercises. When you join one of our classes, you’ll also join a global community of thousands of students learning alongside you. We know that your life is busy, and that you have many commitments on your time. Thus, our courses are designed based on sound pedagogical foundations, to help you master new concepts quickly and effectively. Key ideas include mastery learning, to make sure that you have multiple attempts to demonstrate your new knowledge; using interactivity, to ensure student engagement and to assist long-term retention; and providing frequent feedback, so that you can monitor your own progress, and know when you’ve really mastered the material.
We offer courses in a wide range of topics, spanning the Humanities, Medicine, Biology, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Business, Computer Science, and many others. Whether you’re looking to improve your resume, advance your career, or just learn more and expand your knowledge, we hope there will be multiple courses that you find interesting.
When shipping artwork around it is ideal to have custom wooden crates made to the right size. It protects the artwork and makes shipping and handling easier and safer. It is often cheaper buying ready made plastic.
Recommended companies: Packable, wood approved for international shipment, fast turnaround, many options.
Macs have some great built-in keyboard shortcuts, but if you want to create custom or global shortcuts that perform more complicated tasks, you’ll need to do a little extra legwork. Here’s how to turn virtually any action into a keyboard shortcut
Easy Website Building Tools
Onepager is the easiest way for small business owners to setup a professional looking website in minutes.
Easy to Update & Maintain
Our interface allows you to easily update and maintain your website on your own. Save money and never hire a developer again!
Professional Look & Feel
Give your customers a positive first impression! Create a website with our professionally designed themes or create your own look and feel.
Get Found By Customers
Sites built with Onepager have the best standards for search engine optimization so your customers can easily find you online.
Helpful Website Analytics
Get insightful analytics on where your users are coming from and how they are finding you through your dashboard.
Use Custom Domains
Your domain name is important to your business’s online presence. Purchase one through Onepager or use one you already own.
You can test out the interface and tools before committing
visualization.ch put together a selection of data visualization tools that they use the most and that they enjoy working with. It includes libraries for plotting data on maps, frameworks for creating charts, graphs and diagrams and tools to simplify the handling of data. Even if you’re not into programming, you’ll find applications that can be used without writing one single line of code. They will keep this list as a living repository and add / remove things as technology develops.
With GuideGuide, it doesn’t have to be. Pixel accurate columns, rows, midpoints, and baselines can be created based on your document or marquee with the click of a button. Frequently used guide sets can be saved for repeat use. Grids can use multiple types of measurements. Best of all it’s free. Honestly, if you haven’t started downloading it by now, you’re probably a masochist. Weirdo…
Grid Tab
Fill in the fields and click the GG button to create your grid.
Negative margin values will place the guides outside your selection.
Hold the clear guides button to clear all input fields.
Clicking the icon next to a margin field will apply its value to all margins.
Clicking the + button will let you save the current values as a preset.
Sets Tab
Double click a guide set to edit it.
Hold the clear guides button to delete the selected set.
Holding the GG button with a set selected will switch to the grid tab and populate its form
Once upon a time to work with 3d software you’d need a small fortune to get you started – a few thousand Euros for the software, and a few more to partake in a premium rate course or two to learnthe basics. Or you could save your pennies and buy a mute tutorial book, which would invariably goout of date as newer versions of your program would surface, and keyboard short cuts, terminologyand layout would change. Now the world of 3D computer graphics has opened up and its anyone’s game. Blender potentially replaces the industry standards of Maya, Cinema4D and 3DS Max, happily quelling the age olddilemma of ‘which 3D program is best / should I fork out on?’ (‘try Blender, its free and its great’).Your premium rate teacher is replaced by the hoards of helpful souls wandering Blender forums,waiting and eager to help, and to get you started you can search for the array of video tutorials onYouTube and beyond, lovingly created to make learning easy.In the year and a half I have been learning and working with Blender
Like all digital media, video-games can be designed, produced, deconstructed and re-appropriated within the context of art. Even though the history of video-games is relatively short, it is already rich with examples of artistic experimentation and innovation. Unlike film or video, games still represent a fairly immature medium, slowly evolving to locate itself in mainstream culture. The majority of games often present simplistic or crude visions of interactivity, narrative and aesthetics, but the mediumoffers unique potential for the creation of exciting new forms of art. Like any digital medium the evolution of art/games is closely tied to the development of software, hardware and thesocio-cultural forms that grow around this technology.
