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[Project] blendtorch: seamless PyTorch - Blender integration
Training with artificial images is becoming increasingly important to address the lack of real data sets in various niche areas. Yet, many today's approaches write 2D/3D simulations from scratch. To improve this situation and make better use of existing pipelines, we've been working towards an integration between Blender, an open-source real-time physics enabled animation software, and PyTorch. Today we announce blendtorch, an open-source Python library that seamlessly integrates distributed Blender renderings into PyTorch data pipelines at 60FPS (640x480 RGBA). Batch visualization from 4 Blender instances running a physics enabled falling cubes scene.
Imec, GLOBALFOUNDRIES Announce Breakthrough In AI Chip
Imec and GLOBALFOUNDRIES announced a hardware demonstration of a new artificial intelligence chip. Based on imec's Analog in Memory Computing (AiMC) architecture utilizing GF's 22FDX solution, the new chip is optimized to perform deep neural network calculations on in-memory computing hardware in the analog domain. Achieving record-high energy efficiency up to 2,900 TOPS/W, the accelerator is a key enabler for inference-on-the-edge for low-power devices. Since the early days of the digital computer age, the processor has been separated from the memory. Operations performed using a large amount of data require a similarly large number of data elements to be retrieved from the memory storage.
'Umurangi Generation': A photography game that urges you to look closer
One of the big joys of "Umurangi Generation" is the sensation of seeing a scene in the game, and having the mirage of a perfect picture appear in your mind, if only for a second. It's impossible (at least for a photographer of my caliber) to visualize and capture it as-imagined, which opens up a second game within the game: one of curation. A no-less-enjoyable part of my "Umurangi" experience was scouring my file folder (the game saves all of your shots) after completing a level and being both repulsed and pleasantly surprised by what I'd created. The game reveals certain things about your aesthetic priorities. I preferred vertical images to horizontal ones, and I leaned toward overexposure and a blue tint in many of my photos, mirroring a sort of mid-2010s Bloomberg Businessweek aesthetic.