Molecular Visualizations of DNA

This post is a topic a bit different from the usual on this blog, but I thought the following video to be really worth sharing. Made back in 2003, it was featured on the Astronomy Picture of the Day yesterday (if you want your daily delivery of stunning pictures, just subscribe to their feed) and shows a visualization of the DNA, including the incredible replication process.

Crysis 3 tech demo

Crytek has published a video showing the rendering technology used in the CryEngine, more specifically in Crysis 3. While I don’t really dig the artistic choices (I find the overall image to be messy due to the high contrast and not that appealing, aesthetically speaking), the technical side is impressive. I especially like the use displacement mapping and tessellation for the vegetation (by the way, see how great that leaf looks; they got the material completely right). The reflexions visible at 1’52 make me think they also implemented the cone tracing technique, just like Unreal did. On the downside, all the parts with falling water felt unrealistic to me.

Last but not least, Toad Technology! :)

TED talk about femto photography

I already mentioned the camera built by a team in the MIT Media Lab, allowing with its trillions of frame per second, to capture the propagation of light or to see around corners.

TED published a video of the talk given by Ramesh Raskar, where he presents this work and the new possibilities it opens.