The SIGGRAPH Graphics Pioneers, an organization formed by scientists, engineers, artists, and industry professionals active in computer graphics since the inception of SIGGRAPH, have adopted a house being built by the Make It Right Foundation.

There is no minimum amount required, donors are asked to give what they can afford. Together, let’s help Make it Right again.

Donate directly to the Make it Right Foundation, The House that SIGGRAPH Pioneers Built.

Join the SIGGRAPH Graphics Pioneers Facebook Group and encourage your friends to donate to the cause.

Make It Right, a collaboration between actor Brad Pitt, Graft Architects, Cherokee Gives Back and William McDonough + Partners was founded in 2007 to help rebuild the New Orleans Lower 9th Ward, an area that was completely wiped out during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Make It Right Foundation is committed to building 150 energy efficient, solar powered, storm resistant homes in the 9th Ward of New Orleans, and the SIGGRAPH Graphics Pioneers want to help.

“We have had wonderful experiences in New Orleans for the SIGGRAPH conference,” said Kathleen Maher, vice president, Jon Peddie Research and a member of the SIGGRAPH Graphics Pioneers. “However, the devastation Katrina left in its wake is unfathomable, and unless you’ve seen it firsthand, it’s really hard to imagine. The SIGGRAPH Pioneers encourage the graphics community to band together and help support the victims of Hurricane Katrina by helping New Orleans return to its former glory,” continues Maher. “Every dollar counts to help ‘Make it Right’ for those families still trying to recover from such the devastation.”

Progress on the Make It Right house will be announced at the SIGGRAPH Graphics Pioneers dinner, however, the group will continue fundraising after the conference.

Jon Peddie Research is an active supporter of this project and will recognize significant donors on their site. To kick off the donation drive, Jon Peddie Research will be donating $200 from every market report it sells during the month of August 2009.

Donate: Make It Right

The new innovative roller coaster combines music with highly sophisticated audio and video recording so you can witness the exact moment you lost your lunch. Creative Director Louis Alfieri was responsible for everything from the concept and aesthetic design, architecture, landscape, content production, and new media components. The coaster was manufactured by Maurer Söhne.

It utilizes a newish track system dubbed X-CAR which enables ride maneuvers not possible before. The musical aspect of the ride comes in the form of 30 popular songs you choose using a digital touchpad on your seat. Polk powered speakers blast the music into your ears at a brain reverberating 90 decibels for that truly customized experience.

When we talk about industrial design, we speak of creating experiences to make the world better. It doesn’t always have to be a utilitarian experience. Pure entertainment and putting smiles on people’s faces is also an experience that can make the world a better place. Happy people = Better world. So what’s up Universal? Wanna fly the Yanko Design staff and some of their readers out this summer for a test ride?

Designers: Louis Alfieri, Maurer Söhen

Designer: Heckler Design [ OneLessDesk ]

Resources: Bunkspeed HDRI Library

Conference: IDSA

Stopping off at the Carnegie Mellon School of Design for a tour from one of its students Nadeem Haidary (top right), I glommed onto a group from the University of Cincinnati and enjoyed some barbecue.  Captive to a mostly absent trolley, we eventually found our way to Daedalus Excel for an open house of its facilities and some good cheese, crackers and discussion of its philosophy and methods.

The next morning brought a talk on design patent litigation and Gorham’s Ordinary Observer test from Cooper Woodring followed by Tucker Viemeister’s presentation of his Design Manifesto.  In it he brings up both the uneasy relationship design has with the economy as well as how his own OXO Good Grips pairing knife for arthritic hands ended up as a murder weapon in Madison.

The day moved onto the delightful Student Merit presentations from Will Oltman, Tylan Tschopp, Justin Ezell, Matt Betteker, Dan T Rowe, Kevin Yang, Hannah May, and Nadeem Haidary (last four pictured below, left to right).  My personal pick would have been Nadeem Haidary for some of his mind-blowing projects which you can catch over on his site.

