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Craig Kolb

@craigkolb.net
153 followers 117 following 148 posts

Rendering research @ NVIDIA by day, computational astrophotography by night. ex-Pixar, Intel, startups, Stanford, Princeton. "Literally the worst Dad EVER!!!11!” github.com/cek

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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Academy Software Foundation (ASWF) @aswf.io · 16/09/2026
NVIDIA has contributed two new high-fidelity assets—the MaterialX Teapot and Lion—to DPEL. These are the first DPEL assets to feature production-grade, multi-layered MaterialX materials. Learn more and get the assets: www.aswf.io/blog/materia...
aswf.io
DPEL Adds New MaterialX Assets from NVIDIA – ASWF
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 15/08/2026
Colossal Cave Adventure -> Zork -> Rogue
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 10/08/2026
I've heard positive things about ente.com but haven't test-driven it myself.
ente.com
Ente Photos: Store and share your photos with absolute privacy
Ente Photos is the private, secure photo storage app with end-to-end encryption. Cross-platform, open source, and self-hostable. Start with 10GB free.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 09/08/2026
immich.app + github.com/alangrainger...
github.com
GitHub - alangrainger/immich-public-proxy: Share your Immich photos and albums in a safe way without exposing your Immich instance to the public.
Share your Immich photos and albums in a safe way without exposing your Immich instance to the public. - alangrainger/immich-public-proxy
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 28/05/2026
Indeed -- emphasis on old! ;) It's entertaining to read code from that era, when optimization tradeoffs were often inverted from those of today.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 28/05/2026
Perhaps also of historical interest, if you haven't seen it: algorithmicbotany.org/papers/varia... and an implementation: github.com/cek/colorquant
algorithmicbotany.org
Variance-Based Color Image Quantization for Frame Buffer Display
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Ben Houston @ben3d.ca · 24/04/2026
MaterialX Needs a Single-File Container. Let's formalize what @polyhaven.com and @gpuopen.bsky.social material libraries are already doing with a new "mtlz" extension. Details here: ben3d.ca/blog/materia... CC: @materialx.bsky.social
ben3d.ca
MaterialX Needs a Single-File Container
MaterialX assets are multiple loose files, which breaks down in real pipelines. The community has already solved this with zip packaging. We just need to formalize it as .mtlz.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 11/04/2026
Chapeau @mmalex.bsky.social
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 11/04/2026
New Toy (oh-eee-oh)
Pinky+ synthesizer and a pair of attached headphones
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 04/04/2026
Where's my fangamer merch
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 27/03/2026
Symmetry demands a contraption for joining tubes by their cut-off ends as well.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Brian Karis @briankaris.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
2 more Nanite Tessellation posts are up. graphicrants.blogspot.com/2026/02/nani..., graphicrants.blogspot.com/2026/03/vari...
graphicrants.blogspot.com
Nanite + Reyes
Let's get into the details of how this integrates with Nanite. We aren’t replacing anything Nanite already does. Nothing is changed about th...
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Nathan Reed @reedbeta.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
My team just open-sourced our internal implementation of the OpenPBR BSDF from our path tracer: github.com/adobe/openpb...
github.com
GitHub - adobe/openpbr-bsdf: Adobe's reference implementation of the OpenPBR BSDF
Adobe's reference implementation of the OpenPBR BSDF - adobe/openpbr-bsdf
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 09/03/2026
You'd think they'd have the decency to wait for the body of "Web 3.0" to cool.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 09/03/2026
SRL's Tesla coil, reborn and, um, upgraded: youtu.be/RoGbrgOhPes?...
youtu.be
Firing the Tesla Tower as a Plasma Cannon
YouTube video by LightningOnDemand
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 30/01/2026
sturgeons-law.gif
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 20/01/2026
Nice, thanks!
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Tom Duff @tomduff.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
I sent out my #ptpx2025 cards yesterday. Here's what's on them: iq0.com/ptpx2025.html
iq0.com
PTPX2025 information
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 09/01/2026
Normal people don't act that way!
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 25/12/2025
Hey look it's fir-dimensional.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 18/12/2025
A lovely tribute to a recently-departed singular talent. jericsmith.com/2025/12/17/g...
jericsmith.com
Go Gentle: Max Eider, R.I.P.
Marcia and I just got back from a hike, and I was most dismayed to see this Facebook post upon sitting down and logging into my computer: Born Peter Millson, Max Eider first crossed my radar screen…
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 18/12/2025
goddamnit
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 12/12/2025
Nice! My better half's new YA book about Anna Atkins is on a number of Best of 2025 lists, including: www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture...
smithsonianmag.com
The Ten Best Photography Books of 2025
Our favorite titles this year invite readers to take in the beauty of nature and our cultural rituals
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Shannon Woods 🦡🖥️👾 @shannonin3d.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
I got to do an explainer of neural shading-- with my NVIDIA hat on this time, and still full of Slang goodness! It's posted over at the NVIDIA developer blog: developer.nvidia.com/blog/how-to-...
developer.nvidia.com
How to Get Started with Neural Shading for Your Game or Application | NVIDIA Technical Blog
For the past 25 years, real-time rendering has been driven by continuous hardware improvements. The goal has always been to create the highest fidelity image possible within 16 milliseconds.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Really think this Shtetl Optimized piece by Harvey Lederman is worth reading: scottaaronson.blog?p=9030 Not sure it's an optimistic future, but it is a future that is still joyful
scottaaronson.blog
ChatGPT and the Meaning of Life: Guest Post by Harvey Lederman
