Supercomputer Simulation Animates Evolution of the Universe

Considering all of it and animations are useful too.  

Supercomputer Simulation  of the Universe

ScienceNews

James R. Riordon. December 2, 2022

An international team of researchers has engineered the most accurate supercomputer animation of the cosmos' early evolution to date. The simulation represents the third version of the Cosmic Dawn Project (CoDaIII), which the University of Texas at Austin's Paul Shapiro described as the first model to fully encompass the interaction between radiation and the flow of matter in the universe. CoDaIII spans the period from about 10 million years after the Big Bang through the next several billion years, as matter composing the modern cosmos diffused. Shapiro said the animation depicts how the early universe's structure is "imprinted on the galaxies today, which remember their youth, or their birth, or their ancestors from the epoch of reionization."

On Easy Data Animation

Very nice piece by Vincent Granville,  worth a read. 

Data Animation: Much Easier than you Think!

By Vincent Granville, February 2, 2022 at 1:36 am  in DSC

In this article, I explain how to easily turn data into videos. Data animations add value to your presentations. They also constitute a useful tool in exploratory data analysis. Of course, as in any data visualization, carefully choice of what to put in your video, and how to format it, is critical. The technique described here barely requires any programming skills. You may be able to produce your first video in less than one hour of work, and even with no coding at all. I also believe that data camps and machine learning courses should include this topic in their curriculum.

Examples include convergence of a 2D series related to the Riemann Hypothesis, and fractal supervised classification.

Preparing a video

To produce a data video, there are three steps:

Step 1: Prepare a standard data set (for instance, summary data in Excel, or raw data in text format) with one extra column indicating the frame number. If your video has 20 frames, that column indicates the frame number: an integer between 1 and 20.

Step 2: Create the frames. In our example, it consists of 20 images, typically in PNG format, and named (say) input001.png, input002.png and so on. The number of frames can be as large as a few thousands or a small as 10. The production of the PNG images is typically automated.

Step 3: Turn your images into a video, say an mp4 file. Some people think that this is the most difficult part, but actually it is the easiest one. It can be done with a few clicks, even without writing a single line of code, using free online platforms designed for that purpose. Here I illustrate how to do it in R with just two lines of code.

If your plan is to create a small presentation with 10 frames, a video may not be the best medium. You can still do it with a video by choosing a long duration (say 5 seconds) for each frame. However, a slide presentation may be a better alternative. My videos typically contain between 100 and 1,000 frames, with a frequency anywhere from 4 to 12 frames per second.   .... '  

The COVID-19 Virus and What the Recommendations Mean

Very nicely done,  just eight minutes plus animated video about the topic.  For the whole family to understand.   By the German Kurzgesagt animation studio.



Kurzgesagt Animation Studio  (with other language translations)

And via the Center For Disease Conrol:  https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

Animating Sprites

We worked with very early versions of this idea to animate prototypes of advertisements.

AI-driven animations will make your digital avatars come to life
You've never seen sprites move like this.
Andrew Tarantola, @terrortola

Even with the assistance of automated animation features in modern game-development engines, bringing on-screen avatars to life can be an arduous and time-consuming task. However, a recent string of advancements in AI could soon help drastically reduce the number of hours needed to create realistic character movements.

Take basketball games like the NBA2K franchise, for example. Prior to 2010, the on-screen players -- be it Shaq, LeBron, KD or Curry -- were all modeled on regular-sized people wearing motion-capture suits. ... " 

Disney Aiming at Soft Body Robotics

Starting with audio animatronics, which we saw in the 60s, Disney has always been into interactive realism.  What is the value of the very realistic android?  Now reports indicate they want robotic  characters that act like animation.    " ... A new patent application by the entertainment giant doesn’t name specific characters, but it describes “designing a robot that will move and physically interact like an animated character.” ... '    In the Orlando Sentinel

GIF's and All that

A considerable look at the history of the GIF, a graphic format, developed in 1987,  that opened the door to online visualization.  Even animating things.   We recall when you had to do considerable work in getting GIF's to display in a simple browser, used them to communicate with researchers. How there was an attempt to eliminate them.  But they are still here,  as controversial as ever.

Inside Stephen Hawking's Head

Climb Inside Stephen Hawking's Head in BBC's Stunning Film
Inside His Head, which is on the BBC website, imagines a journey inside Hawking's mind and combines clips of his distinctive robotic "voice" with some awesome animation.
Aardman's Animated Video Celebrates 2016 Reith Lectures  ....

Pixar and Inspirational Mathematics

Hard to convince kids that mathematics is relevant?  Or anyone of any age?  Here Kahn Academy shows how math is used at at Pixar to create effective and beautiful media.  Share it with your kids.  Inspire someone!

