VideoTrace is a system for interactively generating realistic 3D models of objects from video-models that might be inserted into a video game, a simulation environment, or another video sequence. The user interacts with VideoTrace by tracing the shape of the object to be modeled over one or more frames of the video. By interpreting the sketch drawn by the user in light of 3D information obtained from computer vision techniques, a small number of simple 2D interactions can be used to generate a realistic 3D model. (via ACoVT). Outstanding idea. Enjoy watching.

Related links:
Australian Centre of Visual Technologies - Videotrace

Johnny Chung Lee from Human-Computer Reaction Interaction Institute came up with an idea which allows head tracking with Nintendo Wii Remote and pair of sensors mounted on your head. It creates really outstanding effects with flat VR Display. Hope soon game developers will use it into some new productions. Check it out.

We’ve heard a lot about Processing lately. This year OFFF in Barcelona and NY we could see how beautiful things can be created with processing. What this magic world really means?
Processing is (via Wiki) a programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) built for the electronic arts and visual design communities, which aims to teach the basics of computer programming in a visual context. One of the stated aims of Processing is to act as a tool to get non-programmers started with programming, through the instant gratification of visual feedback. It is a language that builds on the graphical side of the Java programming language, simplifying features and creating a few new ones.

Nervo TV (founded by Nando Costa) in cooperation with Barbarian Group did new identification for Fox Movies sci-fi and horror channel launched in Japan and Argentina. Based on combination of processing method and motion. It’s really something fresh and different. Combining math algorithms and graphic once again allow artists develop great results.

Via motiongrapher

Related links:
Processing.org
Processing Examples
Download Enviroment
Nervo TV
Barbarian Group

Impressive demo of flash 3D engine which is developed for MMORPG game called Alternativa.

Related links:
Alternativa Game blog

There were many speculations about next 10th major release of Flash Player, called “Astro”, especially related to 3D. Some people had said about hardware support and/or API based on Papervision3D. At last at Adobe Max 2007 there were shown some of 3D features (rotation of the plain, interactive object) of next gen Flash Player. It seems not so powerful as many excepted but this is very good direction, Adobe implements 3D techniques into Flash Player. Other new capabilities are related to better support for text rendering e.g. layouts (multiple text columns), bidirectional languages and new technology called AIF enabling custom filters and graphics effects written in special language - Hydra.

Related links:
About Flash Player 10, hydra and AIF on draw.logic blog
Astro at MAX 2007 on Justin’s Flash Blog
Astro on Adobe Labs
Astro presentation on Adobe MAX 2007

On the 1st of October at Adobe MAX 2007 in Chicago, new version of flash player for mobile devices - Flash Player Lite 3 was launched. It is based on Flash Player 8 desktop so it’s not huge leap compared to previous 2.x version. There is added support for FLV video format using both codecs Sorenson and On2 but without alpha channel. Now it can play streaming video from FMS but doesn’t support camera and recording. There were some performance aspects improved but it still lacks bitmaps, filters and focal gradients. Developer Edition will be available to download in November but you can submit an email to Adobe to get it earlier. There were also released Flash Lite 3 updates for Adobe Flash CS3 and Device Central CS3.

Related links:
Adobe Flash Player Lite
Adobe Launches Flash Lite 3
Flash Lite on ForumNokia
Gary Kovacs about Flash Lite 3

One more example of AIR application - AirPress 0.3 beta. It’s an interesting client for WordPress and much less popular - DotClear. You might wonder why do I need a desktop client for my blog? Problems with internet connection - have to work off-line sometimes. Is it just administration panel or something different? AirPress has only a part of WordPress’s panel functionality, what makes current version of AirPress rather something worth to check to satisfy your curiosity, rather than a useful application. One thing that seems to be an advantage is how quickly it is possible to publish multimedia files. You can just drag files to editor or record something from camera and make it all done in a seconds. Maybe it will be quite good solution for someone who has video or photo blog and just want to quickly share his “memories” with friends…

Related links:
AirPress
Adobe AIR

Everything what concerns Adobe AIR, formerly known as Apollo, is in beta but despite this amount of applications already done or announced using AIR amazingly increasing. So now it seems that AIR will compete successfully with Dekoh or WPF and at least not share sad end of it’s precursor Macromedia Central.
Recently I have found on Rayan Taylor’s blog an article about nice application for mixing sounds made in AIR and Flex. In DigiMix you can put some sounds loaded from your disc on different tracks, trim beginning or the end, add some effects and finally save your project or even compile one wave file on disc.DigiMix has some limitations eg number of loaded files and it accepts only 16bit 44,1kHz wave format, but this is beta, and what is essential - it works with wave files natively not supported by Flash. This application truly shows capabilities of Action Script 3 and AIR.
For those who know almost nothing about AIR this is a technology which allows you to develop cross platform desktop applications. To run the application, which has .air extension, first you need to download and install AIR runtime environment. For now AIR is accessible only for Windows and Macintosh. There is also beta update to Flash CS3 which allows to package and preview AIR. I think that final release will much more popularize this technology. At last, remember everything is in beta ;)

Related links:
List of AIR applications
Adobe AIR Showcase
Download Adobe AIR
DigiMix

ND Picks is software (frontend made in Flash!) made by Neue Digitale for bookmarking and organiseing interesting websites. You can create your own snapshot, add website to the created catalogs, rate it. Also in minimize version you can use your mouse scroll to change thumbnails in stacks. It works on PC platform. Really cool!

Related links:
neue-digitale.de

Siggraph 2007 presentation of new technology of resizing images. Algorithm “recognize” areas which shouldn’t be scalable and protect them when resizing. Next step in digital photo modification and retouching.