A lot of images we make are data passes, and having the color premultiplied by alpha is “wrong” for processing, but allows you to see the alpha contribution more effectively, especially when the alpha is really just a 4th vector component and not opacity.  We've got a Fuse for doing this for actual image processing in the flow, but if all you wanted was a quick way of checking it in the viewer, it was extra work.

Daniel Koch made a ViewShader a while back that does a proper checker underlay for images with straight color, but with this ViewShader, you can go back to using the standard checker underlay if you so choose.

Download AlphaMultiplyDivideVS 1.0

Once again, Ben and I are headed off to SIGGRAPH, this time in sunny Vancouver BC.  Same as before, we’ll send back reports on anything we find interesting.  This time, however, Ben has the shiny new blogging phone.  If you’re going (or you’re a Vancouveran) and would like to meet up, let us know.  I’ll be the one with the SIGGRAPH t-shirt and a laptop.

A variation on the ColorToMono fuse, ColorSplitter outputs multiple scalars from an image. Can trivially be modified to output vectors too.  Mostly designed to reduce clutter in a flow, so you don’t have a bunch of needless Bol’s and fMon's.  Useful when you are loading an image with many packed data channels.

Download ColorSplitter Fuse 1.1

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Here’s a first attempt at delivering an extra shader to the Generic Shader.  In this case it is a “lit sphere” shader.   ZBrush users should be familiar with the idea, as Pixologic implemented it as “MatCap” shaders.   A simple shaded sphere image is used to describe non-local shading over all the surfaces visible to the eye.

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Ben an I are heading out to SIGGRAPH later this week.  I’m planning on blogging during the day this year instead of doing a nightly debrief. To add to the challenge, I’ll be doing it all from my Nexus One.  This post was done on the phone, so it seems plausible.  In fact, I may not pack my laptop at all, leaving more room for books in my luggage.

Drop us a line if you’d like to meet up, or if you want to suggest something not to be missed.

Or just keep an eye out for us.  I’ll be the guy in the SIGGRAPH t-shirt with no laptop.

We’re hiring!

We’ve replaced the menu link for Visualization Services with We're Hiring because, well, we’re pretty solidly booked.  Maybe you could help with that?

We’re looking to immediately hire both permanent and contract developers to help us make everything from offline medical image processing and rendering tools to realtime interactive and simulation applications.  We can’t go into all the details here, but if you would like to find out more, drop us a line.

Here’s one of those posts were we do something clever with only the built in tools in Fusion.  This time it’s getting the worldspace position of any node (or offset point from a node) despite downstream transformations.  Why do I need to make a special setup for this?  Oddly, Fusion doesn’t provide an easy means to convert between local and world coordinates, and someone asked for a way to do this on the Fusion-L listserv.

(Particle Emitter “attached” to a Sphere)

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The end is near...

I’m on my way home now.  Ben and I got to see a lot of really nice presentations, and we had some good discussions with researchers and suppliers.

Texmoca

Texmoca is a very unique demonstration of natural occurrences of Voroni type packing.  Small heating elements burn oil which spreads out, cools, and falls in beautiful convection currents.  Best coffee table of the show, but the heat it gives off makes it bad for drinks, good for fondue.

Ground Substance, from LabStudio

The Generative Fabrication exhibit was really nice.  Particularly the contributions by LabStudio.

Ben and I are here in New Orleans.  Estimates are that there are 16998 other attendees.

A SIGGraph Sousaphone

We’ll be showing off some of our plugins at the Eyeon booth on Wednesday, and we’ll be attending some panels, courses, and papers that really look exciting.  We’ll post some general observations of SIGGraph as well.

First thing I’ll mention, Autodesk has a rather modest booth made of cardboard and zip ties.  Really.

We recently had a request for our Fusion plugin wizard for VS 2003, so here is a download link. Enjoy!