Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 5:33 AM Wednesday, June 15, 2011 0

Cinepaint

CinePaint is an open source computer program for painting and retouching bitmap frames of films. It is a fork of version 1.0.4 of the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). It enjoyed some success as one of the earliest open source tools developed for feature motion picture visual effects and animation work. The main reason for this adoption over mainline gimp was its support for high bit depths (greater than 8-bits per channel) which can be required for film work. The mainline gimp plans to add (but has not yet added) these features . It is free software under the GNU General Public License.



CinePaint has been in use for many years in feature motion pictures. CinePaint was used by studio Rhythm & Hues for Scooby-Doo, Harry Potter, Cats & Dogs, Dr. Dolittle 2, Little Nicky, Grinch, Sixth Day, Stuart Little, and Planet of the Apes. Sony Pictures Imageworks used CinePaint for Stuart Little II. Hammerhead Productions used it for Showtime and Blue Crush, and will use it for The Fast and the Furious II.

Supported file format:

 BMP,
CIN,
DPX,
EXR,
GIF,
JPEG,
OpenEXR,
PNG,
TIFF,
XCF.

Features of CinePaint:

CinePrint has vast dynamic range : 16-bits per channel (64-bit RGBA)
  • that’s more range that can be displayed on a computer monitor,since the computer monitors are 24-bit RGB, and it is important when working with a film.It helps to prevent loss while editing.
Still Photographers and CinePaint
  • With 35mm support it helps still photographers too. Still photographers can think of CinePaint as having many more F-stops of range .CinePaint also handles 8-bit, 16-bit linear, and 16-bit float images.
  • CinePaint features the support for loss less formats such as TIFF,RLE,Cineon, and EXR, this helps the photographers to preserve the details of their photos without any loss, remember some of these formats are not even supported by Photoshop Gimp or other tools.
Other Main Features
  • Frame Manager
  • Onion Skinning support
  • 16-bit floating point support for HDR and 16-bit colour managed work flow for photographers and printers
  • Available in the following platforms: Linux, Mac Native, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Windows XP (Windows version is however broken now, a new version is in progress.)
Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 10:01 AM Thursday, June 9, 2011 0

GIMP

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X and GNU/Linux.

Its Features  :
  
Customizable Interface:

Each task requires a different environment and GIMP allows you to customize the view and behavior the way you like it. Starting from the widget theme, allowing you to change colors, widget spacings and icon sizes to custom tool sets in the toolbox. The interface is modulized into so called docks, allowing you to stack them into tabs or keep them open in their own window. Pressing the tab key will toggle them hidden.
GIMP features a great fullscreen mode allowing you to not only preview your artwork but also do editing work while using the most of your screen estate.
  
Photo Enhancement:

Each task requires a different environment and GIMP allows you to customize the view and behavior the way you like it. Starting from the widget theme, allowing you to change colors, widget spacings and icon sizes to custom tool sets in the toolbox. The interface is modulized into so called docks, allowing you to stack them into tabs or keep them open in their own window. Pressing the tab key will toggle them hidden.
GIMP features a great fullscreen mode allowing you to not only preview your artwork but also do editing work while using the most of your screen estate.

Digital Retouching:

GIMP is ideal for advanced photo retouching techniques. Get rid of unneeded details using the clone tool, or touch up minor details easily with the new healing tool. With the perspective clone tool, it's not difficult to clone objects with perspective in mind just as easily as with the orthogonal clone.


Hardware Support:

GIMP includes a very unique support for various input devices out of the box. Pressure and tilt sensitive tablets, but also a wide range of USB or MIDI controllers. You can bind often-used actions to device events such as rotating a USB wheel or moving a MIDI controller's slider. Change the size, angle or opacity of a brush while you paint, bind your favorite scripts to buttons. Speed up your workflow!

File Formats:

The file format support ranges from the common likes of JPEG (JFIF), GIF, PNG, TIFF to special use formats such as the multi-resolution and multi-color-depth Windows icon files. The architecture allows to extend GIMP's format capabilities with a plug-in. You can find some rare format support in the GIMP plugin registry.Thanks to the transparent virtual file system, it is possible to load and save files to from remote locations using protocols such as FTP, HTTP or even SMB (MS Windows shares) and SFTP/SSH.
To save disk space, any format can be saved with an archive extension such as ZIP, GZ or BZ2 and GIMP will transparently compress the file without you needing to do any extra steps.