Image reigns supreme. From the thousands of films churned out each year from Nollywood, to the persistent recording of images by security cameras in London to the scaling of windows on your desktop computer, you are already a pixel pusher. But, how can you reign supreme over images? How can you become an active participant in the creation of graphics and move beyond passive consumption. While the distinction between amateur and professional is erased in the Youtube-record-a-video-get-rich-generation, the focus upon high-quality content controlling tools is key. What is the point of mastering verion 3.5 of Killer Graphics App 97′s fuzz filter [1] if you don’t have a use, or you have become locked into a niche application that costs 2000 Euros for each new version? The focus of this chapter is about exploring free and open source tools that empower you to do what you want to say and if the tools aren’t working out, you are allowed to change them from the inside-out! The major tools in this chapter to be discussed are bitmap editor Gimp, vector drawing tool Inkscape, 3d graphics with Blender, and algorithmic graphics creation with Processing [2]. By the way, these tools are free! They have huge constructive communities around them waiting to help you with your tasks, adding new features and supporting vibrant actively producing pixel pushers.
In working with any graphics application, it is important to understand the difference between vector and pixel graphics. Vector graphics describe the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, Bezier curves, and polygons to represent images in computer graphics [3]. It is used in contrast with the term raster graphics (bitmap graphics), which is the representation of images as a collection of pixels (dots). Vector graphics are math equations to define curves, generally have a smaller file size than raster graphics and also, can be scaled from tiny to massively huge billboards with no loss in quality. The letterforms for these words I’m typing are vector graphics. Bitmaps on the other-hand, are the types of images that a camera outputs, for example. Maybe your camera is a 5-megapixel camera, meaning it can record 5 million pixels per image. With bitmap graphics the more data about an image, then generally the better quality image, and thus a larger file size.
Gimp is one of the oldest free and open source applications. It is now 10 years old and is on par with major closed-source [4] applications. Gimp is primarily a tool you can use to edit all aspects of a bitmap image, from color retouching of photos, to painting on a canvas to fixing blemishes on a face, Gimp is chock full of tools. Its vector-based sibling is Inkscape, an Open Source drawing tool. With it you can make complex typography, make huge billboards, draw architectural plans and make lovely charts. This powerful tool implements the World Wide Web consortium’s Scalable Vector Graphics specification (SVG) and points out another strength of Open Source graphics tools in supporting free and open standards that won’t just vanish because a company closes shop, or locks down a format under proprietary patents.
Another important concept for graphics is the difference between two (2D) and three-dimensions (3D). Most graphics applications, including Gimp and Inkscape, are two-dimensional, meaning they deal with height and width of graphics, also called X and Y coordinates. Think of 2D graphics as a piece of paper. 3D graphics, like those operated on by the free software editor, Blender, add depth (Z-axis) to 2D graphics. This is what you see in the famous Pixar movies like Toy Story and Cars [5].
These typical 3D animations also add a fourth dimension (4D), time. While Blender does handle the fourth dimension by allowing 3D creators to animate, for these chapters, the concept of 4D also includes the concept of graphics through time and interactivity. When Casey Reas and Ben Fry developed Processing, a simple Java-based language and runtime for creating generative graphics[6], the tools for creating graphics primarily relied upon manual creation with Gimp and Inkscape, or more sophisticated knowledge of graphics programming in C/C++. Processing lowered the barriers for participation in creating interested graphics from code, and also allowed for these graphics to take on a life of their own through user interaction. It should also be noted that Inkscape, Gimp and Blender all offer forms of scripting and automation as well to enable creators to be extended quickly. The main difference between these three apps and Processing, is that Processing generates standalone applications which can be run anywhere. This is great for artists who are making interactive installations, but way too much manual controls for simple photo retouching.
