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Wavefront Technologies
Wavefront Technologies was a computer graphics company that developed and sold animation software used in Hollywood motion pictures and other industries. It was founded in 1984, in Santa Barbara, California, by Bill Kovacs, Larry Barels, Mark Sylvester. They started the company to produce computer graphics for movies and television commercials, and to market their own software, as there were no off-the-shelf computer animation tools available at the time. In 1995, Wavefront Technologies was acquired by Silicon Graphics, and merged with Alias Research to form Alias, Wavefront. Products Wavefront developed their first product, Preview, during the first year of business. The company's production department helped tune the software by using it on commercial projects, creating opening graphics for television programs. One of the first customers to purchase Preview was Universal Studios, for the television program Knight Rider. Further early customers included NBC, Electronic Arts, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Santa Barbara's climate is often described as Mediterranean climate, Mediterranean, and the city has been dubbed "The American Riviera". According to the 2020 United States census, U.S. Census, the city's population was 88,665. In addition to being a popular tourist and resort destination, the city has a diverse economy that includes a large service sector, education, technology, health care, finance, agriculture, manufacturing, and local government. In 2004, the service sector accounted for 35% of local employment. Education in particular is well represented, with four institutions of higher learning nearby: the University of Calif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Advanced Visualizer
The Advanced Visualizer (TAV), a 3D graphics software package, was the flagship product of Wavefront Technologies from the 1980s until the 1990s. History A software package famous for its use in the production of numerous Academy Awards, Oscar-winning movies such as ''The Abyss'', ''Terminator 2: Judgment Day'' and ''Jurassic Park (film), Jurassic Park''. Alias, Wavefront Merger This was widely seen as the result of Microsoft purchasing Softimage in an attempt to take over the 3D computer graphics market. Silicon Graphics responded by purchasing Alias Systems Corporation, and their two major competitors, Wavefront, and the French company TDI (Thomson Digital Images) for their Explore, IPR, and GUI technologies. Thus SGI created the super-company ''Alias, Wavefront''. Wavefront's programmers continued to reside in California but the management of the company was carried out in Toronto, Canada. Autodesk Era In 1996 Alias, Wavefront announced the release of Maya (software), Maya w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dream Quest Images
Dream Quest Images, later known as The Secret Lab, was an American visual effects company, co-founded in 1979 by Hoyt Yeatman, Scott Squires, Rocco Gioffre, Fred Iguchi, Tom Hollister and Bob Hollister. History After early piecemeal work on ''Escape from New York'', '' E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'', and ''One From the Heart'', Dream Quest expanded operations and earned back-to-back visual effects Oscars for work on ''The Abyss'' and '' Total Recall''. In 1996, Dream Quest was purchased by The Walt Disney Company. While Disney began development on ''Dinosaur'', they decided to fold Dream Quest into Walt Disney Feature Animation and subsequently renamed it "The Secret Lab" in 1999. After The Secret Lab did the visuals of the 2000 animated film ''Dinosaur'', a shuttering process begun, started by cancelling the animated film the studio was doing with Walt Disney Feature Animation, ''Wildlife''. The Secret Lab closed its doors in 2001, but it only shut down once its artists finished ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Particle System
A particle system is a technique in game physics, motion graphics, and computer graphics that uses many minute sprites, 3D models, or other graphic objects to simulate certain kinds of "fuzzy" phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to reproduce with conventional rendering techniques – usually highly chaotic systems, natural phenomena, or processes caused by chemical reactions. Introduced in the 1982 film '' Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'' for the fictional "Genesis effect", other examples include replicating the phenomena of fire, explosions, smoke, moving water (such as a waterfall), sparks, falling leaves, rock falls, clouds, fog, snow, dust, meteor tails, stars and galaxies, or abstract visual effects like glowing trails, magic spells, etc. – these use particles that fade out quickly and are then re-emitted from the effect's source. Another technique can be used for things that contain many strands – such as fur, hair, and grass – involving rendering an entir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dynamation (software)
Dynamation was a 3D computer graphics particle generator program sold by Wavefront to run on SGI's IRIX operating system as part of The Advanced Visualizer. The core software was originally developed by Jim Hourihan while at Santa Barbara Studios, a visual effects company owned by effects pioneer John Grower. The software was licensed to Wavefront Technologies in 1992, and passed through to the merged company Alias/Wavefront. It was introduced as a product at SIGGRAPH in 1993. In 1996, Jim Hourihan received a Scientific and Engineering Award for the primary design and development of Dynamation. Dynamation could create behavioral particle systems that responded to gravity, air resistance, and other real world physics. It gave users an interactive environment to create and modify dynamic events such as water, clouds, rain, fire and dust. The interactive aspect of this software was revolutionary at the time. Users were able to change parameters and the particle system updated in rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inverse Kinematics