" ... To help educate anyone and everyone (but especially aspiring animators and storytellers), Pixar has teamed up with Khan Academy, an online classroom that provides free mini-lectures and in-browser activities, to make Pixar in a Box. The new curriculum will walk users through the math used to create the different technical stages of a Pixar movie’s creation from making the grass in Brave to final rendering for Mike Wazowski from Monsters, Inc. ... " 

Character Animation for Story Telling

In the CACM: On animation, rately used, but can be powerful for making points with process and data.  Or for producing a story board of human behavior (abstract)  " ... The use of prerecorded motion clips has been a standard building block for producing the motion of virtual characters for use in film, games, and interactive simulations. Of course, it is impossible to capture every motion a person might perform, and so animation methods attempt to do as much as possible with the limited movements that one might be able to record using either a motion capture setup or handmade animation. ... "

Scratch Creation Language from MIT

Scratch. Was pointed out to me a year ago but just had a chance to take a look.   Has existed publicly since 2006. Creation environment for kids. This reminds me of other environments, like Turtle Programming of longer ago.  This adds sharing and takes the idea of creating more broadly.  " ... Create stories, games, and animations ... Share with others around the world .. ." .   Also the idea of providing help through a process of curation.

" ... With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share your creations with others in the online community.

Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century.

Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge. ... " 

Grace Hopper at 107

I see that it is the 107th anniversary of computer Pioneer Grace Hopper's birth.  I wrote about my brief encounter with her while I was working at the Pentagon,  in an early post in this blog.   It was an honor to be connected to an early pioneer in anything that became so important to technology.  She has been honored by inclusion in Googles search page today  with a cute animation. (Today only)  Also by the declaration of an hour of code, made to encourage students to take up the science and art of coding.  " ... Be a maker, a creator, an innovator. Get started now with an Hour of Code. ... ".    I grate a bit at it being promoted in a celebrity based way, but it is still worth sharing with a student who may be interested in the craft.

Animated US Population Distribution

MJ Perry quotes an animated visual that shows the changes in US population age distribution over the years 1900-2060.  Shows the movement of the baby boom bulge over that time and other dynamics. I don't usually think that animated data visualization is directly useful, but here is a good example where it is.

I note that the animation is from the finance and economics site: Calculated Risk.

Robots for iPad

IEEE Spectrum has just published an publication App that surveys a number of robots and robotic applications.   This appears to be only available for the iPad systems at this time.    Whimsical at times, but some excellent examples, some of which I had not seen.  Would have liked more links to fundamental papers on the subject.  Costs $4.99    " ... Robots have long captured our imagination. Now a new iPad app will show how robots are becoming reality. Robots for iPad, a fun and engaging app featuring the world’s coolest robots, is now available in Apple’s App Store. Created by IEEE Spectrum, the award-winning technology magazine, the app lets users explore 126 robots from 19 countries, with 360-degree views, interactive animations, technical specs, and hundreds of photos, videos, and articles. 

Among the amazing robots included in the app are Honda’s famed humanoid Asimo, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, and Google’s self-driving car. There are also androids, drones, exoskeletons, quadrupeds, and snake robots. The app offers countless hours of exploration and entertainment to anyone interested in learning about robotics. Robot enthusiasts can review in-depth, technical data about each robot, while beginners can learn how robots work and how to get started in robotics.

Dancing humanoids, lifelike androids, and toy robots come alive on the iPad screen with the app’s interactive images. Created exclusively for the app, the interactives let users “play” with robots by spinning them 360 degrees or moving them through a variety of actions: Just by swiping the screen, a user can get the little humanoid Nao to perform tai chi or make the child robot iCub crawl back and forth. The interactives offer a unique, hands-on experience that’s possible only with the iPad. ... "

Game Changing Presentations: Prezi

I was reminded of the Prezi presentation system by a link Jerry Michalski sent me today.   It is an interesting, Cloud based,  unique method to construct visualizations and presentations.  Sometimes called a  'zooming user interface'.  It does have a fun aspect.   The simple animation attracts your attention. Here are a number of examples.   It uses a freemium cost model.   I am looking at the possibility of linking it to mind and concept map demonstrations.  Has anyone out there done that effectively?

See Jerry Michalski's excellent Prezi on other kinds of innovation as an example.  It also has a viewer for the iPad, where I think could be a good and mobile tool.

"  ... Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software that opens up a new world between whiteboards and slides. The zoomable canvas makes it fun to explore ideas and the connections between them. The result: visually captivating presentations that lead your audience down a path of discovery .. " 

More background.

Shopping in 3D

Is it more fun to shop online in 3D rather than 2D?  I experimented with this concept in the seminal virtual community Second Life, and found it less than satisfying.  The thought was to use virtual environments to experiment with real shopping spaces and track interactions.  An interesting article in e-Commerce Times  on new companies and developments in this space. ...

"  ... Shopping has traditionally involved an element of seeing, touching and feeling a product before buying. Shopping online, however, hasn't ever quite replicated that experience. That is, until now. With the advent of 3D technologies, online shopping is on the verge of a radical transformation. One new development is the 3D shopping mall. Companies like VirtualE are operating and licensing electronic malls to give online shoppers the sense of actually being there.

3D images and animation bring the online shopping experience alive. "It makes for a more dynamic experience," said Mark Stein, the CEO of VirtualE. "I compare it to the transition from black and white to color TV. Once color was possible, why would you want black and white?"
 

Shopping has traditionally involved an element of seeing, touching and feeling a product before buying. Shopping online, however, hasn't ever quite replicated that experience. That is, until now ... "

Building Animations in HTML5 With Hype

Nice potential alternative to using Flash for animations, given the problem with delivering Flash on some popular phones and Pads.  Investigating further.