In addition to these great free and open source tools that exist, there are projects as well, which focus on the community of graphics creation and on connecting together graphics applications into a coherently focused suite. The Open Clip Art Library encourages the upload and remix of public domain vector graphics under the guise of “clip art” and the Open Font Library goal is to build the world’s largest free and open collection of fonts [7]. The Open Clip Art Library has approximately 15,000 pieces of high quality public domain clip art, meaning anyone can do anything they want with these resources. The Open Font Library is still a fairly new project with ~40 high quality fonts that are either in the public domain or under the new SIL Open Font License [8]. The most notable font on the system is by famed kottke.org blogger, Jason Kottke. He created the super-popular font Silkscreen, a small bitmap-looking font used everywhere on the web. He recently licensed it under the Open Font License and uploaded it to the collection, signally clearly to other font creators that they can build upon it and make it better.
While all these projects exist in the free and open source software universe, the projects did not talk very much until two key projects developed. The first is the Create Project, whose goal is to provide a third-party space for creation applications to work together on standards, shared resources (palettes, brushes, patterns, keyboard mappings), and to encourage inter-project communication [9]. The other key development is the annual Libre Graphics Meeting [10] which is the major event where artists and developers come together to work on making free and open source tools better, seeing what is possible by artists, and massive amounts of cross-pollination to create the future for graphics pixel pushers.
The major difference to closed source proprietary drawing apps is that you can’t reign supreme over images. You can’t become a true pixel pusher. You can only be the pixel pusher that someone else wants you to be. By using Gimp, Inkscape, Blender, Processing or one of the many other free and open source applications, you can dig deep into the code and communities of these projects. You can even shape the direction of these projects by joining in the discussions, filing bugs about problems with the tools, and showing off how much you reign supreme over images pixel pusher.
Notes
[1] Please note, this is vast satire over learning tools rather than having a reason to use them. Also, please note, this should be called the cheese filter.
[4] I dare not link to the various Adobe applications you all know I’m referring to: Adobe Photoshop for the GIMP, Adobe Illustrator for Inkscape
[5] The irony of this is that 3D graphics are rendered back into a 2D representation onto a screen, or in a movie theater.
That’s a broad title. Building your own hardware can mean a lot of different things. To narrow thescope a bit, this article talks about embedded Single Board Computers (SBCs) and microcontrollersfrom birds eye view. An embedded SBC is anything that is complex enough to comfortably host astandard operating system, while a microcontroller is too small for that.
This article introduces the possibilities of the software Pure Data (Pd), explains a bit why it’s so popular among artists and shows what Pd can be used for. The goal is to help artists decide if Pd is a tool for their own work.
Pure Data, or PD for short, is a software written by mathematician and musician Miller S. Puckette. It has become one of the most popular tools for artists working with digital media. Originally conceived in the late 90s as an environment to create sounds and to compose music, it was soon extended by modules to work with video and graphics. Pd is freely available for no cost, and it is Free Software in that the source code can be obtained, modified and distributed without restrictions as well. Pd runs on many operating systems including the big three: Linux, OS-X and MS-Windows.
The term ‘software art’ acquired a status of an umbrella term for a set of practices approaching software as a cultural construct. Questioning software culturally means not taking for granted, but focusing on, recognising and problematising its distinct aesthetics, poetics and politics captured and performed in its production, dissemination, usage and presence, contexts which software defines and is defined by, histories and cultures built around it, roles it plays and its economies, and various other dimensions. Software, deprived of its alleged ‘transparency’, turns out to be a powerful mechanism, a multifaceted mediator structuring human experience, perception, communication, work and leisure, a layer occupying central positions in the production of digital cultures, politics and economies.
