The Human Future: A Case for Optimism

Change is coming. Humanity is entering a turbulent new era, unprecedented in both Earth and Human history. To survive the coming centuries and fulfill our potential as a species, we will have to overcome the biggest challenges we have ever faced, from extreme climate change, to rogue A.I., to the inevitable death of the sun itself. The headlines make our chances look bleak. But when you look at our history and our tenacity, it's clear that humanity is uniquely empowered to rise to the challenges we face. If we succeed, our potential is cosmic in scale. Incredible prosperity is within our reach. Being optimistic is not only justified, it's a powerful weapon in the fight for a higher future.

Bladerunner 2049 VFX | Deep Atmospheric Trip

A slow dive into the visual and atmospheric depth of Blade Runner 2049. Slow motion. 4K clarity.

3D volumetric display user interface

Voxon VX1 3D volumetric display user interface live YouTube Demonstration. Really cool example of some of the 3d projection user interfaces available. Most of these displays have been seen in movies but with hardware becoming more accessible we are seeing these interfaces become reality at a faster pace.

3D Transparent LED Display

3D Transparent LED Display that adds depth to the interior space of this office building. I love how they used water for this installation to provide such a fluid separation from the flat walls.

3D Design with Virtual Reality

This looks fun, entertaining, and where we will end up with 3D design tools. But the reality of standing for days at a time to create 3D designs tires me.

Car designers at Ford are using Gravity Sketch - a 3D virtual reality tool - to help speed up the vehicle design process. “This application has the potential to help ensure we are delivering the very best vehicle designs for our customers,” comments Smith. “It moves the entire process into the world of virtual reality, giving us greater options for reviewing more models in the 3D environment to create the best possible vehicles.”

McLaren Automotive works with software start-up, Vector Suite, to fast-track sportscar and supercar design

Interactive Volumetric Fog Display

SIGGRAPH Asia 2015 Emerging Technologies We present a novel 3D display that applies projection mapping to a non-planar and reconfigurable fog screen, thus enabling interactive visual contents to be displayed at multiple depth levels. Users can perceive three-dimensionality naturally and interact with the unencumbered images by touching them directly in mid-air. The display can also be used in mixed reality settings where physical objects can co-exist and interact with virtual objects in physical space in real time. It does not require special glasses, head-mounted devices or eye/head-tracking, while allowing high-resolution, full-color 3D image to be observed from wide viewing angles by many people at the same time. Most importantly, our immaterial, mid-air display will allow users to intuitively touch and manipulate virtual objects in 3D under marker-free and barrier-free settings, which will open up immense tangible and creative interaction possibilities.

Texturing of AR Characters from Colored Drawings

Coloring books capture the imagination of children and provide them with one of their earliest opportunities for creative expression. However, given the proliferation and popularity of digital devices, real-world activities like coloring can seem unexciting, and children become less engaged in them. Augmented reality holds unique potential to impact this situation by providing a bridge between real-world activities and digital enhancements. In this paper, we present an augmented reality coloring book App in which children color characters in a printed coloring book and inspect their work using a mobile device. The drawing is detected and tracked, and the video stream is augmented with an animated 3-D version of the character that is textured according to the child’s coloring. This is possible thanks to several novel technical contributions. We present a texturing process that applies the captured texture from a 2-D colored drawing to both the visible and occluded regions of a 3-D character in real time. We develop a deformable surface tracking method designed for colored drawings that uses a new outlier rejection algorithm for real-time tracking and surface deformation recovery. We present a content creation pipeline to efficiently create the 2-D and 3-D content. And, finally, we validate our work with two user studies that examine the quality of our texturing algorithm and the overall App experience.

Brilliant Cube is a kinetic 3D matrix

Brilliant Cube is a kinetic 3D matrix, comprised of 576 clear LED poles moving up and down. The dimension is 6M X 6M X 6M. It is located at Gangnam station crossroads, one of the most crowded spots in Seoul being a new landmark of Gangnam. With the theme of "Live Brilliant" each LED stands for the brilliant moment of our lives, and by the structure this shows the frameworks of our time that implies the social shift of each individual with equal capacity tiered in the same distance and depth. Brilliant Cube, created by a renowned media artist Jin-Yo Mok, in collaboration with Seoul based media artist group: Jonpasang, is not only a kinetic sculpture, but a medium for various messages. This installation is supported by Hyundai Motor Company and Gangnam Gu.