Graphics Video and CAD
From SME Guide
AviDemux
http://avidemux.berlios.de/index.html
Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities. Avidemux is available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows under the GNU GPL license.
Blender
http://www.blender.org/ FLOSSMETRICS link: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/blender
Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. It provides a complete system for 3D, video production, compositing and rendering. Among the features:
- Windows for animation curves/keys, outliner, schematic scene diagram, generic node editing system, non-linear video sequence editing, character animation action editor, non-linear animation mixer, image/UV editing, file/image selection and file management; Built-in text editor for annotations and editing Python scripts, Graphical user interface for Python scripts, Custom themes, Consistent interface across all platforms
- Rigging: Fast skeleton creation mode, Interactive 3D paint for vertex weighting, Fast envelope based skinning, Mirror editing (bone creation and weight painting), Constraint stack for IK solver setup and other constraints
- Animation: Armature (skeleton) deformation with forward/inverse kinematics, 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, Animated deformers (Lattice, Curve), '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
- UV Unwrapping: Conformal and Angle Based unwrapping methods, Interactive transform of UV maps by vertex pinning, Proportional falloff editing of UV maps for smooth transformations, Seam based unwrapping, Cube, Cylinder, Sphere, View projections
- Physics and particles: Particle system can be atached to any mesh object. Control methods include weight painting, textures, curve guides, wind and vortex effects. Particles can be deflected by moving geometry, Hair strands can be created by a static particle system, supporting all particle control methods, Fluid simulator with fully animated inflow, outflow, obstacle and fluid objects. Gravity and viscosity settings can also be animated. Supports vector blur and is integrated with the particle system, Realtime soft body solver integrated in mesh, lattice, curve and text objects. Supports collision detection and particle field effects like Wind or Vortex, soft bodys can also be baked for faster playback/rendering
- 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
- Rendering: Render layers and passes, Render baking to UV maps (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, Radiosity solver, Integral support for the Yafray render engine, Export scripts available for external renderers such as Renderman (RIB), Mental Ray, Povray, Virtualight, Indigo
- Shading: Node editor for creating and mixing complex materials, Material previews rendered by main render engine, Fast, realistic subsurface scattering, Tangent shading to give any shader an anisotropic effect, Versatile procedural textures system, Reflection maps, Normal, displacement and bump maps
- Compositing: Compositor tightly integrated and aligned with the rendering pipeline, MultiLayer OpenEXR files allow to store and reuse raw renderlayer and passes data, Complete list of composite node filters, convertors, color and vector operators and mixers including Chroma Key, Blur, RGB Curves, Z Combine, Color Ramp, Preview panel to define the portion of interest. A composite then only happens on this part, Threaded and memory efficient (up to 8 processors), Near realtime sequencer can edit hours of video, Waveform and U/V scatter plots, Open and write many audio & video file formats using ffmpeg (linux only at the moment, FFMPEG for Windows/OS X is scheduled for next release), Can render using frameserver-support directly into foreign applications, Supports float images as well as regular 32 bits images, Curves tool allows you to create a mapping from the float range to a displayable result (for HDR images)
Customizations and extensions are available for use in architecture and building rendering at http://blender-archi.tuxfamily.org/Main_Page
Cademia
Existing software tools for the planning process have severe limitations: They are restricted in openness, they are dependent on the platform, they are complex to use and to program and the users have a limited exertion of influence on the further development. As a solution, a new platform for geometry-oriented AEC applications has been developed at Bauhaus University Weimar: CADEMIA. While CADEMIA was originally written for teaching and research purposes it is now available as open source software. A long time experience in the development of these systems in the building industry forms the base on which CADEMIA is built. CADEMIA is a modular constructed software and offers lots of possibilities to integrate other functionalities. Due to this flexibility CADEMIA can easily be custom-modeled to fit individual needs. CADEMIA is programmed in JAVA and therefore platform independent.
celtx
http://www.celtx.com FLOSSMETRICS link: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/celtix FLOSSMETRICS quality evaluation: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/celtix/quality
Celtx is the world's first open source all-in-one media pre-production software. It has everything you need to take your story from concept to production. Celtx replaces 'paper, pen & binder' pre-production with a digital approach that's more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share. Celtx includes the essential features that writers need to keep their fingers moving - like intuitive formatting, text auto-complete, page breaks, dual column dialog, scene management, scratchpad, embedded notes, title page generation, pagination, printing, spellchecker, keyboard shortcuts, find and replace, script importing and exporting, PDF and HTML script reports, and collaboration. Celtx includes reversible, colour coded Index Cards that are intelligently tied to your script and auto populate with the Scene Headers and first 40 words or so of the scene. You can flip the cards to type notes on the back, colour code them to track plot lines, and drag and drop them to reorder scenes.You can add sound files, video clips, digital photos and scanned documents to your project to create a media intensive breakdown. You can then associate the media with any one of the 36 production categories, including wardrobe, props, and locations. The user can add a storyboard based on your script and adding individual or batch images in to the storyboard. Each storyboard image is accompanied with a shot description to help you communicate your creative vision. Rearrange images and sequences within the project to construct your visual narrative. Then when you're ready, use the slideshow feature to play the images to help pre-visualize your media project.
