—Well here I am all inflated with myself. Actually it isn’t all that great SIGGRAPH good it is the air duct.

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On the drive to the convention center I pass this upside-down building. It turns out to be some science center but I didn’t have a chance to go. Sounded fun though.

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Back at the convention I visited the Sony booth. They have products that everyone was using. This wide screen high-res LCD screen was at most companies booths for display. I also admired their video wall even though I know how expensive these are.

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Right across from the video wall, Sun had an interesting variation of it. This is one large screen that has 8 projectors behind it. What is nice about it is that there is no physical seem only the calibration of the projectors.

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Back at the Sony booth they had a impressive camera. This 5 lens system camera allows you to integrate computer graphics in front of and behind the objects being filmed.

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I stopped by Hash again cause the guys were so nice to me and I got to see Doug’s book which they had gone through and marked every mention of themselves to show people when they wanted information. Good spirits all around concerning that one.

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At the Hash booth I also bumped into the very sparkly Suzan Ponte from the CG-Char list. Picture removed at Suzan’s request.

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I very much like real life molds and the Roland booth for me was a lot of fun. Here you can see an example of what their machines can cut into carving wax. Here is the carving machine in action. And here is the sister machine that can scan in objects into a modeling program. Lots of fun potential here as a craft person.

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At the Hash booth Martin insisted I go back and try the 3D surgery interface that I had seen earlier. Here Doug demonstrates the use of a 3D surgery on a portion of a knee. It is very weird you can see it and feel the squish and cut in and even give a shot. Gives me the willies and very impressive as I said before.

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A few days earlier I had met Joe Fitzgerald from the National Library of Medicine and we had discussed the Virtual Human dataset that they have made available on-line. As it turns out one of the projects in the exhibition used the dataset. You scan a bar code over the area of the body you wish to see and the monitor displays that cross section. You even get to watch it travel from the previous position. That is a real person laying in the exhibit very good actor stayed very still and I didn’t realize. At first I thought he was wax.

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SGI really stole the show for me with their SGI Experience. Along with the people that make the dome rooms made this standing 80 person immersive room. It had a very wide curved screen being urn by a high end SGI machine with high res graphics and part of the time the Crystal-Eyes stereo glasses. Even without the glasses the clarity of images made you want to reach out and touch. If you were at this year’s SIGGRAPH and you missed this you really missed out.

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Here is Shawn from SGI who was so nice to get me into the Open-GL Party. Thanks Shawn.

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Now here is my dilemma. I went to throw away my wood stick from my ice cream bar. You decide.

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On the way to see Small Soldiers (excellent by the way) we stopped at FAO Schwarz. I love these giant stuffed dogs. More about those dogs later.

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Here is Doug looking kewl.

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And our waitress Heather at Johnny Rockets, love them burgers.

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Later we grabbed a bite to eat with Sara an Alias modeler at the convention and here she is with both myself and Doug.

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Went to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum cause they always have wonderful things for my job. I found this No Restrooms Inside sign amusing.

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I love illusions. It is one of the things that I most enjoy working on. At the Ripley’s Museum they always have a room of illusions. These were the highlights: The Bunny-Duck, The Children-Skulls, The Dotted Lines, The Circular Oddity, Doug Short, & Doug Tall.

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Truly amazing to see, this portrait of Lincoln is made entirely of pennies. Each penny has been unaltered it it just that shade from wear.

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These little Lizards are all over Florida after seeing the Lost World you can understand why they give me the willies.

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Back at FAO Shwarz I was king of all the little animals. And I just love this Giant Dog I mean I really want one. There was this little girl there who was more interested in staring at me than at the stuffed animals I guess I’m that fuzzy. Look at those eyes.