About GFXSpeak.com and the Bi-Weekly Tech Watch Report

GraphicSpeak: A Site for Graphics Professionals and Related Disciplines

By Kathleen Maher
Editor-in-Chief and Publisher

GraphicSpeak is a news and commentary site covering computer graphics. We’re primarily interested in discovering the places where art, design, and entertainment intersect. Why? Because that’s where the fun is. GfxSpeak is a sister site to the official Jon Peddie Research site. Jon Peddie Research tracks graphics and multimedia hardware and software.

This site gives the writers and researchers of Jon Peddie Research a chance to explore new ideas, and keep up a conversation with people who are interested in the same things we are. We came up with the name GraphicSpeak, as variant of Graphically Speaking, a frequent section for hardware and software articles in our TechWatch publication. Jon Peddie Research publishes Tech Watch twice per month. Tech Watch is a service for JPR clients and is designed to keep them up to date on the technology and business that’s happening in the broad field of computer graphics. You can find out more about the services offered by Jon Peddie research here.

As many readers of this site already know, GraphicSpeak represents the evolution of reporting in the CAD field over the last twenty-five years or so (but who’s counting?). When desktop CAD was young all those many years ago, the CAD magazines we worked for often covered new advances in filmmaking, rendering, analysis, photo imaging, graphics hardware, game development, scientific visualization, desktop publishing … you name it. That’s because the CAD field was part of the larger graphics revolution and the people who were moving from drawing boards to computers, from paper to digitizers, and from office chaos to networked communication and collaboration (and often, chaos) were vitally interested in all aspects of computer graphics. They recognized that advances in one field would have an influence in all areas of computer graphics. But, perhaps just as important, a lot of these early adopters and pioneers were in the business because they loved graphics in all its forms.  They took up engineering and architecture and drafting because they thought and communicated visually.

We don’t think anything has changed all that much. We believe that the professionals who work with computer graphics in CAD, imaging, scientific visualization, 3D modeling and animation, and all the amazing fields in between are primarily visual thinkers; they are interested in advances in all areas of the industry. GraphicSpeak will look for and report on information that’s useful and, we hope, entertaining for CAD professionals and everyone who has an interest in computer graphics.

Chase the Pixel, Track the Vector, Seek the New

The mission statement at Jon Peddie Research is simply “We chase the pixel.” At GraphicSpeak the chase continues. Our interests are wide ranging and include:

  • Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) and Building Information Modeling (BIM)
  • Electronic Design Automation (EDA)
  • Digital Content Creation (DCC)
  • Game design and development
  • Manufacturing design and engineering, including Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
  • Process and power plant design and operations
  • Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
  • 3D Printing in all its forms, including Additive Manufacturing
  • Fashion and apparel design
  • Consumer packaged goods design and engineering
  • Web 3D
  • Augmented reality
  • Mobile graphics technology
  • Virtual worlds
  • The hardware it takes to run all these applications

So, you can’t say you weren’t warned. Let us know what you think and please don’t hesitate to alert us to new trends and stories you’d like to see.