Libre Graphics Meeting 2014 » Update

Fashion Design Freedom – Valentina

Pat David — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 17:30:40 +0000

While freedom in digital graphic design is a primary topic at Libre Graphics Meeting, applications outside the digital world are also fascinating to see! So there will be an opportunity to hear about (and hack with) the fashion pattern design tool Valentina this year.

Susan Spencer Conklin first brought up the topic of free software for fashion design at Libre Graphics Meeting 2010 in Brussels and a year later in Montreal she demonstrated her own software made as part of the Tau Meta Tau Physica project. She programmed the project in Python and implemented the results visually into Inkscape through extensions to be able to output the patterns.

However, there are often many paths to a solution, and it wasn’t long before another option became available.

Roman Telezhinsky started working on his own pattern design tool called Valentina as he was studying in a college. Valentina will be introduced at this years Libre Graphics Meeting to the audience and because its still in an early stage, there will be a special hackfest for working on it!

Magic Lantern – Free Your Camera

Pat David — Sun, 26 Jan 2014 13:41:52 +0000

One of the projects which will have its first appearance at LibreGraphicsMeeting this year, is Magic Lantern. Magic Lantern is a free software add-on for most newer Canon EOS cameras. It allows you to get the most out of your camera and it adds many extra features that are not included from the factory by Canon.

Magic Lantern version 2.3 Promo from MagicLanternFM on Vimeo.

The project will show in a talk what Magic Lantern is and they will also offer a workshop focusing mostly on advanced photography with Magic Lantern’s unique functionality like raw overlays, ETTR, bracketing, dual ISO, focus stacking, the manual focus tools, long exposures and fisheye correction. Of course you can bring your camera and they will help to install Magic Lantern on it.

Join us in Leipzig at the 2014 LibreGraphicsMeeting to give your Canon EOS camera a little more freedom.

Building an OpenHardware Spectrograph for Color Profiling in Linux

Pat David — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 21:25:42 +0000

At the 2012 Libre Graphics Meeting in Vienna, Richard Hughes presented a progress report on the ColorHug, his open hardware colorimeter. For over 2200 Linux users (and counting!), the Open Hardware ColorHug colorimeter has been an inexpensive way to calibrate monitors. Richard returns to LGM this year to talk about his newest project, a progression of the work on ColorHug, the ColorHug+.

The ColorHug+ is a mini-spectrograph with UV switched illuminants, allowing it to profile all manner of displays and printers. This allows for a complete look at colour management throughout the workflow. In this presentation Richard will be discussing the technology change for the ColorHug+, the higher price (£300 for the ColorHug+ vs. £60 for the ColorHug), and will walk through the requirements for building a device with sufficient accuracy and precision. Richard will also walk through a brief history of the project and display photos of early prototypes of the ColorHug+.

Join us in Leipzig at the 2014 Libre Graphics Meeting for a chance to meet Richard and see his presentation on the ColorHug+!

Blender and the Manikin

Pat David — Wed, 22 Jan 2014 19:43:21 +0000

Libre Graphics Meeting tries to bring in talks or presentations from the local community each year, and there is a fantastic presentation this year of the work done by Sebastian König recreating a 500 year old manikin with Blender for the GRASSI Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Leipzig.

The original figure was created in 1525 of wood and string.
(Image courtesy of Sebastian König CC-BY)

As detailed in the original post on Blendernation, the original figure dates from 1525 and is an intricate creation of wood and strings that made the figure fully pose-able (even toes and fingers). Due to its extreme age the figure is fragile, so it was scanned using computer tomography. Starting from this scan, Sebastian then proceeded to use Blender to re-create the model digitally.

This not only allowed the model to be manipulated without fear of damaging the original, it was also able to allow the museum some insight into how it functions. For more details of the process and results, have a look at the original post on Blendernation.

For an opportunity to hear Sebastian speak further about the process and results, come visit us in Leipzig for the 2014 Libre Graphics Meeting!