Thursday, July 31, 2008

Cool! Amazing camouflage!!

Motorists who dread navigating their way around labyrinthine multi-storey car parks should have a much more enjoyable time in this tower block.

Car park illusion

Huge signs exploit perspective to give clear directions to drivers in particular lanes, while appearing abstract and unreadable to other car users.

Car park illusion

The huge coloured markings – which read Up, Down, In and Out – were installed in the 92-floor Eureka Tower in Melbourne, Australia, the world’s tallest residential building.

Car park illusion

The lower 10 floors of the building house a private car park for 800 vehicles.

Car park illusion

The signs are intended to convey clear information to motorists at key decision-making points, meaning drivers will no longer have to crane their necks looking for the directions that are meant for them.

Car park illusion

Their size – covering the full height of the car park walls – and bold primary colours are also intended to help engage drivers.

Car park illusion

The signs were created by a graphic design team including Australian Garry Emery and German Axel Peemoeller, and inspired by the work of Swiss artist Felice Varini, who uses perspective to create 3D illusions in public spaces.

Car park illusion

The lettering was arranged by painting over text projected onto the walls from the perspective of drivers.

Car park illusion

The car park directions have been honoured at several international design awards, including the 2007 SEGD Awards and the 2006 Good Design awards.

Car park illusion

The Eureka Tower is 300 metres tall and houses 560 apartments, 13 lifts and an observation deck on the 88th storey that claims to be the highest viewing platform in the southern hemisphere.

by here

Food Art



OK, this food could be aggressive, dangerous, over-designed and even alive - but is it eatable?

People would eat the darnedest things, depending on their cultural background and love of unique experiences. The point of this article (the first in a series) is to find the food that is not necessarily disgusting (in most cases it's only a matter of taste), but such food - and things made from food - that cause us to stop in the tracks and think twice before bringing it to our mouths.

Food as Art

Pierre Javelle & Akiko Ida (see their site Minimiam) make very special food landscapes where little people go around their business among the tasty morsels we eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Utilizing the variable depth of field, their photography is exceptional in creating the illusion of a miniature world.





Zooming in on the little figures, we see that they are hand-made using the old school skills, no computer trickery here:







Seeing all this miniature activity should cause you to examine your food more closely before taking a bite - who's this construction worker stuck in the cookie's crevasse?

Anime Food



Love your favorite anime characters? Have them with rice!
Asian creativity is put to good use in Hong Kong's fast-food establishments:











Dangerous Food:



Aggressive Food:



Over-grown Food:



Curious Food:



Unborn Food:



Geek-oriented food:
(chocolate bar)



Speaking of chocolate... you can lick the whole chocolate-covered Jeep!










Rotating Tower

Gedung yg bisa berputar 360 derajat - Rotating Tower

Lagi-lagi Dubai membangun "keajaiban" di dunia. Dynamic Tower Dubai adalah gedung yang bisa bergerak sesuai kemauannya sendiri, berputar 360 derajat, gak cuma sekali, tapi bisa berkali - kali. Diperkenalkan di New York yang merupakan The World's First 'Building In Motion', yg disebut "Rotating Tower", didesain oleh arsitek Itali : David Fisher. Bangunan tersebut diharapkan akan selesai pada 2010 di Dubai, kemudian di Moscow





Bangunan ini memiliki 80 lantai, dengan tinggi sekitar 420 m (hampir sama tingginya sama menara Petronas). 10 lantai teratas akan digunakan untuk luxury villa style apartments kemudian 35 lantai dibawahnya untuk residential suites kemudian 15 lantai dibawahnya lagi untuk extravagant hotel dan 20 lantai terbawah untuk kantor dan pemasaran.





