Meshflow, a system for interactively viewing how artists construct meshes in 3D applications, was presented in a paper at this years SIGGRAPH conference. The researchers used Blender to capture the modelling process for several kinds of complex models, and then used the meshflow system to cluster the modelling operations into expandable chunks, allowing the viewer to replay the modelling process at an overview level, or to dive in deeper to see each operation in the process, all whist being able to view the model from any angle.

From the paper’s abstract:

The construction of polygonal meshes remains a complex task in Computer Graphics, taking tens of thousands of individual operations over several hours of modeling time. The complexity of modeling in terms of number of operations and time makes it difficult for artists to understand all details of how meshes are constructed. We present MeshFlow, an interactive system for visualizing mesh construction sequences.

MeshFlow: Interactive Visualization of Mesh Construction Sequences

Julius Tuomisto has been helping at the Blender booth at Siggraph this year, and has written a write-up of his time there demoing blender, and seeing the sights at the conference. Read his report.

For those of us not going Siggraph, we can still see Ton’s slideshow presentation from the conference, online at blender.org.  Take a look for details on future development goals and plans for project mango!

Blender Foundation Community Meeting Presentation

Every year, the technical papers presented at the SIGGRAPH conference show off some great new ideas from the wider 3D world. This technical papers preview video gives a sneak peak on what’s on show this year:

Siggraph 2011

Siggraph 2011 Technical Papers

Mike Pan is working on a Blender video reel and urgently needs your input:

This is rather short-notice… but here it goes.

I am putting together a video reel for this year’s SIGGRAPH taking place from August 9th to 11th. If anyone has any video, images, or games that they want to showcase, now is the time to send them in. Please send in your Blender work (640×400 pixel minimum, HD preferred) to [email protected]

Be sure to include the name you want to be credited.

Mike

If you’re living in the Vancouver area you really should head over to SIGGRAPH next week and meet the Blender crew. The Blender Foundation is giving away free tradeshow tickets.

Also, you can win a Full Conference Pass (valued at $1,270) over at Shapeways. Good luck :)

The Blender Foundation will be present at SIGGRAPH 2011 in Vancouver. Among their activities are a Birds of a Feather meeting, a COLLADA meeting and a tradeshow booth. Also, Sintel will be part of the prestigious animation festival. To find out all the details, and how to get your hands on free tradeshow tickets, read the post on Blender.org.

An amazing bit of news: for the first time ever, SIGGRAPH will be hosting a Blender workshop!

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