Working with digital video is part of many artistic disciplines. Besides single screen narratives, video productions can range from animation, multiple screen installation to interactive work. Still, many aspects of digital video can be traced back to the history of film. The interface of a timeline editing software such as Cinelerra shows a multitrack timeline, a viewing monitor, a bin for clips; echoing the setup of a flatbed table for editing celluloid.
You might have come across the ‘made with Processing’ hyperlink on the internet or heard ofProcessing before. Over the past six years it has become a real phenomenon, allowing creative mindsto access the digital world. Based on a rather simple syntax and minimal interface, Processingsmoothly drives beginners into the scary world of programming.This article is not a tutorial, but rather an attempt to give you a global idea of what the programmingenvironment is, looks like and why it was created. Should you decide it is the tool you need, thisarticle will hopefully provide enough pointers to online and offline resources to get you started on theright track.
What and who was it designed for ?
As the Processing web site mentions: “Processing is an open source programming language andenvironment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions. It is used bystudents, artists, designers, researchers, and hobbyists for learning, prototyping, and production. It iscreated to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context and to serve as asoftware sketchbook and professional production tool. Processing is developed by artists anddesigners as an alternative to proprietary software tools in the same domain.”
It is of course a truism, often repeated, that the Internet has been the basis for a revolution in (remote) interpersonal communications, collaboration and data sharing. It is probably safe to say that there would be very few of the Free/Libre and Open Source (FLOSS) projects that exist today without the collaboration technologies the Internet supports. One of the many effects of the powerful tools FLOSS has put in to the hands of creative people is that it has potentially made them more independent. No longer are they reliant on specialists with access to expensive software and hardware to carry out aspects of their projects for them. Their limitations are now time and knowledge, not the lack of access. It is in fact precisely this issue that the Digital Artists’ Handbook seeks to address, by providing authoritative information to guide practitioners in to new fields of endeavour.
The downside of this independence is that many artists find themselves more isolated, working alone at home rather than interacting with others at shared studios or where shared resources were previously found.
The Internet, being fundamentally a communications medium, offers potential solutions to this isolation, but the solutions themselves have, to date, largely dictated that collaboration happens in new ways, shaped by the technology. For some, the thousands of FLOSS coders for example, the tools have made possible projects that would otherwise be virtually inconceivable, but for other artists looking to enhance their existing practice with new digital methods the situation is perhaps more double-edged.
It maybe be useful to step back for a moment and consider what we mean when we talk about working, or collaborating with others. For a start it could be divided in to five broad types of collaboration:
More and more I hear people talking on the subject of the preservation of internet art. It is a new medium and no one knows what exactly will happen. Will we still browse the web in 15 years? Will information be injected straight into our mind without any screens?
Art works should last a long time. I love seeing old art, and I think it’s not until an artist dies that we get the big picture of their work.
Many media came before the internet. Lots of those media were lost, and some were saved. Paintings, sculptures, books, celluloid, vinyl, tapes, they can all rot and wither. The internet is different. It is a universal, decentralized, universal library, controlled by no one.
When a file exists on the internet, it gets copied. If it is an interesting file, many copies are made. The data is no longer connected to any single physical medium, it exists on many locations at the same time. Old lost music and movies resurface as torrents. These torrent files exists on many machines and media at the same time. Those same movies might have deteriorated on celluloid. I think the internet is the safest place for data.
Operating systems, programs and protocols change all the time. The survival of software is both by emulation and translation. If you look at old video games, they have always survived. They are kept alive by communities of enthusiasts. Passionate geeks re-code old software for new platforms.
The context might change, but we will always be able to revisit old software in some form.
Transferring software to new platform is peanuts compared to preserving traditional art.