 

Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 6:15 AM Tuesday, June 7, 2011 0

Blender

Blender is a free open source  3D graphics  application, available under the GNU general public license  for the Linux, MAC OS X, FreeBSD , OpenBSD and Microsoft Windows  operating systems.

Features - 

Interface -
  • Non-overlapping and non-blocking UI delivers unsurpassed workflow
  • Flexible and fully configurable window layout with as many screen setups as you prefer
  • Undo support on all levels
  • Anti-aliased fonts with international translation support
  • Any window space can be easily switched to any window type (curve editor, NLA, 3D view etc)
  • Built-in text editor for annotations and editing Python scripts
  • Graphical user interface for Python scripts
  • Fully scriptable UI with custom themes
  • Consistent interface across all platforms
Modeling-
  • A range of 3D object types including polygon meshes, NURBS surfaces, bezier and B-spline curves, metaballs, vector fonts (TrueType, PostScript, OpenType)
  • Very fast Catmull-Clark subdivision surfaces with optimal iso-lines display and sharpness editing
  • Full multiresolution sculpting capabilities with 2D bitmap/3D procedural brushes (Paint, Smooth, Pinch, Inflate, Grab) supporting symmetry
  • Modifier stack deformers such as Lattice, Curve, Armature or Displace
  • Mirror modifier with middle vertices clipping and automatic deletion of inner faces
  • Non destructive real time Boolean and Array modifiers
  • Mesh modeling based on vertex, edge and/or face selection
  • Smooth soft selection editing tools for organic modeling
  • Python scripting access for custom tools
 Rigging-
  • Fast skeleton creation mode
  • Interactive 3D paint for vertex weighting
  • Fast envelope based skinning
  • Automatic Skinning that really works (heat equilibrium based)
  • Mirror editing (bone creation and weight painting)
  • Double Quaternion deformation reduces shrinking and other bone deformation errors
  • Volume deformer uses a mesh cage to deform complex meshes with great results
  • Bone layers and colored groups for better rig organization
  • B-spline interpolated bones; forget about elbow twists
  • Constraint stack for IK solver setup and other constraints
  • PyConstraints; if you need something not yet implemented code it in python with real time feed back, no compiling needed
Rendring-
  • Fast inbuilt raytracer
  • Oversampling, motion blur, post-production effects, fields, non-square pixels
  • Tile-based and fully threaded
  • Render layers and passes
  • Render baking to UV maps and object to object baking (full render, ambient occlusion, normals, textures)
  • Render engine tightly integrated with the node compositor
  • Halo, lens flares and fog effects
  • Vector motion-blur post-process effect (using node compositor)
  • Realistic defocus (DOF) post-process effect (using node compositor)
  • Edge rendering for toon shading
  • Interactive preview rendering panel in any 3d view
  • Ambient Occlusion
  • Approximate Global Illumunination
  • Export scripts available for external renderers such as Renderman, Povray, Virtualight, Lux, Indigo and V-Ray - See Resources for a full list.
Animation-
  • Armature (skeleton) deformation with forward/inverse kinematics with pole target support
  • Auto IK allows posing FK chains easily
  • Non-linear animation editor for mixing individual actions created in Action editor
  • Automated walkcycles along paths
  • Animated constraint system
  • Vertex key framing for morphing, with controlling sliders
  • Edit and create new blendshapes from existing targets
  • Character animation pose editor
  • 'Ipo' system integrates both motion curve and traditional key-frame editing
  • Audio playback, mixing and editing support for sound synchronisation
  • Timeline offers fast acces to many playback functions, autokey, help markers
  • Python scripting access for custom and procedural animation effects
Shading-
  • Diffuse shaders such as Lambert, Minnaert, Toon, Oren-Nayar, Lambert
  • Specular shaders such as WardIso, Toon, Blinn, Phong, CookTorr
  • Node editor for creating and mixing complex materials
  • PyNodes: write your own Python shaders with realtime feedback, no need to compile
  • Material previews rendered by main render engine
  • Fast, realistic subsurface scattering
  • Blurry reflections and refractions
  • Tangent shading to give any shader an anisotropic effect
  • Versatile procedural textures system
  • Reflection maps
  • Normal, displacement and bump maps
Realtime 3D/ Game creation -
  • Graphical logic editor for defining interactive behavior without programming
  • Collision detection and dynamics simulation now support Bullet Physics Library. Bullet is an open source collision detection and rigid body dynamics library developed for Play Station 3
  • Shape types: Convex polyhedron, box, sphere, cone, cylinder, capsule, compound, and static triangle mesh with auto deactivation mode
  • Discrete collision detection for RigidBody simulation
  • Support for in-game activation of dynamic constraints
  • Full support for vehicle dynamics, including spring reactions, stiffness, damping, tyre friction etc
  • Python scripting API for sophisticated control and AI, fully defined advanced game logic
  • Support all OpenGLTM lighting modes, including transparencies, Animated and reflection-mapped textures
  • Support for multimaterials, multitexture and texture blending modes, per-pixel lighting, dynamic lighting, mapping modes, GLSL vertexPaint texture blending, toon shading, animated materials, support for Normal Maping and Parallax Mapping
  • Playback of games and interactive 3D content without compiling or preprocessing
  • Audio, using the SDL toolkit
  • Multi-layering of Scenes for overlay interfaces

Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 7:51 AM Tuesday, May 31, 2011 0

Open Source Examples- JOOMLA


 
Open Source Projects are getting a rapid boost these days. They're encouraged a lot, mainly because of it's great advantages. In this article, I'm going to explain about one of the most famous Open Source Projects worldwide - Joomla.

What is Joomla?

Joomla is a web Content Management System written completely in PHP (Hypertext Pre-processor, one of the most used web languages.) For those readers who don't know..  Web Content Management Systems (abbreviated as CMS) are an easy way of developing websites without having to go through the complete hectic process of hand-coding the whole website. There are many CMSes out there, like Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla etc. But my top choice remains Joomla due to many reasons.

It's Origin

It was developed in August 2005, by the developers of Mambo (another web CMS out of which Joomla originated) Its developers believed that Open Source Projects were a great initiative, and they supported it greatly. They started a website that dealt with open source issues and it is said that idea of Joomla originated from that website. Till today it has been making numerous achievements, and has won many awards, too.
Features

It has many great features.   First of all, it is very easy to use - its installation is fairly easy (although not as easy as some other's like Wordpress') and anyone with basic knowledge of Internet and Computers can do it - all the user needs to do is upload the files to the webserver and configure the MySQL databases. It's User Interface, at website administration is totally easy as well. The Admin can add pages, configure, upload or delete Addons (plugins, components and templates), delete pages, monitor the visitors' IPs (and even ban any), manage banners etc'. The major reason why Joomla is the most famous CMS, I believe, is because of its versatility - anyone who is familiar with PHP coding can code Joomla-compatible Components, plugins and Templates. And for those who don't know PHP coding - they can still get tons of advantages via this feature..as, there are many free components/extensions on the web. Most of them are open source, but there are few which are sharewares. Either way, it is still the major reason for it's grand success. There are extensions for almost anything that we can imagine on web. 

Hosting Issues

Joomla doesn't consume much of the Server CPU's resources, but as a matter of fact, it still is critcised by some as sometimes, if the databases are too big, its speed can slow down drastically, and the php code's Just-In-Time compilation (of the php code) can get slow. But it usually works fine with average Server specifications'. And there are many web-hostings (free as well as paid) that offer pre-installation of Joomla (even cPanels like VistaPanel also have it in their "script installation" feature.