Cenon
A vector graphics editor, with specialized import filters for many vector formats. It can be used for desktop publishing, vector graphics conversion, and through commercial modules it performs the role of a CAM workstation. It supports vector editing, blending, color separation, PDF and PostScript direct editing, importing of 2D DXF, Gerber files, HPGL, DIN and derivatives like Sieb&Meyer, Wessel and Excellon. It supports vectorization, layers, paths and text along paths.
CineLerra
http://cinelerra.org FLOSSMETRICS link: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/cinelerra
Cinelerra is an advanced non-linear video editor and compositor for Linux. Cinelerra includes support for very high-fidelity audio and video: it processes audio using 64 bits of precision, and can work in both RGBA and YUVA color spaces, using floating-point and 16-bit integer representations, respectively. It is resolution and frame rate-independent, meaning that it can support video of any speed and size.
CinePaint
http://www.cinepaint.org/ FLOSSMETRICS link: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/cinepaint FLOSSMETRICS quality evaluation: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/cinepaint/quality
CinePaint is a collection of free open source software tools for deep paint manipulation and image processing. CinePaint is used for motion picture frame-by-frame retouching, dirt removal, wire rig removal, render repair, background plates, and 3d model textures. It's been used on many feature films, among them "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", "Harry Potter", "The Last Samurai", "SpiderMan". It's also being used by pro photographers who need greater color fidelity than is available in other tools. CinePaint is fundamentally different from other painting tools because it handles high fidelity image formats such as Kodak Cineon, SMPTE DPX, and ILM-NVIDIA OpenEXR. CinePaint has vast dynamic range: 16-bits per channel (64-bit RGBA). That's more range than can be displayed on a computer monitor (24-bit RGB), but can make a visible difference when working with film. Film scanners have more range than monitors, and can capture a superior image from film. Even with images that started in 8-bit, conversion to 16-bit can preserve color information that can otherwise be lost during the editing process. Such loss of fidelity can be visible as banding when an image is eventually printed back to film or blown up to higher magnification for a still print. The extended dynamic range of CinePaint appeals not just to 35mm cinematographers, but to 35mm still photographers as well. Still photographers can think of CinePaint as having many more F-stops of range, of being capable of capturing much more subtle nuances of color in a vast blue sky for instance. CinePaint handles 8-bit, 16-bit linear, and 16-bit float images.
GIMP
http://www.gimp.org/ FLOSSMETRICS link: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/gimp FLOSSMETRICS quality evaluation: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/gimp/quality
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. It is a raster editor, which means that it performs operations directly on the pixels that make up the image, and not a vector editor. Other (proprietary) raster editors include Adobe Photoshop or Jasc Paintshop Pro. Among the features:
- Painting: Full suite of painting tools including Brush, Pencil, Airbrush, Clone, etc.; Sub-pixel sampling for all paint tools for high quality anti-aliasing, Extremely powerful gradient editor and blend tool, Supports custom brushes and patterns
- System: Tile based memory management so image size is limited only by available disk space, Virtually unlimited number of images open at one time
- Advanced Manipulation: Full alpha channel support, Layers and channels, Multiple Undo/Redo (limited only by diskspace), Editable text layers, Transformation tools including rotate, scale, shear and flip, Selection tools including rectangle, ellipse, free, fuzzy and intelligent, Advanced path tool doing bezier and polygonal selections, Transformable paths, transformable selections, Quickmask to paint a selection.
- Over 100 plug-ins already available
It supports most Windows native Adobe Photoshop plugins in the Linux environment through an extension called PSPI (available at http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/pspi.html).