Sharks deteriorate in formaldehyde.
If something is interesting, it will survive. As long as someone cares, a copy will exist.
Richard Taylor looks at how to create a documented library of your work for online and print publishing: producing better professional practice and forwarding your work by establishing a self-archive.
Following in the footsteps of the release of System 7.5.3 for free in January 1999, Apple has decided to give away Mac OS 9.0 operating system for free since it’s been replaced by Mac OS X
Your files, anywhere
Any file you save to Dropbox also instantly saves to your computers, phones, and the Dropbox website.
2GB of Dropbox for free, with subscriptions up to 100GB available. Your files are always available from the secure Dropbox website. Dropbox works with Windows, Mac, Linux, iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. Works even when offline. You always have your files, whether or not you have a connection. Dropbox transfers just the parts of a file that change (not the whole thing). Manually set bandwidth limits — Dropbox won’t hog your connection.
We’re drowning in email. And the many hours we spend on it are generating ever more work for our friends and colleagues. (Here’s why.) We can reverse this spiral only by mutual agreement. Hence this Charter…
1. Respect Recipients’ Time
This is the fundamental rule. As the message sender, the onus is on YOU to minimize the time your email will take to process. Even if it means taking more time at your end before sending.
2. Short or Slow is not Rude
Let’s mutually agree to cut each other some slack. Given the email load we’re all facing, it’s OK if replies take a while coming and if they don’t give detailed responses to all your questions. No one wants to come over as brusque, so please don’t take it personally. We just want our lives back!
3. Celebrate Clarity
Start with a subject line that clearly labels the topic, and maybe includes a status category [Info], [Action], [Time Sens] [Low Priority]. Use crisp, muddle-free sentences. If the email has to be longer than five sentences, make sure the first provides the basic reason for writing. Avoid strange fonts and colors.
4. Quash Open-Ended Questions
It is asking a lot to send someone an email with four long paragraphs of turgid text followed by “Thoughts?”. Even well-intended-but-open questions like “How can I help?” may not be that helpful. Email generosity requires simplifying, easy-to-answer questions. “Can I help best by a) calling b) visiting or c) staying right out of it?!”
5. Slash Surplus cc’s
cc’s are like mating bunnies. For every recipient you add, you are dramatically multiplying total response time. Not to be done lightly! When there are multiple recipients, please don’t default to ‘Reply All’. Maybe you only need to cc a couple of people on the original thread. Or none.
6. Tighten the Thread
Some emails depend for their meaning on context. Which means it’s usually right to include the thread being responded to. But it’s rare that a thread should extend to more than 3 emails. Before sending, cut what’s not relevant. Or consider making a phone call instead.
7. Attack Attachments
Don’t use graphics files as logos or signatures that appear as attachments. Time is wasted trying to see if there’s something to open. Even worse is sending text as an attachment when it could have been included in the body of the email.
8. Give these Gifts: EOM NNTR
If your email message can be expressed in half a dozen words, just put it in the subject line, followed by EOM (= End of Message). This saves the recipient having to actually open the message. Ending a note with “No need to respond” or NNTR, is a wonderful act of generosity. Many acronyms confuse as much as help, but these two are golden and deserve wide adoption.
9. Cut Contentless Responses
You don’t need to reply to every email, especially not those that are themselves clear responses. An email saying “Thanks for your note. I’m in.” does not need you to reply “Great.” That just cost someone another 30 seconds.
10. Disconnect!
If we all agreed to spend less time doing email, we’d all get less email! Consider calendaring half-days at work where you can’t go online. Or a commitment to email-free weekends. Or an ‘auto-response’ that references this charter. And don’t forget to smell the roses.
Dual/Single-Link DVI Video Wall Controller/Splitter
Stand-alone unit with up to 4K x 4K input source
Inputs: DVI/HDMI, Outputs: 4x DVI-D or VGA
The EMS Xtreme4vs is a stand alone display wall controller that accepts a single-link 1920×1080(DVI-D or HDMI) or dual-link DVI input up to 4K x 4K and can flexibly display this across four output monitors.
