Graphics Archive

Kodak P850 Review

Guest post by JBQ 2006-07-31 Graphics 23 Comments

Geeks.com, as usual a great source of Kodak digital cameras, sent us a Kodak P850 for review. The P850 is a current camera in the Kodak lineup, announced exactly a year ago. It's the lower model in Kodak's "performance" P range (the other ranges are the entry-level C cameras, super-zoom Z cameras, and pocket V cameras). As a member of the P range, the P850 has a few features that are only found in some high-end point-and-shoots and in DSLRs, e.g. the ability to record raw files, or to use an external flash via a hot shoe. Note: OSNews is a broad tech site (and has been for years), such non-software reviews are welcome here even if our focus remains towards "system software".

AmanithVG First Technology Preview Released.

Submitted by muratmat 2006-07-10 Graphics 11 Comments

AmanithVG is an implementation of OpenVG, the new application programming interface (API) for hardware accelerated 2D vector and raster graphics, created by the Khronos group. Differently from any other OpenVG implementation, AmanithVG is entirely built on top of OpenGL (from 1.1 to 2.0, using extensions where available) and OpenGL|ES (1.1 and 2.0) APIs. You can watch the AmanithVG video at YouTube.

Book Review: Designing the User Interface

Eugenia Loli 2006-07-07 Graphics 4 Comments

Addison-Wesley sent us in the fourth edition of one of the most highly acclaimed user interface & usability books ever published: "Designing the User Interface", by Ben Shneiderman and Catherine Plaisant. Read more for a quick review.

BumpTop Desktop Prototype

Submitted by Eugenia Loli 2006-06-21 Graphics 34 Comments

The BumpTop structures files and programs as 3D cards with weight that you can shuffle around and move about the desktop. You can throw a bunch of similar cards on a pile to represent stuff you'll get to later, or stack them neatly to represent stuff you've already seen.

Two Interface Designers Talk OS X, XP/Vista

Submitted by Pierre Grabolosa 2006-03-16 Graphics 14 Comments

Two former user interface designers at Apple and Microsoft - now co-workers at Frog Design - come together to discuss the design considerations that have gone into Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista.

The Desktop Is Changing… But to What?

Guest post by Kostis Kapelonis 2006-03-14 Graphics 47 Comments

The desktop metaphor has served our computing needs well for the last decade. It has started however, to show its age over the last years. For office users it is still adequate but for everyone else it is often awkward and slow. Since a computer is no longer confined in the office, but in some cases serves also as the entertainment hub in our living rooms, new User Interfaces are required. In some areas the foundations are already in place while in others users are silently suffering every day, having to cope with inefficient and unproductive UIs.

Libre Graphics Meeting

Submitted by Franck 2006-02-27 Graphics 23 Comments

"Libre Graphics Meeting will bring together developers and users of the best of free software graphics applications - GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, Blender and more. It promises to be a fun ride, with tutorials and presentations of applications, and lots of time and space to chat, meet up with old friends, make new ones. Plans will be made, hacking and drawing will be done, fun will be had. The conference is free to attend, and open to all."

What Jaguars and Astons Have to Do with Skinning

Thom Holwerda 2006-02-26 Graphics 71 Comments

I used to really like skinning my desktops to make them look like another operating system. I stopped doing that years ago; and not necessarily because I wanted to do something more useful with my time. I stopped doing it because I somehow saw how utterly pointless it was. Why? I'll explain-- using Aston Martins and Jaguars. Yes, it's time for another car analogy, boys and girls. Note: This is this week's Sunday Eve Column.

Review: WindowBlinds 5

Submitted by Michael Muchmore 2006-01-10 Graphics 14 Comments

"The new version 5 of WindowBlinds adds features like per-pixel alpha blending, as well as the ability to change toolbar icons, progress animations, and the hue and saturation of the Windows interface. WindowBlinds runs as a Windows XP extension to the Themes feature, so it doesn't require any additional program to run on your PC to work. It also takes advantage of your graphics processor to display its interface eye candy, so that your CPU won't slow down. In fact, the company claims that repainting, resizing, and moving windows will be noticeably quicker as a result of this use of video acceleration for the UI. The Hyperpaint feature even lets you adjust the degree of hardware acceleration. Hyperpaint uses the extra video RAM on your video card to buffer windows, which makes moving them faster."