In computer animation and robotics, inverse kinematics is the mathematical process of calculating the variable joint parameters needed to place the end of a kinematic chain, such as a robot manipulator or animation character's skeleton, in a given position and orientation relative to the start of the chain. Given joint parameters, the position and orientation of the chain's end, e.g. the hand of the character or robot, can typically be calculated directly using multiple applications of trigonometric formulas, a process known as forward kinematics. However, the reverse operation is, in general, much more challenging. Inverse kinematics is also used to recover the movements of an object in the world from some other data, such as a film of those movements, or a film of the world as seen by a camera which is itself making those movements. This occurs, for example, where a human actor's filmed movements are to be duplicated by an animated character. Robotics In robotics, inverse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kinemation
Kinemation was one of the first inverse kinematics packages for 3D computer animation, created for Wavefront Technologies' package The Advanced Visualizer (TAV). In 1995, Wired described Kinemation as "a huge breakthrough in motion animation". It was used in the mid-1990s by companies such as Kleiser-Walczak Construction Company (Judge Dredd). Portions of Kinemation were disassembled and re-assembled into Alias-Wavefront's flagship product Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat .... References External links An Animation That Was made in 1995 with Kinemation, pre-Maya (mirror, original site unavailable) Robotics software Computer graphics 1990s in robotics {{graphics-software-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compositing
Compositing is the process or technique of combining visual elements from separate sources into single images, often to create the illusion that all those elements are parts of the same scene. Live-action shooting for compositing is variously called "chroma key", "blue screen", "green screen" and other names. Today, most, though not all, compositing is achieved through digital image manipulation. Pre- digital compositing techniques, however, go back as far as the trick films of Georges Méliès in the late 19th century, and some are still in use. Basic procedure All compositing involves the replacement of selected parts of an image with other material, usually, but not always, from another image. In the digital method of compositing, software commands designate a narrowly defined color as the part of an image to be replaced. Then the software (e.g. Natron) replaces every pixel within the designated color range with a pixel from another image, aligned to appear as part of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific Visualization
Scientific visualization ( also spelled scientific visualisation) is an interdisciplinary branch of science concerned with the visualization of scientific phenomena.Michael Friendly (2008)"Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization" It is also considered a subset of computer graphics, a branch of computer science. The purpose of scientific visualization is to graphically illustrate scientific data to enable scientists to understand, illustrate, and glean insight from their data. Research into how people read and misread various types of visualizations is helping to determine what types and features of visualizations are most understandable and effective in conveying information. History One of the earliest examples of three-dimensional scientific visualisation was Maxwell's thermodynamic surface, sculpted in clay in 1874 by James Clerk Maxwell. This prefigured modern scientific visualization techniques that use computer graph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional electronic products, the largest video game console company and the largest video game publisher. Through Sony Entertainment Inc, it is one of the largest music companies (largest music publisher and second largest record label) and the third largest film studio, making it one of the most comprehensive media companies. It is the largest technology and media conglomerate in Japan. It is also recognized as the most cash-rich Japanese company, with net cash reserves of ¥2 trillion. Sony, with its 55 percent market share in the image sensor market, is the largest manufacturer of image sensors, the second largest camera manufacturer, and is among the semiconductor sales leaders. It is the world's largest player in the premium TV market for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until forced to resign in 1992, after the company had gone into precipitous decline. The company produced many different product lines over its history. It is best known for the work in the minicomputer market starting in the mid-1960s. The company produced a series of machines known as the PDP line, with the PDP-8 and PDP-11 being among the most successful minis in history. Their success was only surpassed by another DEC product, the late-1970s VAX "supermini" systems that were designed to replace the PDP-11. Although a number of competitors had successfully competed with Digital through the 1970s, the VAX cemented the company's place as a leading vendor in the computer space. As microcomputers improved in the late 1980s, especially wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tektronix
Tektronix, Inc., historically widely known as Tek, is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. Originally an independent company, it is now a subsidiary of Fortive, a spinoff from Danaher Corporation. Several charities are, or were, associated with Tektronix, including the Tektronix Foundation and the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust in Vancouver, Washington. History 1946–1954 The company traces its roots to the electronics revolution that immediately followed World War II. It was founded in December 1945 as Tekrad. The name was similar to that of a California company, Techrad, so in 1946, the four partners, Howard Vollum, Jack Murdock and Miles Tippery, who had both served in the Coast Guard, and accountant Glenn McDowell, formed Tektronix, Inc. Each contributed an initial $2,600 for equal shares. Howard Vollum had graduated in 1936 from Reed Coll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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