peter nitsch.net

Recently, I’ve been playing a lot with Alchemy, an Adobe Labs project that allows developers to compile C/C++ code for use in AVM2. Brandon Hall does a great job of explaining exactly how Alchemy works, so I won’t bother.

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Yesterday my wife and I had an appointment for a 3D ultrasound. We wanted some better images of our new daughter, who we’re expecting in the fall, and this technology seemed like the best way. If you’re unfamiliar with 3D ultrasound, it’s essentially a machine which broadcasts the same ultrasonic waves used in a traditional 2D ultrasound but on multiple planes to simulate a 3D effect.

I thought it was super cool tech, but I could tell the nurse didn’t know how to respond to questions like “What formats can this thing export the spacial data?”. But really, playing around with 3D imagery of my unborn daughter is just too good an opportunity to pass-by. Luckily they gave us a CD of JPG’s.

Here’s an image from the set:

I thought this would be a great chance to play with the Pixel3D class Andy Zupko added to Papervision a while ago. It took some tweaking, but I like the end result.

View demo.

Adobe demoed some new features included in Flash CS4 during their keynote at FITC Toronto. I took a small video of 3D transformation tweening:

By far, the most exciting news, that generated the loudest applause, was the new timeline and animation editing interface. Every property in a motion tween now has its own separate timeline (similar to After Effects)! In fact the new interface closely resembles After Effects, which will definitely excite animators. Flash CS4 is shaping up to be a huge step in the right direction.

FITC Toronto 2008 will be taking place April 19-22 at the downtown Hilton. I’m looking forward to many of this years’ sessions, particularly Moock’s talk on AS4, and Hodgin’s work in Processing. I’ll be around for most of the conference, so if anyone would like to meet up, shoot me an email. The Hive team is hoping to have our first release close to final. A demo version for the conference is very likely.

This year’s conference is particularly special for me, as I’ve been nominated for the “Best Canadian Developer” award. My thanks go out to everyone who had a part in the nomination, and I’m honestly surprised and taken aback by the recognition. I’ve had a great year, with projects like the Telus Holiday Gift Guide, Make Like Miles, and the FWA winning Lancer Earth, so the nomination comes as icing on the cake.

Second year in a row for Nuit Blanche. Double the attendance (due to good weather and lots of hype) and half the impact, the event was definitely underwhelming. Still, I have hope that the organizers will learn from this years mistakes (like not closing some key routes to cars) and make next year great.