Just as energy was running low and people around me started errantly sketching objects on their notepads, Jon Kolko of Frog Design took the mic and delivered a much needed kick to the pants.  Highlighting the impending threat China poses to not just our form giving responsibilities, but research and broader-scope roles, he advised the conference to look around and find the intrinsic, deeply buried insights in our culture, hidden behind things as random and odd as a piece of argyle lamb grafitti, that allow our research and design work to remain relevant.  Check out the presentations’ deck here and keep your eyes peeled tomorrow for an in-depth interview with Kolko himself.

Winning the Student Merit Award was Dan T. Rowe (above middle) at the nearby Bossa Nova Navarro room followed by much wine, beer and good cheer, provided you had a green bracelet and some drink tickets.  And kudos to the underaged lush who thought fast enough to snag a stranger’s badge and driver’s license to partake in the joviality herself.  Those stumbling back to the hotel at just the right time were also treated to a lovely fireworks display which was rather more impressive than the small fire that broke out in the restaurant earlier thanks to some poorly placed candles.

Wrapping up the conference was the groggily attended portfolio review which put a lot of students under the harsh but helpful light of professional opinion.  The most common advice I heard was to build a story, utilize scope and sell yourself (metaphorically).  Below, Will Koehler (top right) shows off some work while Erin Hamilton (bottom left) of Lextant helps out a student.

That’s about it.  Look out for some interviews with Both Jon Kolko and Tucker Viemeister, legendary co-founder of Smart Design, Frog NY and many others.

Vote: Illustrated Sound

The competition, inspired by LA County Measure R—a half-cent sales tax hike that promises up to $40 billion in transit funding for the city— attracted 75 proposals from around the world. It offered architects, engineers, urban planners, and students a chance to propose new ideas for the city’s transit infrastructure. Their entries focused on specific rail extension projects in the city and also take a look at larger-scale, interrelated planning challenges.

The competition jury included architects Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, and Neil Denari;  Aspet Davidian, director, Project Engineering Facilities, LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Cecilia V. Estolano, chief executive officer, CRA/LA; Gail Goldberg, director of planning, City of Los Angeles; Roland Genik, urban planner and transit designer; and Geoff Wardle, director, Advanced Mobility Research at Art Center College of Design.

First Prize: Más Transit

Joshua G. Stein/RadicalCraft, Aaron Whelton/AAW Studio, and Jaclyn Thomforde with Jacob M. Brostoff

Más is regional high-speed rail for Los Angeles with a landscape to match. Promoting dense, organic development, it diversifies the communities in the built environment, making travel less necessary, easier and more predictable, and bypassing roadway congestion through a new raised infrastructure. Looping around the city, with connections to subways and buses, Más links local and inter-regional commuting; providing frequent service that will also sync up with the California High Speed Rail network. San Diego via más is less than an hour away, including transfer times; San Francisco is less than three hours away.

Second Prize: Infrastructural Armature

Fletcher Studio: David Fletcher, Dylan Barlow, Ryan Chandler, Daniel Phillips, Tobi Adamolekun

Recognizing the vital role that mobility, water, and sewage will play in Los Angeles’ future, the city must begin to invest in a core armature of new bundled infrastructures which will allow the city to survive the impending reality of peak water and peak oil.  The city must reorganize along the matrices of transportation, water and sewer networks, and grow infrastructural tentacles out into the world to ship and receive.

Third Prize: Mag Luv

Osborn: Holly Chisholm, Kate Harvey, Armen Isagholi, Takeshi Kobayashi, Michael Pinto, Jared Sopko, Esmeralda Ward, Yuju Yeo

The scheme proposes eroding a portion of the freeway and supplanting it with a new object, mode, and form for adoration—Mag Luv. The high speed magnetic levitation peripheral train appropriates freeway, right of way, and “dream space” to become the mega structure of the Los Angeles transit system. The loop circumnavigates the city providing 12 hubs of activity, transportation, and power production.

