Friday, February 27, 2009
The Dorvack Document Pt 2
Continuing from the first post on the Dorvack series of WWII-inspired model mecha posted in January. No-one, except MaK is anywhere near the wicked aesthetic Makoto Kobayashi achieves. Click on images below to see details of either the dioramas or the sketches. Inspiring stuff!
Abandoned School In HK
Nice flicks (dunno bout the girl in the last pic!) of an abandoned school in Shau Kei Wan, HKG. The school has been closed for a number of years and has now become a great hang-out and proving ground for local writers.
Pics [VIA]
Santos And Ortega Graffiti
Santos
Ortega
Couldn't find any info on these guys, but definitely digging their style! (T-agang crew?)
[VIA]
Casting Would-Be For Video Game Movies
Pwn or Die has chosen to focus on video games as films and who they would like to see play some of their favorite characters. They came up with thirty examples of actors and actresses we feel would fit as video game icons. Perhaps some of these movies will be made and yield Oscars for these thespians in years to come?
Colors Show
An unseen and original show that combines artistic performances and visual effects. This 35 minutes show performed by 3 people is a truly festival of colors.
Transformers Autobot Bumblebee Build
An in-depth look at the five-plus hour process of erecting the 18-foot tall, 3,700 pound replica of the Transformers Autobot Bumblebee by Chevrolet for the 2009 Chicago Auto Show.
Gigapixel Camera
The best professional digital cameras can capture photos containing tens of megapixels. But, thanks to an affordable robotic tripod, it is now possible to use a consumer camera to take images in the gigapixel range.
The tripod robot, called Gigapan, was developed at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and uses motors to capture a scene with a grid of hundreds or thousands of images with the camera set to full zoom. Photo stitching software then combines them into a single super-detailed image containing billions of pixels, called a gigapan. The largest, most spectacular gigapans can be too large to handle on all but the most powerful desktop computers.
The result is too detailed to be viewed on any printout, but gigapans can be uploaded to a dedicated site where users are able zoom right into the images.
With an affordable version of the device launched last month, the three-legged robot has the potential to be a boon to science, as well as holiday snaps.
Check out the detail HERE when it was used at President Obamas' inauguration.
[VIA]
The tripod robot, called Gigapan, was developed at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and uses motors to capture a scene with a grid of hundreds or thousands of images with the camera set to full zoom. Photo stitching software then combines them into a single super-detailed image containing billions of pixels, called a gigapan. The largest, most spectacular gigapans can be too large to handle on all but the most powerful desktop computers.
The result is too detailed to be viewed on any printout, but gigapans can be uploaded to a dedicated site where users are able zoom right into the images.
With an affordable version of the device launched last month, the three-legged robot has the potential to be a boon to science, as well as holiday snaps.
Check out the detail HERE when it was used at President Obamas' inauguration.
[VIA]
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Lava Burst Street Art by Edgar Mueller
This giant fissure was created in the German town of Geldern by Edgar Mueller to celebrate the 30th anniversary of a street art competition. He spent five days, working 12 hours a day, to create the 250 square metre image of the crevasse, which, viewed from the correct angle, appears to be 3D. He then persuaded passers-by to complete the illusion by pretending the gaping hole was real.
The World’s Largest Mirror
The world’s largest salt flat, the Salar de Uyuni in Southwestern Bolivia, is one of the most exotic place sceneries on earth. Due to its large size, smooth surface, high surface reflectivity when covered with shallow water, and minimal elevation deviation, Salar de Uyuni makes an ideal target for the testing and calibration of remote sensing instruments on orbiting satellites used to study the Earth. In addition to providing an excellent target surface the skies above Salar de Uyuni are so clear, and the air so dry, that the surface works up to five times better for satellite calibration than using the surface of the ocean.
There is an estimated 10 billion tons of salt in the flats, 25 times the amount in the Bonneville Salt flats in Utah in the United States. The Salar de Uyuni, a sea of salt, a salt desert, was once an inland sea, or giantsalt water lake, but the water vanished into the thin dry air of Andean altitude. All that remains is the salt, tens of meters thick, lying stark beneath bright sky: a sun-bleached skeleton of a dead sea.
There is an estimated 10 billion tons of salt in the flats, 25 times the amount in the Bonneville Salt flats in Utah in the United States. The Salar de Uyuni, a sea of salt, a salt desert, was once an inland sea, or giantsalt water lake, but the water vanished into the thin dry air of Andean altitude. All that remains is the salt, tens of meters thick, lying stark beneath bright sky: a sun-bleached skeleton of a dead sea.