Websites Developed with Joomla

http://www.joomla.org  (The Official Joomla site (also uses Joomla, of course)
http://www.porsche.com.br   (A truly awesome example of how we can use Joomla to the best)
http://www.aghnation.com/ (A great combination of the worlds of Multimedia and Joomla)
Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 7:22 AM Friday, May 27, 2011 0

Examples Of Open Source



 
Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 7:55 AM Wednesday, May 25, 2011 0

Disadvantages of Open Source

The truth is, there are disadvanteges of Open Source Softwares too. Here are some of them that I could think of -
1) Exploiting bugs - For network security and other security products, Open Source softwares should be discouraged.  This is so, because any user can just check the source code, find any exploitable bug and bypass its protections. That is very easy. But in case of proprietary ones,the user would have to first reverse-engineer using debugging (the machine code, which is not high level and is hard to understand without knowledge of assembly language programming)
2) Destroying Closed Source Industry - This is another fact. If open source industry gets too much common, proprietary softwares and the Closed source industry will collapse - this would lead to problems of unemployment, financial problems, stock markets would fall below zero! And this would destroy the whole economic balance of the world market...
3) Ripping codes from commercial softwares - Some times, in some cases, people reverse engineer properietary softwares and declare the source code that they obtained as open source. This is just too unethical, and it's more like cheating. This way the company that created the software also suffers greatly.
4) Many different Versions of same application - Since the application is open source, programmers keep releasing their modified application, this causes a little disturbance in the balance. Users can't download and install "everything" to see which one they like.
5) No support exists for open source software- Once you decide to use open source software you are on your own. Agreed, that lots of help is available on the Internet and there are many self-motivated forums that can help you install and run open source software, there is no qualified support available. You have to figure out on your own how to install and use applications without sabotaging your data and hardware. For instance, every second kid in the neighborhood exhorts you to ditch Windows and switch to Linux; many have lost their years of data trying to make the shift. No help documents and manuals are made available since the software is being changed every second week.
Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 8:44 AM Tuesday, May 24, 2011 0

Benefits of Open source

- Cost savings -: Of course, this is pretty much obvious. Proprietary softwares cost a lot, how can a common man be able to pay so much for each and every software he needs?! For example, Single pc license for Windows 7 ultimate costs around Rs. 9,700
- Choice:  By its very nature, the source code of open source software is available to all, meaning that no one company owns the software. Any company can build upon open source software. It may be operated and maintained by multiple vendors, reducing both barriers to entry and exit. A customer can easily choose another vendor because they are not locked in to one vendor's offering.

- Reliability:  Open source is peer reviewed software, which leads to more reliability. The infrastructure of the Internet is largely composed of open-source programs such as DNS, sendmail, Apache and languages such as HTML and Perl. They have proven to be both reliable and robust under the most strenuous conditions, namely the fast growth of the Internet.Low-cost:  Open source software is often developed through community forums and collaboratives. Developers volunteer their time and expertise, and are coordinated by fewer paid programmers. The lower overhead costs translates into substantial savings, as does the fact that open source software typically does not have a per-seat licensing cost. According to Gartner, open source is even more attractive to businesses during tough economic times. In its 2009 enterprise software spending forecast, the industry analyst predicts that enterprises seeking to cut costs will be drawn to open source software, virtualization technologies and, because of tighter travel budges, unified messaging and collaboration technologies.
-Security:  Open source enables anyone to examine software for security flaws. The continuous and broad peer-review enabled by publicly available source code improves security through the identification and elimination of defects that might otherwise be missed. Gartner for example, recommends the open source Apache Web server as a more secure alternative to closed source Internet Information servers. The availability of source code also facilitates in-depth security reviews and audits by government customers.
- Fast deployment:  With open source software consumers needn't wait years to deploy a solution. Open source software can be “test driven” prior to procurement, and is particularly suitable for inter-agency collaboration, rapid prototyping and experimentation. Both known and unanticipated users can be rapidly provisioned.  
- Your Environment! -Now this may sound crazy, but its true - using open source softwares you can save our environment! You may be wondering how, well the key is simple - proprietary softwares, mostly, are sold in local stores in boxes and CD cases. Whereas, Open Source softwares are downloaded off the internet, millions of CD cases and boxes are created almost every week! If we decrease dependance on proprietary softwares, we can decrease their production, thus saving the environment from degradation.
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