Silverlight is Microsoft’s cross-browser, cross-platform browser plug-in that allows the creation of interactive web applications that employ high quality streaming media, vector graphics, images, and animation. Deployed as a plug-in for the major browsers on the Windows, Mac and Linux (supported by Novell) operating systems, web developers can craft interactive applications that have an identical user experience on the vast majority of web browsers deployed today. Silverlight addresses a disconnect that exists today in web development workflow where the design intent of graphics designers and interaction designers cannot be faithfully communicated to and crafted by the web developers. In Silverlight, this intent is created in design tools like Expression Design and Expression Blend and passed off to web developers in XML-based XAML data files. The fidelity of the designers’ ideas is kept as there is a clear separation between the design in XAML and the code in JavaScript.
Read the rest of this entry »
Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
WPF provides a unified framework for building applications with rich user interfaces and interactivity. It is built on top of the .Net Framework and makes use of the managed and unmanaged code. WPF programming model allows the developers to write code once and deploy it as a standalone installed application or in a browser.
Read the rest of this entry »
We present a purely functional implementation of the computational differentiation tools — the well known numeric (i.e., not symbolic) techniques which permit one to compute point-wise derivatives of functions defined by computer programs economically and exactly (with machine precision). We show how the use of lazy evaluation permits a transparent and elegant construction of the entire infinite tower of derivatives of higher order for any expressions present in the program. The formalism may be useful in various problems of scientific computing which often demand a hard and ungracious human preprocessing before writing the final code. Some concrete examples are given.
Read the rest of this entry »
02 Mar
Posted by jj as Web
YouTube, Podcasting, Blogs, Wikis and RSS are buzz words currently associated with the term Web 2.0 and represent a shifting pedagogical paradigm for the use of a new set of tools within education. The implication here is a possible shift from the basic archetypical vehicles used for (e)learning today (lecture notes, printed material, PowerPoint, websites, animation) towards a ubiquitous user-centric, user-content generated and user- guided experience. It is not sufficient to use online learning and teaching technologies simply for the delivery of content to students. A new “Learning Ecology” is present where these Web 2.0 technologies can be explored for collaborative and (co)creative purposes as well as for the critical assessment, evaluation and personalization of information.
Read the rest of this entry »
Data visualisation has been defined as: The set of techniques used to turn a set of data into visual insight. It aims to give the data a meaningful representation by exploiting the powerful discerning capabilities of the human eye. Part 1 of this briefing paper will highlight some examples of new collaborative web services using Web 2.0 technologies which venture into the numeric data visualisation arena. These mashups allow researchers to upload and analyse their own data in ‘open’ and dynamic environments. Broadly speaking the numeric data being referred to could be micro-data (data about the individual), macro-data or country-level data, derived or summary data.
Read the rest of this entry »
Kid Pix® Deluxe 4™ for Schools is a major update of the best-selling education and creativity program. It was designed with extensive input from teachers and students to be the best personal productivity and creativity tool for every K–8 classroom.
In this version, teachers can control which graphic libraries are active for a project. This is ideal for theme-based teaching or special needs students. Teachers can add instructions to project templates, which students can listen to with the bilingual text-to-speech function.
Read the rest of this entry »
This very brief tutorial is intended to familiarise the user with the basic layout of animation tools in Maya. It assumes that the reader will consult help files to find out more about each tool.
1. Channel Editor
2. Layer Editor
3. Shelf
4. Toolbox
5. Timeline
Okay, so Maya looks pretty daunting, especially if you go hunting through all the menus, but from an animation point of view it’s not that hard to use once you know where things are.
Read the rest of this entry »
T his tutorial will explain how to export static textured models (meaning no animation yet) from Maya into Crysis. I’ll update this tutorial as I learn more about the process and more tools become available. Big thanks to Psychojohno and Spiderdan for their tutorials which taught me a lot!
Read the rest of this entry »