GRASS GIS
http://grass.itc.it/ FLOSSMETRICS link: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/grassgis
GRASS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) is a raster/vector GIS, image processing system, and graphics production system. GRASS contains over 350 programs and tools to render maps and images on monitor and paper; manipulate raster, vector, and sites data; process multi spectral image data; and create, manage, and store spatial data. GRASS uses both an intuitive windows interface as well as command line syntax for ease of operations. GRASS can interface with commercial printers, plotters, digitizers, and databases to develop new data as well as manage existing data. Among the features:
- Raster: Automatic rasterline and area to vector conversion, Buffering of line structures, Cell and profile dataquery, Colortable modifications, Conversion to vector and point data format, Correlation / covariance analysis, Expert system analysis, Map algebra (map calculator), Interpolation for missing values, Neighbourhood matrix analysis, Raster overlay with or without weight, Reclassification of cell labels, Resampling (resolution), Rescaling of cell values, Statistical cell analysis, Surface generation from vector lines
- 3D (voxel): 3D data import (intuitive ASCII: x y z Format), 3D masks, 3D map algebra (r3.mapcalc), 3D interpolation (IDW, Regularised Splines with Tension), 3D Visualization (isosurfaces), Interface to Vis5D visualization tool
- Vector analysis: Contour generation from raster surfaces (IDW, Spline algorithm), Conversion to raster and point data format, Digitizing with board or on screen (scanned raster image) with mouse, Reclassification of vector labels, Superpositioning of vector layers
- Point data analysis: Delaunay triangulation, Surface interpolation from spot heights, Thiessen polygons, Topographic analysis (curvature, slope, aspect)
- Image processing: Canonical component analysis (CCA), Color composite generation, Edge detection, Frequency filtering (Fourier, convolution matrices), Fourier and inverse fourier transformation, Histogram stretching, IHS transformation to RGB, Image rectification (affine and polynomial transformations on raster and vector targets), Ortho photo rectification, Principal component analysis (PCA), Radiometric corrections (Fourier), Resampling, Resolution enhancement (with RGB/IHS), RGB to IHS transformation, Texture oriented classification (sequential maximum a posteriori classification), Shape detection, Supervised classification (training areas, maximum likelihood classification), Unsupervised classification (minimum distance clustering, maximum likelihood classification)
- DTM-Analysis: Contour generation, Cost / path analysis, Slope / aspect analysis, Surface generation from spot heigths or contours
- Several external modules, among them: Erosion modelling (AGNPS 5, ANSWERS, TOPMODEL), Landscape structure analysis, Solution transport, Watershed analysis
- Interfaces for the R statistical system
Gscan2PDF
http://gscan2pdf.sourceforge.net/
A tool designed to simplify the scanning process of books or other compound material. It provides additional features by integrating a tool called "unpaper". Unpaper is a post-processing tool for scanned sheets of paper, especially for book pages that have been scanned from previously created photocopies. The main purpose is to make scanned book pages better readable on screen after conversion to PDF. Additionally, unpaper might be useful to enhance the quality of scanned pages before performing optical character recognition (OCR). unpaper tries to clean scanned images by removing dark edges that appeared through scanning or copying on areas outside the actual page content (e.g. dark areas between the left-hand-side and the right-hand-side of a double- sided book-page scan). The program also tries to detect disaligned centering and rotation of pages and will automatically straighten each page by rotating it to the correct angle. This process is called "deskewing".
gvSIG
http://www.gvsig.gva.es/index.php?id=que-es-gvsig&L=0explotan&L=2
gvSIG is a tool oriented to manage geographic information. It is characterized by a user-friendly interface, with a quick access to the most usual raster and vector formats. In the same view it includes local as well as remote data through a WMS, WCS or WFS source. It is aimed at users of geographic information, whether professionals or civil servants (city councils, councils, regional councils or ministries) from any part of the world ( at the moment its interface is in Spanish, Valencian, English, Basque, Gallego, Czech, Chinese, French, German, Italian and Portuguese), in addition to being free. The SEXTANTE extensions adds additional functionalities.
InkScape
http://www.inkscape.org/ FLOSSMETRICS link: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/inkscape
Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more.