Public Beta of Adobe’s Lightroom for Mac Only

Submitted by Mirko 2006-01-09 Graphics 8 Comments

Adobe introduced the public beta of Adobe Lightroom, an all-new digital imaging solution for professional photographers. With its modular, task-based and streamlined environment, Lightroom's goal is to deliver a complete photography workflow. As Adobe collects more feedback from photographers, modules and feature sets will likely change, as customers decide on their popularity and priority within digital photography workflows. Initially available as a beta for Macintosh, Lightroom will later support both the Windows and Macintosh platforms. UPDATE by ELQ: Previews here, here and here. It seems that Lightroom reads RAW images correctly and it has Curves support, compared to Aperture.

NVIDIA Linux SLI Results

Submitted by Michael Larabel 2005-12-06 Graphics 32 Comments

Here is a test concerning NVIDIA SLI on Linux (in this case, OpenSUSE 10.0 OSS). "With our previous article that we published moments ago, demonstrating the performance of the GeForce 7800GTX 256MB under Linux with the 1.0-8174 Rel80 drivers that were finally released today, there's no disputing that the Windows XP NVIDIA ForceWare users can generally see a significantly higher frame-rate with the same hardware components, in addition to other features that aren't yet supported by the proprietary NVIDIA Linux drivers. However, how do NVIDIA's initial Rel80 Linux drivers (1.0-8174) fair in the world of Scalable Link Interface?"

Review: DesktopX 3.1

Thom Holwerda 2005-11-20 Graphics 8 Comments

" has existed (at least in concept) since the mid-90s, when IBM was going to use OpenDoc to add similar features to OS/2 Warp 5. DesktopX 1.0 was released in 2000. Five years later, we have version 3.1 in our hands. DesktopX in its present state is more than a mere widget manager. While it does include a widget manager, it does a couple other things."

Skinning Primer: a Comprehensive Look at Windows Customization

Submitted by Brad Wardell 2005-11-19 Graphics 21 Comments

For users who have wanted to customize their Windows PC beyond what is part of the OS, this skin primer goes through the most popular two dozen programs commonly used to tweak, customize, and enhance the default Windows desktop environment.

A Technical Introduction to MiniGUI

Thom Holwerda 2005-11-02 Graphics 5 Comments

"This article describes the features and capabilities of MiniGUI, a lightweight graphics framework for embedded systems based on uClinux, Linux, eCos, or proprietary real-time OSes. The article is written by Wei Yongming, who wrote MiniGUI for a CNC (computer numerical control) system, then released it to open source seven years ago."

Macromedia Opens Incubation ‘Labs’

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-17 Graphics 41 Comments

Macromedia on Monday opened the doors to a new incubation site that hosts unfinished technology and early software releases. The goal of Macromedia Labs is to involve developers in the creation of new products, enabling them to provide feedback that can shape the company's future moves. Specifically, Macromedia Labs will offer documentation, code samples and technical articles, along with community services such as forums and wikis.

Xara X Vector Graphic Program Released Under GPL

Submitted by ac 2005-10-11 Graphics 56 Comments

"Xara is pleased to announce that it intends to make its flagship graphics product, Xara X, open oource. Xara is also working to bring it to the Linux and Mac platforms. Xara X is the world's fastest and we believe the most versatile graphics software. It's primarily a vector graphics program but is one of the new generation of cross-over products that handles photos and drawings with equal ease."

A First Look at GIMP 2.4

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-05 Graphics 22 Comments

A major update to the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), widely regarded as the leading free software raster image editing program, is scheduled for this month. The 2.4 release is expected to include a number of new features and enhancements to existing features.

Windows XP Gets Some Glass

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-05 Graphics 8 Comments

Stardock has unveiled its first beta of WindowBlinds 5 and with it, glass effects for Windows XP users. Stardock claims that beta 1 of WindowBlinds 5 achieves performance on the same level as the current beta of Windows Vista in terms of delivering glass effects. WindowBlinds 5 also is able to do deliver glass effects on relatively low-end hardware (though it still requires a video card with at least 32MB of video memory).

Top 8 Reasons Why HCI Is in Its Stone Age

Submitted by Anonymous coward 2005-09-06 Graphics 101 Comments

This opinion piece gives 8 reasons as to why HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) is in its stone age. It talks of screen corners, visual attention, the spatial paradigm (oh my...) and much more.

Interview: With Tuomo Valkonen

Submitted by Jens Persson 2005-08-23 Graphics 19 Comments

This week in Arch Linux's news letter there was an interview with Ion's creator Tuomo Valkonen. Ion is a complete desktop environment built on the tiling windowmanager PWM. It uses Lua as an embedded interpreter which handles all of the configuration. It mainly uses the keyboard to access the functions but also supports the mouse for some things.