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The latest Tilt Brush tool is a game-changer for VR artists
Google's Tilt Brush is one of the best VR painting apps for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Since its release in 2016, artists have drawn magnificent ships, jaw-dropping mountain ranges and imaginative fight scenes in immersive 3D. Most of the app's brushes, however, mimic the real world with flat, ribbon-like strokes. For years, you've had to move around and paint, or 'color in' every surface of a 3D object like a cube or cone. It was pretty time consuming. Thankfully, the team behind Tilt Brush noticed and introduced a solution, called the hull brush, toward the end of June. The new tool allows you to paint volumetrically. Normally, the app follows your movements in mid-air and creates a series of control points. These are supplemented with secondary points and then converted into colorful brush strokes. The hull brush, however, uses the control points to create a 3D mesh. The outermost points dictate the final size and shape, which for now has to be convex (curving outward, rather than inward). "The simplest way to think of a convex hull is as if you were 'gift wrapping' the points with geometry," Jeremy Cowles, the technology lead for Tilt Brush explained.
MVS California's Volumetric Head Up Display is a 3D laser show for your car's windshield (video)
Your windshield is good for more than just keeping bugs out of your mouth. It's also a big blank canvas waiting to display helpful info like directions, traffic notifications, and safety information. A number big name manufacturers like GM and Pioneer have offered up heads-up display concepts over the past few years, but what makes MVS California's Volumetric Head Up Display really neat is its impressive implementation of the volumetric aspect, using lasers to project images on the windshield in a such a way that gives the illusion of depth. So, if the system is being used to give driving direction via GPS -- its main application, at present -- it can make a turn arrow appear lined up with an exit half a mile down the road. The prototype showcased at this week's Augmented Reality Event 2011 projected in red only, though the company says it's capable of full color. How long do we have to wait for the future? MVS is hoping to get the thing into cars as a premium option in the next few years for around the same price of current high-end navigation systems. Surprisingly dull video of reality augmenting 3D lasers after the break.
Sony's 360-degree RayModeler 3D display brings its glasses-free act to LA, plays Breakout (video)
Sony talked up its cylindrical no-glasses 3D 360-degree prototype display last fall, and now it's showing off the tech, dubbed RayModeler 3D, on US soil at SIGGRAPH 2010 through tomorrow. A major bonus of that showcase is an English language video -- embedded after the break, plus a hands on including a game of Pong Breakout from Core77 and our videos from the Japanese exhibition -- showing how it all works, including the eight-camera rig and turntable that capture objects in 45-degree separations before they are interpolated to create a continuous 360-degree motion image. Sony claims this is the first of its type capable of high quality images, full color and interactive live motion -- check it out and imagine keeping a tiny 3D pet or floating, disembodied head on your bedside table, where it can respond and react to your every gesture. We wouldn't want our blip-verts any other way.%Gallery-76236%
