HLSL quésako ?

You have some questions in mind :

What does HLSL stand for? Why was it created? How does an HLSL effect file look like? What can you do with HLSL?

This article is for you : Crash course in HLSL.

Portable 3D loading model Open Source project

Open Asset Import Library is a library that allow to load a larges series of 3D models according the same API.

• Here the list of the 3D models format that ASSIMP support.

From the website we could read :

"Assimp aims at providing a full asset conversion pipeline for use in game engines / realtime rendering systems of any kind but is not limited to this audience. 

The library is designed for maximum stability and flexibility. Written in C++, it is available under a BSD license. A pure C API exists, as well as bindings to various other languages, including Python, D and Blitzmax. Assimp loads models into a straightforward data structure for easy processing by your application. Various post processing steps (such as general optimization or computation of extra data like normal or tangent vectors) can be executed on the imported data to suit your needs."

Source : ASSIMP 

Natal ZMap and skeletal view

This video allow to see the internal view that use to detect the user pose in the Microsoft Natal project.

We could see the Z Depth map, the avatar view and the skeletal view.

Source : Gizmodo.

Nasa Vision Workbench library

The Nasa Vision Workbench library is a computer vision library / image processing library that want keep the best of the learned approach of VXL,VIGRA,GIL. So, use template and lazy evaluation to boost performance.

The new concept to use such type of library is the principle of view. You do not manipulate data directly but a view of the data. (So the view, could be a rotated, flipped, .. just by changing pixel accessor, so it do not modify input data).

The other concept that I appreciate, is an image is like a matrix, so you could perform math operation on it . I.E( img+b) -2 + atan2(imgC+imgA).

Here a good presentation of the concept :

The NASA Vision Workbench: Reflections on Image Processing in C++

View more presentations from Matt Hancher.

Source : here

Samsung 3D tv...

Take a classic paintings, imagine now that it's a 3D TV ...

And your imagination will twist the artist vision to something strange or funny...

Visual Studio Tips and Tricks

I have discover today a great feature of Visual Studio :

It allow you to open a file according only a part of it's name without parsing the tree project structure.

I.E : You want open the file HistoryEntry.cs but you do not where it is...

Two possible solutions :

• CTRL+D (Go to the search toolbar)
• type " > open to" it will automatically purpose you the files of the solution that starts with "h"

• 

 Or open the command window in the bottom :

• Type "open h " (it will purpose you also the files of the solution that starts with "h".

So you it seems that you can do any command from the command window inside the search toolbar by using the magic ">" character !

Psst : CTRL+G allow you to go to the line number you have choosen.

3D sketch with a graphic tablet

This system allow to manipulate in 3D, 2D drawn curves. It seems to be simple to use, with automatic symmetry tools. But do not allow to manipulate control point of the drawn curves. But when you draw with a pen you cannot do it also... without use a rubber.

Here a video that show the workflow :

ILoveSketch from Seok-Hyung Bae on Vimeo.

Source : ILoveSketch

Adobe Photoshop CS5 - PatchMatch

Here a video that gives detail about the implementation of the PatchMatch tool that allow to do content aware image editing.

It's require some user interaction in some case, but it starts to be powerful

Source : CS5.org