Via: Archpaper & Arch Daily

FREMONT, Calif. – April 16, 2009 – To meet the rigorous demands of design engineers working in powerful 3D applications, 3Dconnexion today announced the new SpacePilot™ PRO. The company’s flagship 3D mouse is designed to deliver advanced control of 3D models, easier access to the power of professional 3D applications, fewer interruptions in the design workflow, and superior comfort. Specifically, the SpacePilot PRO features a new color LCD Workflow Assistant, second-generation QuickView Navigation technology, Intelligent Function keys, and an improved design for enhanced comfort and control.

“3Dconnexion’s 3D mice have rewritten the rules on the way design engineers and professionals interact with 3D environments,” said Dieter Neujahr, president of 3Dconnexion. “Our new SpacePilot PRO builds on our market-leading industry experience, delivering the most powerful 3D mouse we’ve ever made. It enables increased performance that ultimately results in better designs, created in less time.”

The SpacePilot PRO 3D mouse provides the highest level of performance features ever available from 3Dconnexion, including:

LCD Workflow Assistant:

The color LCD lists function-key assignments and provides at-a-glance access to Microsoft® Outlook® e-mail, calendar and task lists, allowing professionals to access important information for a fully integrated design experience with fewer distractions. Through 3Dconnexion’s open software architecture, the workflow assistant can be further customized to meet the needs of individuals, companies and software vendors.

Advanced MCAD Navigation:

Five new dual-function QuickView Navigation keys improve error detection, design review, and design presentation by providing one-touch access to the following views: top and bottom, right and left, front and back, two isometric views, and 90-degree view rotation of any view either clockwise or counter-clockwise – for a total of 32 views. A short press activates a key’s primary view command, while pressing and holding a key activates a secondary view command. In addition, new Navigation Setting keys offer simplified and customizable control, allowing professionals to turn pan-and-zoom, rotation and one-axis control on or off, making it easier to define navigation settings for certain work modes.

Intelligent Function Keys:

Five new fully customizable, dual-function keys offer immediate, one-touch access to 10 frequently used commands within any supported 3D application. The SpacePilot PRO automatically detects the active application and assigns appropriate function keys – whether default or customized. The color LCD denotes the function key assignments and application mode so engineers can easily identify commands and design states.

Superior Comfort:

The SpacePilot PRO has a new sculpted, soft-coated wrist rest that positions the hand in relation to the controller cap to support a balanced workflow. The micro-precision six-degrees-of-freedom sensor allows for fingertip control with minimal effort from the arm, wrist and hand, while frequently used commands are conveniently positioned at your fingertips. The intuitive and symmetrical layout of the function keys makes the device usable with either hand.

Unlike traditional mice confined to motion on one flat plane, 3Dconnexion 3D mice enable design engineers to move in all three dimensions simultaneously, using six-degrees–of-freedom sensor technology. By gently lifting, pressing and turning the controller cap, design engineers can easily pan, zoom and rotate without stopping to select commands. Using a 3D mouse together with a traditional mouse engages both hands into a balanced and cooperative work style.

3Dconnexion provides advanced and affordable 3D mice that are supported by more than 130 of today’s leading and powerful 3D applications, including Autodesk InventorTM, SolidWorksTM, CATIATM, Pro/ENGINEERTM, NXTM and Solid EdgeTM. For a complete list of applications supported by 3Dconnexion, visit www.3dconnexion.com/solutions.

Compatibility, Pricing and Availability

The SpacePilot PRO is backed by a three-year warranty, and is currently available at a suggested retail price of $499. The SpacePilot PRO is supported by Windows XP, Windows Vista®, Sun Solaris 8 (SPARC), Sun Solaris 10 (x86), and Linux® (Redhat Enterprise Linux WS 4, SuSE 9.3 or later). Linux and Solaris support workflow assistant function key assignments only.

Company: 3Dconnexion

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