Scott Aaronson’s Brief Foreword: Harvey Lederman is a distinguished analytic philosopher who moved from Princeton to UT Austin a few years ago. Since his arrival, he’s become one of my …
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 08/11/2025
Ooh time to queue up Manic Pop Thrill
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Adam Marrs @acmarrs.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Today we released a new demo showcasing RTX Mega Geometry, ReSTIR PT, and DLSS all running together in our NvRTX branch of UE 5.6. www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qyo...
youtube.com
Bonsai Diorama Demo | NVIDIA RTX Unreal Engine 5.6.1
YouTube video by NVIDIA Game Developer
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 16/10/2025
And so it begins
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 27/09/2025
<twitches in Greyhair> pivot-to-ai.com/2025/08/29/v...
pivot-to-ai.com
Vibe-coded build system NX gets hacked, steals vibe-coders’ crypto
NX is build software. You write your code on your laptop, you press “build”, it runs NX, and you get a built version you can put onto your web server. If you could hack NX, you could hit a lot of p…
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 26/09/2025
Subtly downgrade a band They Are Unlikely To Be Giants
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 30/08/2025
If only Darwin had taken care of those prone to believing that cooked food was just a scam perpetuated by Big Fire.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 30/08/2025
We as a species are distressingly prone to correlating the accuracy of a statement with the apparent confidence of the speaker.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 08/08/2025
"How many strawberries are there in The Garden of Earthly Delights?"
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 27/07/2025
Many a time has somebody in my family tuned some crap into a crepe.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 27/07/2025
Our family is also forever indebted to him for providing the foundation of and endless set of goofy dinnertime riffs: youtu.be/91BQqdNOUxs?...
youtu.be
Tom Lehrer - "Silent E"
YouTube video by Edgar Aldrett
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 27/07/2025
My Dad played "An Evening Wasted With" for me when I was a very wee kiddo, and I remember being pleasantly shocked that grownups were allowed to be hilariously and cleverly snarky and sarcastic. A truly formative moment. He had a great run, but still: Damnit. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...
nytimes.com
Tom Lehrer, Musical Satirist With a Dark Streak, Dies at 97
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 10/07/2025
Today in "why didn't anybody tell me about this a decade ago": github.com/chrisant996/...
github.com
GitHub - chrisant996/clink: Bash's powerful command line editing in cmd.exe
Bash's powerful command line editing in cmd.exe. Contribute to chrisant996/clink development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Alasdair Beckett-King @misterabk.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
When I found a pub with an inverted normal map. (If you understand what this means, you have to repost.)
A whitewashed pub wall, with mortar standing proud of the stones.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
Slang Shading Language and Compiler @shader-slang.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Join us next week for the next installment of Getting Started with Slang! This webinar will be on the Reflections API. When: July 8th at 8:00am PDT Learn more and register: shader-slang.org/event/2025/0... #Slang #Reflections #API
shader-slang.org
Getting Started with Slang: Reflections API
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 28/06/2025
Don't forget eye protection.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 28/06/2025
Slang is the way. ;)
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 26/06/2025
Come on, how do you expect a newborn to learn to pull itself up by its bootstraps if you just outright give it diapers and warm blankets?
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 25/06/2025
I'm always late to the party.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 24/06/2025
You need an airtight jumpsuit with a vacuum cleaner port, like some kind of human comforter about to get shoved in the back of closet for the summer.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
ianVisits @ianvisits.co.uk · 12/06/2025
If you’re quick, there’s a rare chance to see the only known photographs of the early computing pioneer, Ada Lovelace, as they will go on display in London for a few days. www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/see...
ianvisits.co.uk
See the only known photos of computing pioneer Ada Lovelace at Bonhams London
If you’re quick, there’s a rare chance to see the only known photographs of the early computing pioneer, Ada Lovelace, as they will go on display in London for a few days.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 07/06/2025
(And of course my mechanism is just pan-tilt rather than 3-axis.)
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 07/06/2025
They're just some servos that I picked up, along with other hardware, from www.servocity.com/gobilda. The servos are mounted in ServoBlocks to allow them to better carry radial loads. Essentially this mechanism but with a dedicated base from the same site: youtu.be/ltVvBuWrvY4?...
servocity.com
goBILDA®
Welcome to ServoCity where you can get the parts you need to bring your ideas to life! From servos to switches, from actuators to Actobotics, we work hard to bring you the best components backed by un...
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 07/06/2025
Yep! There's a good bit of flex in the system (hello plastic joints meet long moment arm) so it's a bit wobbly, but still quite LOL-inducing.
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Craig Kolb @craigkolb.net · 07/06/2025
This is lovely, but surely you don't expect me to expend manual labor to operate this magnificent beast when there are high-precision encoder motors and microcontrollers to be had.
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Reposted by Craig Kolb
saschawillems.bsky.social @saschawillems.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Finally finished adding @shader-slang.bsky.social shaders to all my (almost 100) @vulkan.org open source samples and wrote a bit about it here: www.saschawillems.de/blog/2025/06... tl;dr: I very much enjoyed this :)
saschawillems.de
Shaders for Vulkan samples now also available in slang
A new shading language enters the ring Unlike other 3D graphics apis, Vulkan did decouple human readable shaders from the api using SPIR-V as an intermediate representation. This makes it possible to ...
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