Tower yang didesain dengan bersegmen-segmen tersebut mempunyai titik pusat, dan memungkinkan tiap lantainya untuk berputar secara independen pada kecepatan yg berbeda, secara terus menerus, menggunakan teknologi voice recognition, buat menentukan arah putarannya. Hasilnya, pasti bikin gedung bentuknya jadi Unik banget. Bahasa untuk Voice Recognition ini diprogram agar bisa mengenali 'kiri' dan 'kanan' pada semua bahasa.



Tower tersebut berputar menggunakan energi photovoltaic cells teknologi turbin angin sebanyak 77 Turbin Angin.



Estimasi Biaya pembangunan Gedung tersebut adalah $700 JUTA. Melibatkan 600 tim dari Itali, dan 80 Tim yg diletakkan di lokasi pembangunan, selain Ribuan pekerja lainnya. Estimasi Harga per meter persegi $ 30.000.

Star Pattern



A time-lapse exposure captures the streaks made by stars over sandstone formations in Utah. Photographers capture "star trails," the movement of stars across the night sky, by keeping the camera shutter open for hours instead of seconds.



Star trails streak above palm trees in Baja California, Mexico.



Star streaks glow in a purple sky above the Mitten buttes of Monument Valley, Arizona.



Star trails spiral across the night sky above Joshua Tree National Park in California.



Star trails pop over Mariscal Canyon in Big Bend National Park, Texas.



Star trails radiate in the sky above trees in the Salmon River wilderness of Idaho.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Cool:Where the Hell Is Matt?

Just thought you guys might find this interesting. This dude, Matt Harding, traveled around 42 countries within the past 14 months and… well, danced. It’s just simply amazing. This is actually Matt’s 3rd time doing this. The first time was all self-financed by himself. When the people of Stride gum discovered his interesting viral video, they offered to sponsor him if he traveled around the world again to make another video. Matt liked the idea and the second video was born. The video below is his third and most recent.

To watch the video in HD, go ahead and click here. Go ahead and check out Matt’s site, Where the Hell Is Matt?, if you want to learn everything there is to him and his videos.







Sunday, July 20, 2008

Open Source video clip Radiohead "House of Cards"



Jakarta, detik - Semangat Open Source adalah kreativitas dan inovasi, bukan partisan atau fanatisme buta. Hal itu juga yang diusung grup musik Radiohead dalam video klip terbaru mereka yang dibuat dengan semangat Open Source.

Video klip tersebut dibuat tanpa menggunakan kamera. Seluruh imaji yang muncul adalah rekaan tiga dimensi yang disusun murni dari data.

Seperti dikutip detikINET dari Tech Crunch, Rabu (16/7/2008), Google menjadi rekanan grup musik tersebut dalam mempromosikan lagu 'House of Cards' dari album In Rainbows. Google menyediakan aplikasi interaktif video tersebut beserta kode penyusunnya pada situs code.google.com.

Video 'House of Cards' dibuat tanpa menggunakan kamera. Video itu menggunakan data dari scanner Geometrics Informatics untuk menangkap citra tiga dimensi para musisi. Sedangkan untuk pemandangan kota, digunakan pemindai Velodyne LIDAR.

Google disebut menggunakan teknologi yang mirip dengan yang diterapkan pada Velodyne LIDAR. Bedanya, Google menggunakan teknologi itu untuk menghasilkan pemandangan dalam aplikasi Street View pada Google Maps.

Sesuai semangat Open Source, Radiohead pun membuka data yang digunakan dalam video ini. Harapannya, para pengembang piranti lunak bisa membuat variasi mereka terhadap video klip tersebut.

Di halaman http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/viewer.html tersedia aplikasi berbasis Flash yang bisa digunakan untuk melihat dan berinteraksi dengan elemen dalam video klip itu. Video klip 'House of Cards' disutradarai oleh James Frost, sedangkan teknologinya ditangani Aaron Koblin.

Radiohead just released a new video for its song "House of Cards" from the album "In Rainbows".

No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.

Watch the making-of video to learn about how the video was made and the various technologies that were used to capture and render 3D data.



The Making-of "House of Cards"