The Zhangye Danxia (landform), located near the city of Zhangye in China's northwestern Gansu province, seems more like Nature's attempt in painting a masterpiece than a "naturally" occurring geological formation. And yet... The latter, rather than the former, seems to be the true qualification of what caused such a rainbow-like effect. Surprisingly...
From an original project of the University of Adelaide, a tool that allows the capture and transformation/conversion of (2D) video images into (3D) model(s).
In their own words:
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 modelled 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. Each of the sketching operations in VideoTrace provides an intuitive and powerful means of modelling shape from video, and executes quickly enough to be used interactively. Immediate feedback allows the user to model rapidly those parts of the scene which are of interest and to the level of detail required. The combination of automated and manual reconstruction allows VideoTrace to model parts of the scene not visible, and to succeed in cases where purely automated approaches would fail.
An "oldie" (so to speak) but goldie: Wired's article recounting the pioneering efforts/attempts of Leonard Adleman to materialize the world's first DNA computer/computations.
From the article itself:
[...]
Thanks to learning algorithms and other evolutionary tools being incorporated into computers, the machines around us are becoming more lifelike. But Adleman wanted to tackle the question from the opposite direction. What if life itself, already susceptible to genetic engineering, could be used to solve problems? What if DNA could be shifted from reproducing life to thinking about it? Adleman imagined a future in which organic and inorganic computers link up; he wanted to witness this momentous occasion in his lifetime.
Inspired, he hopped out of bed and started to build the world's first DNA computer.
[...]
A striking design, for the aptly named (Sheraton) Moon Hotel, in Huzhou, China.
Also dubbed Super-Levitation (apparently), and based in a phenomenon called Quantum Trapping (or Locking).
Especially mind-blowing: the part where double levitation is demonstrated, when both discs cross each other's path, without any kind of interference or disruption in any of their movement(s).
Beautiful, evocative, nostalgic alternate-alternate-reality posters, advertising many a "tourist attraction" of the Star Wars universe.
richard feynmanyou can recognize truth
by its beauty and simplicity.
when you get it right,
it is obvious that it is right
-- at least if you have any experience --
because usually what happens
is that more comes out than goes in.
For the "Let's Move" program/campaign, Stephen Mesko designed a series of posters, one for each the 7 deadly sins.
Paradoxically, and interestingly, it uses a 8-bit/digital/RGB visual style in order to draw people away from... technology.
Here is "Lust" (full poster):
Detail of "Lust":
Meet Goose (alter ego of Paul Curtis).
He makes graffiti by removing (cleaning) from instead of adding to a surface.
Graph TV is a web visualization tool that plots/graphs TV show ratings, per episode/season/series.
This allows for a global quality assessment over time, with just a glance.
The example, above, "Northern Exposure": started strong but slowly, and steadily, declined over time.
In a nutshell:
Wall art from any image. The Rasterbator enlarges images to multiple pages. Print and combine them into huge posters.
heraclitusnothing endures but change.
