In the press........

[Maggi Young]

Two stories today from 'Horticulture Week'

RHS projects spark jobs boost
By Matthew Appleby Friday, 16 March 2012

Investment of £27m will see creation of 22 posts as society launches five-year programme.


The RHS is to create 22 new roles among other staff changes to implement its £27m heritage investment projects.

The society described the project as "undoubtedly the biggest investment programme in our history".

Over the next five years, the £18m cash raised from selling Lawrence Hall and £9m more from sponsors and donors will be spent on RHS Lindley Library & Hall, science, urban gardens, regional schemes, online development and at RHS Wisley and Hyde Hall.

The RHS added that over the next few weeks, months and years new roles will become available across the society, including gardeners and in estates, finance and project management.

Two new RHS regional centres will be created this year. The first will be in a city in Scotland, closely followed by a second at RHS Harlow Carr in Yorkshire.

Among personnel changes, Bob Sweet will become RHS head of judging in August. His head of shows development role responsibilities will be split between show manager Lucinda Costello and a new senior shows development manager.

New roles include Wisley head of site, head of buying and licensing, head of regional development, Yorkshire regional development manager and Scotland development manager and two Scotland horticultural development officers.

The role of major donor executive will be created, along with membership development manager. Head of online is another new role, while the head of media and Horticultural Halls post is now redundant. Two new posts are created in the trials team for plant committee administrators.

The community and development division is renamed education, funding and communities, reflecting a wider remit. The qualifications department will now move to that division.

The move is designed to allow director of horticulture Jim Gardiner to focus on horticultural standards across the society, including at the hall, urban garden and regional projects, development of trials and horticultural trade relationships.

 
RHS director-general Sue Biggs said: "This investment will help us to inspire and inform many more gardeners, transform communities, add much needed scientific knowledge and safeguard horticulture for the benefit of both future generations and the environment."


RHS Heritage Targets for investment

- RHS Lindley Library & Hall, London

- Horticultural Science

- RHS Urban Garden

- RHS Regional

- Online rhs.org.uk

- RHS Garden Wisley, Surrey

- RHS Garden Hyde Hall, Essex




and this:
 

David Attenborough TV show presents plants in 3D
Friday, 16 March 2012  from 'Horticulture Week'.

Sir David Attenborough has teamed up with Kew and TV producers to shoot 3D images of plant life.

Kingdom of Plants 3D, a three-part mini-series airing in May, was filmed over a year at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Sky 3D and Atlantic Productions used hi-tech filming techniques to capture the way plants adapt to survive in different conditions.

Attenborough said twinning 3D technology with time-lapse photography to speed up visual sequences enabled the team to present unique footage, such as of plants bursting into flower.

"Stamens extend and burst to reveal their pollen grains in exquisite detail, and we can see in close-up the incredible insects that partner with these plants," he said. "The whole experience in 3D is just entrancing and hypnotically beautiful."

Sky 3D director John Cassy said the show combined "groundbreaking technology, high-quality production, fascinating subject matter and captivating narrative".

[Gerry Webster]

.....Attenborough said twinning 3D technology with time-lapse photography to speed up visual sequences enabled the team to present unique footage, such as of plants bursting into flower.

While the 3D technology is novel, strictly speaking the  footage is not. Such time-lapse films (b&w of course) were made by F. Percy Smith from the mid-1920s onwards & some of them are available on a BFI dvd.

[Michael J Campbell]

David Attenborough TV show presents plants in 3D
Friday, 16 March 2012  from 'Horticulture Week'.

Maggi, what channel is that on?

[Maggi Young]

David Attenborough TV show presents plants in 3D
Friday, 16 March 2012  from 'Horticulture Week'.

Maggi, what channel is that on?

It doesn't say, Michael... I'm thinking a Sky channel because of the production company, but who knows if it may be sold elsewhwere?


 Yes, Sky 3D... see this from the Kew website: http://www.kew.org/news/kingdom-of-plants.htm

[Michael J Campbell]

Thanks Maggi, I will be watching out for it.

[TheOnionMan]

Regarding plants in 3D, there are some amazing new technologies out there.  A free product from Autodesk (one of the world's largest CAD software technology companies) is something called Project Photofly, now rebranded and available for free as 123D Catch:
http://www.123dapp.com/catch

The concept is simple, but how it gets done behind the scenes is the remarkable part.  Take an object, or scene, and take a series of photos of the object at approximately the same elevation or eye level all around the object.  Then submit the photos to an Autodesk "cloud processing" portal, and from those 2D photos, it compares all of the photos and extrapolates the 3D shape of the object, turning it into a rendered 3D mesh/3D model.  A work associate of mine did this on an ornate limestone frieze on an old masonry building, using about 20 photos taken with his phone camera, and the results were amazing.

Here are some YouTubes that visually demonstrates just how amazing this technology is.

Photofly model of a person's head; this one a good example showing you what looks like a real 3D object, in this case a person's head, is in reality a very fine 3D mesh with the photgraphic imagery mapped to the bits of mesh triangulation.  A bit freaky when one sees an example with a human:


In this one, a tree with rugged bark, captured into a 3d mesh / 3d model.


A very short one with plants:


There's lots more of these, just YouTube search Photofly or Project Phtotofly, or the new name of 123D Catch.
A candy bowl for Maggi, sorry thje candy is not chocolate:


If it can do this, just imagine taking a few photos of a favorite troough in bloom, then turning it into an interactive 3D model.  By the way, when the the service calculates the 3D mesh and delivers it back to you, you can interactively maneuver and orbit and zoom into the details of the photorealistic model. Who will be the first to try this on a trough?

[Lesley Cox]

I haven't a clue what you're talking about Mark, except that it all sounds as if it would make wonderful group lecture material, from someone who knew the technology.

[TheOnionMan]

 

[Tim Ingram]

Bigger and better seems to be the order of the day, rather than smaller and more real. Just a few pennies falling off the RHS could create a whole new outlook on alpines, or am I a curmudgeon! I would also like to see something of the beautiful mountain landscapes that have 'made' the plants we all love, and the wild weather, and the bleak moors... this is Bronte or Burns territory. Following explorers searching for plants is a lot more exciting than simply presenting everything on a plate - seeing someone make something over time much more educational  than the 'perfect' end result. Good film-makers make stories, and stories that relate to us from our own experience.

[fredg]

Wooooooooo!

Got to try that one Mark