Useful graphic apps

[solo]

Thought I'd start a thread where anyone can add to if they find any cool (graphic based) apps free or commercial worth mentioning.

I found two today...

Tintii photo filter:

http://www.indii.org/software/tintii

and Inpaint:

http://www.theinpaint.com/

[EscapeArtist]

Good Idea. All of these are free.

Paint.net Paint Program
FBX Converter Format converter
Gimp
Inkscape Like CorelDraw
Hothouse 3D Tree maker
Meshlab Format Converter
ngPlant Plant Modeling
Texture Maker
Bricks'n Tiles Brick/Tile textures
Ivy Generator
Blender
DoubleCadXT CAD software
ZModeler
Abaro PovRay tree generator
K3DSurf 3D surface generator
Incendia Fractal generator
RealFlow Fluid dynamics and simulation
Sculptris Like ZBrush


As you can tell, I'm all about free~!

[solo]

All the above, anything that can benefit what we do, make life easier or add to what we use.

[Rich O Brien]

Maybe amend the top post as links come in? Saves time when browsing

[liquid98]

Maybe a bit OT, but

I'm pretty happy with most of the apps I use on an every day basis. (like firefox openoffice filezilla SU etc).

But I was on a long quest for a decent backup software.

It had to meet six criteria:

1 free, 2 simple to use, 3 as silent as possible, 4 reliable (important!), 5 hassle-free, 6 small footprint.

This is what i use and recommend for ages:

http://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/

edit:

Also: http://www.pixlr.com/editor/ , a web based image editor.

I like web based software. Its the future, I think.

[Gaieus]

...and Inpaint:

http://www.theinpaint.com/

Wow, that's a pretty powerful tool (it has a free, online version, too). It even "removes" unnecessary shadows!

[Gaieus]

Anyway, this topic is a good idea. And yes, we may collect the additional apps in the first post (if Pete also agrees) just like the rendering home pages in the Gallery or the texture resources in the CMS forum.

Maybe a very brief description of what the app does would also be cool.

[tridem]

Neat Image - Reduces noise, very good with unbiased renders.

[thomthom]

...and Inpaint:

http://www.theinpaint.com/

Wow, that's a pretty powerful tool (it has a free, online version, too). It even "removes" unnecessary shadows!

How does it compare against PS CS5's Content Aware Fill?

[Gaieus]

I do not have PS so dunno - try it out yourself.
The images I posted above were made with the free, online version in just about half a minute.

Thinking of it more, it can also easily be used to get rid of some too apparently repetitive elements in seamless textures and such.

[Zacchia]

OK, this one is not an graphic application but this in may not easy to find: It convertes a pdf in a Excel xls file for free:

http://www.brothersoft.com/office-conve ... 04767.html

I am happy to have found it!

[thomthom]

Anyone knows of an environment map viewer? One where you can test out the maps live in 3d?

[Gaieus]

ShiftN by Marcus Hebel.

Free for private and commercial use.

ShiftNlicense.png

Like many others, some photo editing applications have similar features - this is a standalone app however to correct converging lines in a photo.

Useful for pre-editing photo-textures for use in SU (see Boulder Court House example below).

[Pilou]

Rsizr Intelligent image resizing online (free)

Aviary an astonished free suite of powerful online creation tools 2D and even Music

Fotosketcher Convert your digital photos into art!

SumoPaintfree clone of Toshop on line and More fun

[mitcorb]

@Solo:
I visited the indii site. I got an alert that the site may have security issues?

[dedmin]

Anyone knows of an environment map viewer? One where you can test out the maps live in 3d?

http://developer.amd.com/gpu/cubemapgen/Pages/default.aspx

[thomthom]

Anyone knows of an environment map viewer? One where you can test out the maps live in 3d?

http://developer.amd.com/gpu/cubemapgen/Pages/default.aspx

Only supports cross maps?

[EscapeArtist]

Not really apps, but these sites are very useful for rendering IOR and other material values:

http://www.pixelandpoly.com/ior.html
http://www.robinwood.com/Catalog/Techni ... xList.html
http://refractiveindex.info/?group=CRYSTALS&material=Si

[tridem]

SMARTNORMAL (free) quick normalmap generator, also web based

smartnormal.jpg

[Pilou]

Xnormal (free)

xNormal is an application to generate normal / ambient occlusion / displacement maps. It can also project the texture of the highpoly model into the lowpoly mesh ( complete texture transfer, even with different topologies ).

Includes too an interactive 3D viewer with multiple mesh and textures format support, shaders and realtime soft shadows / glow effect.

It comes with some useful tools like height map - normal map - cavity map - occlusion - tangent/object space and spherical harmonics tools.

All these computations are done using multicore/multithreading, distributed/parallel rendering, ray tracing and advanced GPGPU techniques.

[solo]

Sculptris (Thanks to pilou on another thread)

http://sculptris.com/

Gave it a quick try and I'm amazed that this product is free.

Not only can you sculpt organic shapes like an artist/sculptor, it also allows you to map UV's and export them with model, so importing into SU your model is fully mapped.

[EarthMover]

Whoa....Scultpris is AWESOME. Zbrush lite! My son was just asking me for an app to do sculpting. This is perfect!

[EarthMover]

Sculptris (Thanks to pilou on another thread)

http://sculptris.com/

Gave it a quick try and I'm amazed that this product is free.

Not only can you sculpt organic shapes like an artist/sculptor, it also allows you to map UV's and export them with model, so importing into SU your model is fully mapped.

Pete,

How are you getting the mesh back into Sketchup?

[solo]

Sculptris -> deep exploration -> SU

[Pilou]

For the little story Sculptris is now hosted by Zbrush (Pixologic) and the creator Dr Petter is now in Pixologic team (creator of Zbrush)
Whishing it stay free

[EarthMover]

It's a shame I can't get Scultpris to work with TIG's .obj importer plugin. The polyreducer brush, voxel like sculpting and texture painting would make a great free workflow addition for most sketchup users. If anyone can make it work, please let me know. I've tried all settings.

[Pilou]

Try Meshlab(free)

[EarthMover]

I did it also with Blender, but lost the UV's. (Probably naming and file issue) I'll try Meshlab. Sculptris works great with an already made SDS mesh. I just made a nice cushion! Can't figure out why TIG's importer won't work though.

(Sorry for taking up this thread. I'll find another thread for just Sculptris issues)

[solo]

Adam

You never lost the UV's, it's not exported with model (notice no mtl file) you need to export texture out seperately.

[EarthMover]

I see! Thanks Pete!

Came across this one today - Artizen HDR - http://www.supportingcomputers.net/Appl ... rtizen.asp

"From real to surreal, Artizen HDR is a Windows based stand alone image editing application that has a complete set of state of the art technologies that makes working with photographs easier than ever. Artizen is full featured photo editor with ability to work with JPEG's, +14 Digital Camera RAW files and High Dynamic Range images in an easy and efficient manner suitable for both professionals and hobbyist photographers."

Free for 8 bit image editing!!