Category: Visual Effects

Polhemus has introduced the VisionTrack Desktop 300. Designed by ISCAN Inc. of Burlington, Massachusetts, the VisionTrak Desktop 300 is a remote binocular eye tracking system that is used to collect pupil size, eye movement parameters and eye point of regard data from human subjects.

Autodesk Inc. honored the winners of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition, which took place April 27-29 in Atlanta, Georgia. Autodesk sponsors two design contests as part of the FIRST competition: The Autodesk Inventor Award and The Autodesk Visualization Award. Robert "Buzz" Kross, vp of Autodesk's Manufacturing Solutions division, presented the awards and prizes to six winning teams at this year's event.

Artbeats announced the availability of ASIAN CITIES, CROWDS, STREETS OF NEW YORK, CITY RUSH 2, NIGHTSKY, GLASS ILLUSIONS and CHROMATICA at last weeks NAB.

Stop-motion animation legend Ray Harryhausen was given a lifetime achievement award at Universal Studios on April 30, 2006, by a new honorary society of motion picture character designers called Cinerouge.

Harryhausen, 86, who hails from Los Angeles but now lives in England, is on a book tour for THE ART OF RAY HARRYHAUSEN. Paul Davids, director of the new documentary, THE SCI FI BOYS (a Best Buy DVD exclusive from Universal Studios Home Ent.), which was screened at the event, presented Harryhausen with his award.

The best of Hollywood visual effects meets high-definition television in an exclusive HDNet telecast of the fourth annual Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards (held Feb. 15 at the Hollywood Paladium), premiering May 9, 2006, at 10:00 pm.

e-on software announced the first Vue 3D Environment Competition in association with five judges representing different fields of the 3D entertainment industry. This competition represents a unique chance for all the Vue users around the world to have their work exposed. The judges are:

* Kevin Mack: visual effects supervisor, Sony Pictures Imageworks (GHOST RIDER)* Susumu Yukuhiro: digital matte supervisor, Industrial Light & Magic (PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MANS CHEST)· Simon Percy: Darkside Animation

AJA Video announced 2K resolution video support with the v2 upgrade to the recently released KONA 3, the company's top-of-the-line uncompressed HD/SD capture card. KONA 3 will now provide customers editing and finishing on an Apple Power Mac G5 with the capability to bring in and play back material at 2K.

Additionally, KONA 3 v2 will address users' needs with support forhardware-based 1080-to-720 or 720-to-1080 cross conversion. This desirable feature further streamlines dailies and deliverables creation at true broadcast picture quality in realtime.