A collection of digital wonders and some other stuff
Currently if you have a large image that you need to make smaller for the web you can either scale it or crop it. Scaling makes everything smaller and cropping can cut out important content. This incredible video demonstrates an image re-sizing algorithm that is content-aware. It’s pretty cool and I figure it’s something that is going to make someone a boatload of money.
[Content Aware Image Sizing – YouTube]
Big Brother State is a nice motion graphics video that uses the examples of closed circuit TV and trusted computing to warn about the dangers of a surveillance society.
It is released under a Creative Commons sampling licence by David Scharf and you can download the short film in several formats.
If your finding the download a bit slow, the YouTube mirror is nice and fast.
(via)
Just for fun, the motion graphics fans out there might enjoy the stop action magic of Platform from motiongrapher.com.
“Smith & Foulkes used a Canon Digital SLR camera linked up to a laptop allowing them to capture frames and play them back checking the shots as they went along. By shooting digitally Smith & Foulkes ended up with a much larger image size to work with when compared with the normal 35mm motion picture frame. These frames were then taken into After Effects and Photoshop for a clean-up where people and rigs from shots were removed. A final grade was then added in Flame.”
What you are about to watch is truly remarkable, and it just gets better as it goes.
Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from [Flickr], Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo.
See more on Seadragon and Photosynth.
Ryan Uhrich, an artist living in Edmonton, AB has created a wonderful motion graphics piece called Typographics (19mb Quicktime).
I love watching this kind of thing and wish I was more experienced with compositing.
Check out this interesting collection of do-it-yourself papercraft. My favorite is the AT-AT Walkers from Star Wars.
Here is the AT-AT papercraft.pdf (234KB)
(Via BoingBoing)
Todd Franklin of Neato Coolville has posted the recipe to make your very own Death Star cookie from his 30 year old copy of Darth Vader’s Activity Book.
Mmmmm, death-licious.
I just finished putting together a site for a small construction company in Drayton Valley, Alberta, Karleb Homes Ltd.
Using cascading style sheets (CSS) I was able to keep the “content” of the site separate from the design. I also used Douglas Bowman’s sliding door technique for the navigation tabs which allows greater accessibility for larger fonts and screen readers than say just using regular, old-fashioned rollover images.
The footer is actually a repeat of the top menu, placed at the bottom of the screen because that’s really where the user needs it most—ie. at the end of the page ready for when he or she is done reading. For the spacing of the fonts, I relied on Richard Rutter and Mark Boulton’s SxSW talk, Typography for the Web.
I took the photos inside Karleb Homes’ newest project. I used my sister’s brand new Canon 5D as well as two of her Alien Bees lighting kits. The yard in the photo used for the header hasn’t been landscaped yet, but will be replaced when the landscaping matches the quality of the house.
I’m very pleased with the outcome of the site and I look forward to the making the next one—I love creating nice, friendly, and accessible websites and I’m currently looking for more opportunities, so if you are in need, let me know.
I just rediscovered a great photography tip. It involves setting the flash to fire at either the beginning or end of a long exposure.
But only when I read this article was I reminded that the rear flash on a long exposure can be a great way to expose those fun low light party situations.
For Nikon DSLR users, like myself:
“Press and hold the flash pop-up button, then rotate the thumbwheel. Try having the camera in the “M”, “A” “S” and “P” modes to see the different flash sync options in different modes.”
Instructions for other cameras are given in their comments.
This is something I learned some time ago but somehow neglected to put into actual use. Now that I’ve been reminded of it, it will change the way I use my on-camera flash; it will tide me over until I get that off-camera flash that I’ve been dreaming about.