Each output can be driven as DVI or analog RGB and can represent an arbitrary crop region of the original input image. The output resolution and frame rate does not need to be related to that of the input as the Xtreme4vs will optionally upscale and frame rate convert each cropped region independently. Additionally, each output can be independently mirrored or rotated through 90°, 180° or 270° to support creative mixes of landscape and portrait monitors.
Supports full bezel width and height correction for all types of displays.
Ideal for use with edge blending projectors – supports image overlapping.
Splits a single DVI input into four independent monitor outputs.
Accepts Dual Link DVI, Single Link DVI or HDMI* input. (*HDMI input requires the optional DVI/HDMI Adapter.)
The input EDID is programmable to allow arbitrary input resolutions and frame rates.
Flexibly drives four displays, each from any selected region of the input image.
Supports both DVI and analog RGB output monitors.
Stand alone operation supports auto-detecting of input resolution and output monitor native resolutions. Output screen configuration is defined by internal non-volatile memory.
Output configuration is programmable via a USB connection to a PC. Graphical utility allows easy control of cropping, scaling, rotation and gaps.
Multiple units can be used for larger wall configurations.
Features
Supports creative monitor arrangements
Each output monitor can take its input from any region of the input DVI image, since all the required cropping, scaling, rotation and frame-rate conversion is handled by the Xtreme4vs hardware. These regions can overlap to allow any output to replicate another, or they can be configured to support any creative splice of the source material. This allows the support of many non-rectangular screen arrangements with uneven gaps, and any mix of monitor orientations.
Crop the input signal into x4 and display x2 quarters landscape
and x2 quarters portrait.
Crop the input signal x4 rotate through 90º,180º or 270º, display in landscape and portrait.
Crop the input signal 1920×180 and display in landscape on to individual screens at 1280×1024 each.
Display the complete input on the 1st screen in landscape mode and then crop the input into three segments, rotate and display onto 3 screens in portrait mode.
Dual-Link DVI input supports high resolutions
Dual-Link DVI input will support high resolution pixel-perfect source images for display. The EMS Xtreme4vs can additionally present a default native resolution to the source to allow still higher custom resolutions at reduced frame rate, but still remain within the capabilities of the Dual-Link interface. Most standard graphics card sources will output at this native resolution. Since the Xtreme4vs will scale and frame-rate convert, using a triple-buffered capture architecture, the output monitors can still be driven at their preferred frame rates and resolutions.
Easily Configurable
The Xtreme4vs supports simple editing of custom input and output configurations via a USB connection to a PC. Once configured, the Xtreme4vs will run stand-alone, without the need for the USB connection, and will auto detect input resolutions and adjust internal scaling appropriately to drive the output monitors in a consistent manner.
Gen-Lock
The Xtreme4vs will auto-sense input and output framerates and automatically genlock when possible. Four identical monitors will automatically be driven genlocked and if the input timings match they are additionally genlocked and clock-locked to the source signal.
Other possible screen configurations:-
Technical Specifications
Physical Dimensions
235 x175 x 44mm / 9.25″ x 6.9″ x 1.75″
Operating Temperature Range
0 – 35 DegC / 32 – 96 DegF
Power Requirements
5V DC, 11W. Universal mains power adapter supplied (100-240V).
Cooling
Cooling by internal fan. The input/output vents should not be restricted.
1x Dual link DVI capture
To 330Mpixels/s.
Input Surface
4k x 4k maximum
4x Single link DVI or analog RGB outputs
To 165Mpixels/s.
Output Screens Resolutions
Up to 2.5Mpixel (maximum 2048 pixels in either direction
Arbitrary Up Scaling
64x original surface area
Software Control
Supports configuration and updates via USB port (USB 2.0)
