TheDunadan Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 Hi everyone, the current thread on EA reminded me on a different thread I once read somewhere: it was basically dealing with software patents in the US. I'm somewhat surprised that so far quite a few rendering features that appeared in so many siggie or eurographics proceedings, sounded most useful and more like a fairly straight forward thing to implement for any experienced programmer, yet few to none renderers support it. I have my doubt anyone from SESI feels like directly commenting on this, but although prman and mantra share many similarities there are a few features that prman has for quite some time now, and mantra hasn't got yet, but with these mantra would be even better than it is now anyhow. Surely there might be other prioreties for the houdini product line, but Deep Shadows Creases on sub-d Raylabels seem to me like something that almost anyone could greatly benefit from. At least speaking of the first two features there are soo many papers on it , ithardly seems like so much of a challanging task (there are always optimisations and such ..., but speaking of the basic functionality). Yet not only speaking of mantra, there are very few to none renders I'm aware of that support these features and they seem soo incredibly useful to me. Any hints if waiting / hoping for such features in mantra is mostly likely in vain, would be welcome. Even more welcome though, any hints there is good reasons to continue hoping Jens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 Pixar has patents on some or all of these as far as I know...so implementing them would require SESI paying for a license etc... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 Pixar has patents on some or all of these as far as I know...so implementing them would require SESI paying for a license etc... 14941[/snapback] Pixar are the reason everyone says "Monte Carlo" instead of "Stochastic", aren't they? AFAIK, the creases thing: SESI can do this in their SOP, but the code is not allowed in the renderer. There are a couple of workarounds you can do to get creases which I can't remember offhand. I didn't realize RayLabels were patented. Interesting.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDunadan Posted November 15, 2004 Author Share Posted November 15, 2004 Pixar has patents on some or all of these as far as I know...so implementing them would require SESI paying for a license etc... 14941[/snapback] than we only have to wait uhm 20 years before it's considered common knowledge So far Germany and most of Europe was free of those software patents, but they wanna introduce something similar soon here as well *sigh*. Not that I don't see the point on patents, but it's rediculous how long those patents last and in particular for software. At times patents are kept in such a general way fashion you can hardly avoid some them, e.g. some company actually got the patent for microcontrollers in typing devices. Any keyboard, typing maschine etc. company will have a tough time avoiding such patent. I'm studying engeneering and it makes me sad at times to learn that often the most important thing for the development of cutting edge technology is to simply register sufficient patents so you can start a deal with other competitors (like, if I let you use my patent I can use yours in exchange)... but anyhow such discussion may lead anywhere. Jens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted November 15, 2004 Share Posted November 15, 2004 I just took a guess on Raylabels...so don't quote me...hey wait a minute - you did! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stremik Posted November 16, 2004 Share Posted November 16, 2004 Although I'm not a professional but even not intensive use of Houdini over past several years has shown me that in the world of computers there is always more than one way to solve a problem. If what I think is right than why all these fancy stuff you're talking about can't be done using some different upproaches? Why one should buy the rights or wait till 20 years pass? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheDunadan Posted November 16, 2004 Author Share Posted November 16, 2004 Although I'm not a professional but even not intensive use of Houdiniover past several years has shown me that in the world of computers there is always more than one way to solve a problem. If what I think is right than why all these fancy stuff you're talking about can't be done using some different upproaches? Why one should buy the rights or wait till 20 years pass? 14949[/snapback] Hi Stremik, I don't doubt there are different ways to get similar results and Houdini is definatly not a tool that is likely to ever 'feel' restricted, just since featureXY is missing. Yet something like deep shadows are very useful and the concept behind deep shadows isn't that revolutionary: Pixar has been the first company to have implemented such, but all those concept are 'old'. Same here for something like creases... Often when you start trying to find a solution for a given problem you'll come up with a good idea, but only slightly later you'll get informed that there is a patent on it already and hence you can't use it. And it doesn't have to be a really fancy complex solution often. Anyhow it's a kinda sore spot of mine... And I don't wanna say Pixar is any worse than other companies and if they wouldn't have done it, other would have done so, yet I don't have to like the fact such things can get patents on. Jens Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankFirsching Posted November 16, 2004 Share Posted November 16, 2004 This fits in quite good here: A friend of mine sent me this patent description a couple of days ago. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4734690.html Seems, that someone was granted the patent on 3D graphics. Although this patent was issued quite some time ago (1988), my friend told me, that this person is suing among others the 12 largest publishers of computer games Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted November 16, 2004 Share Posted November 16, 2004 Without a doubt, Deep Shadow or the equivalent is something that's much desired in Houdini (Mantra, that is). If I did not misunderstand, isn't what Pixar hold the patent to is their compression and sampling method in Deep Shadow...? Hmm.. Gotta find out.. :tumbleweed: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stremik Posted November 16, 2004 Share Posted November 16, 2004 WOW! This is mind-numbingly ridiculous! That's it! Today I'm filing for a patent for Stereoscopic viewing. People, reach for your wallets because I'm gonna sue every single one of those who uses two eyes for looking at the world. Those of you who doesn't have enough money must tape over one eye with a masking tape. :oneeyedsmiley02: PO Box Stremik :stupid: Vladimir Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 Here's an interesting article about "obvious" patents: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992178 The article also mentions the patent for "The Wheel" filed in Australia. It seems like a flaw that "the patent office" wasn't humanity's first invention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheUsualAlex Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 Here's an interesting article about "obvious" patents:http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992178 The article also mentiones the patent for "The Wheel" filed in Australia. It seems like a flaw that "the patent office" wasn't humanity's first invention. 15034[/snapback] oh dear... this whole patent system is starting to get really ridiculous... Seems like these days, the only way a company can survive is by surviving law suits and suing other to death by paten infringement.... How very screwed up... :dots: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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