LuxRender
LuxRender is a new, open-source, free software rendering system for physically correct, unbiased image synthesis. Rendering with LuxRender means simulating light according to physical equations, this produces realistic photographic quality images. It provides a FLTK based Graphical User Interface with interactive rendering controls, tonemapping controls and a progressive/linear viewport, realtime engine control with Adding & Removing of rendering threads and start/pause/restart controls; realistic sunsky (physically based Sunlight & Daylight model Preetham/Shirley/Smits as used in most modern unbiased renderers with support for Exit Portals. BRDFs, and integrated materials:
- matte (Lambertian or Oren-Nayar 'matte paint' diffuse reflection)
- plastic (Glossy Dielectric Diffuse/Specular using a Blinn Microfacet distribution)
- shinymetal (Glossy Conductor Diffuse/Specular using a Blinn Microfacet distribution)
- substrate (Glossy Frensel Blended Diffuse substrate/Specular superstrate using an Iso/Anisotropic Ashikmin/Shirley Microfacet distribution)
- glass (Fresnel Dielectric with perfect specular reflection and transmission)
- translucent (Fresnel Dielectric with glossy specular reflection and transmission using a Blinn Microfacet distribution)
- mirror (Perfect specular reflection)
- uber (Flexible base material with control over all reflection/transmission BRDFs)
- bluepaint (measured)
- brushedmetal (measured)
- clay (measured)
- felt (measured)
- primer (measured)
- skin (measured)
The engine supports image textures (including HDR), internal color handling in Spectra and CIE XYZ, OpenEXR, tonemapping kernels, additional pipeline stages and pixel reconstruction filters.
Panda
Panda is an open source solution for video uploading, encoding and streaming. Unlike other video platforms, Panda is not just a service for encoding your videos for the web; Panda handles the whole process. From the upload form to streaming, Panda takes control. Support for the encoding profiles which FFmpeg supports. They include FLV for flash and H264 for iPhone; Panda run's completely in the cloud computing environment provided by Amazon's array of web services. The application runs on a customised EC2 instance with everything pre-installed, including FFmpeg and an plethora of codecs. SimpleDB is used to store all of data for video, encoding, accounts and encoding profiles. Uploaded and encoded video files are then stored on S3.
PDFEdit
http://pdfedit.petricek.net/pdfedit.index_e FLOSSMETRICS link: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/pdfedit FLOSSMETRICS quality evaluation: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/pdfedit/quality
Free editor for PDF documents. Complete editing of PDF documents is possible with PDFedit. You can change raw pdf objects (for advanced users) or use many gui functions. Functionality can be easily extended using a scripting language (ECMAScript).
QuantumGIS
Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) that runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows. QGIS supports vector, raster, and database formats. QGIS is licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS lets you browse and create map data on your computer. It supports many common spatial data formats (e.g. ESRI ShapeFile, geotiff). QGIS supports plugins to do things like display tracks from your GPS. It supports raster and vector types, integration with GRASS, digitizing tools, print composer, OGC support, spatial bookmarks, feature labeling, graticule builder, raster georeferencing.
Scribus
http://www.scribus.net/ FLOSSMETRICS link: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/scribus
Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of "press-ready" output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.
SynFig
Synfig is a powerful, industrial-strength vector-based 2D animation software package, designed from the ground-up for producing feature-film quality animation with fewer people and resources. Our animation technology eliminates the task of manual tweening, producing smooth, fluid motion without the animator having to draw out each frame individually. This allows you to produce 2D animation with fewer people while producing a product of a higher quality. Among the features:
- Spacial Resolution-independence
- Temporal Resolution-independence
- High Dynamic Range Imaging.
- Layers: Region, Outline, Polygon, Circle Rectangle, Star, Checker board, Gradient Layers, Linear gradient, Radial gradient, Conical gradient, Curve gradient, Spiral gradient, Noise
- Filters: Bevel, Blur, Motion Blur, Clamp, Colorcorrect, Halftone, Luma key, Radial blur, Shade, Plant, Super sample, Text, Import,Timeloop
- Distortion: Inside-out, Noise distort, Rotate, Spherize, Stretch, Translate, Twirl, Warp, Zoom
uDIG
http://udig.refractions.net/confluence/display/UDIG/Home
The User-friendly Desktop Internet GIS (uDig) is both a GeoSpatial application and a platform through which developers can create new, derived applications. uDig is a core element in an internet aware Geographic Information System, and provides an infrastructure for the creation of complete GIS environments. For example, the GRASS GIS system is integrated in uDIG through the JGrass module (Primarily dedicated to hydrological and geomorphological analyses).
UFRaw
The Unidentified Flying Raw (UFRaw) is a utility to read and manipulate raw images from digital cameras. It can be used on its own or as a Gimp plug-in. It reads raw images using Dave Coffin's raw conversion utility - DCRaw. UFRaw supports color management workflow based on Little CMS, allowing the user to apply ICC color profiles. Color manipulation is performed at 16 bit per channel, preserving detail.
YaFray
YafRay is a powerful raytracer, under the LGPL license. It enables you to create fantastic images and animations of a photorealistic quality. It features full global illumination, skydomes, HDRI, caustics, real DOF, blurry reflections and a modular framework.
