SIGGRAPH 2006 – Day 3

SIGGRAPH 2006 – Day 3

So here we are Day 3 or Sunday as I like to call it. Technical difficulties – sorry for the delay and any spelling mistakes!

We had to be at the Chapters booth at 8am so I could get my Media Pass (and Jenny her Conference Access Pass). We boarded the bus wearing our green and white wristbands that they say if you lose cost $75 and are required for the bus. What I like best is that they are not transferable even though all you would have to do to transfer them is to take it off your wrist and put it on someone else’s.

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After a long drive (cause the bus driver seemed to like circling the convention center) we arrived and I made it to the Media Headquarters. I can now officially take photos (all the others I guess were unofficial.

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I then bumped into Ed Huff (he and his other friend Ed like to tell the 2 Ed’s are better than one joke).

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He was there with one of his colleagues whose name I forgot.

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Speaking of forgotten names. This very helpful fellow (he helped me with my badge) had a unique name that I cannot remember – I can remember it was a 5th century Visigoth king (but don’t feel like doing homework to figure out which one).

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Then I bumped into Kim from Purdue-Calumet.

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Ok here is one: A therapeutic robot Paro: a Seal-like robot. For use in a hospital or with the elderly!

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And the first of the non-official SIGGRAPH swag (like the pins, posters, and lil stuffed lobsters) a Yo Yo (actually a very nice yo yo with sound effects and a centrifugal clutch) given out by fxm/07 conference on animation effects and real-time stuff.

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We had some time to kill before the real stuff opened so we went over to view the Teapot exhibition. It is in honor of the 30th anniversary of the Utah Teapot as well as the whole Boston tea party thing.

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Some rapid prototype teapots:

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I forgot what you call this when you can see the undistorted image in the cylindrical mirror (catoptric anamorphic image – I looked it up). I liked this one. And remember I don’t show everything I just show what I like!

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This one was very fun – the haptic arm lets you feel the teapot that is not there. It single to you ‘I’m a little teapot’ and when I got to the right spot it sang ‘this is my handle’ or ‘this is my spout’.

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This teapot was made from differently directed scratches via a photoengraving system.

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Of course the origami teapot was amazing.

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I liked the cityscape made up of very tiny teapots – it wasn’t just a good idea it was also well done.

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Also the zoetrope of a teapot animation seemed to be a big hit – the scale threw a lot of people off and some I think had never really seen one.

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This teapot made of negative space inside of the acrylic sheets – very nice – and very sharply done.

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We then headed over to the bookstore where I took notes but made no purchases! I usually make no purchases and take no notes so this year I am already improving.

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The Guerilla Studio wasn’t open yet and the Painterly Rendering guys were still setting up – it looks nice and regardless of the results (which I will try and see tomorrow) they had a real slick setup.

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We then bumped into Ondrej Marsicek from the Prague Chapter (whose name I wouldn’t have spelled correctly without his card!)

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They were still setting up the art gallery- no photography? Yeah right!

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So I went and wrote some messages and finished getting setup for my own presentations in the speaker prep room:

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This year they did a quick ribbon cutting to introduce the art gallery and I liked the touch of class it added.

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The art gallery was bigger than ever this year and some works were interesting others were ‘eh’. I enjoyed these hanging blue things and the way the environment changed as I was in the room:

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LEDs seem to be very popular these days for art creation:

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And I like anything with mirrors especially when used to distort and fuse together other sources.

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Another trend I have been seeing (or hearing) is aural art – many more interactives really take advantage of sound and how it plays with a work.

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This is referred to as a mobile wiki-ad! They were pretty weird.

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I liked this very large curved lenticular print.

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This work by Jeff Lieberman is amazing. He plays with strobes and visual perception in smart and interesting ways.

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They have these circular LCD Picture Things all over. Nice idea and it unifies the space but they can be hard to see.

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The Morpho Tower Spiral Swirl – wow. Its liquid and metal and very nifty and fluid.

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Emoting Video Array. The faces reacted to each other

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I love panoramas and this was ‘interesting’ I’ve seen better – I’ve seen worse but its nice to see the medium represented.

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Benedict Sheehan is a neat guys with neat ideas. His magic mirror display has you look THROUGH the glass to a display and you also see yourself. It was a nice work but also very well presented. I’m going to go back and talk to him some more.

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Group Table Game Thing – Not my kind of thing but Jenny wanted to play it. With E-Tech sometimes you need to walk through a second time and really find out what they are doing. Some things just grab you right away some things need presented or explained better.

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Virtual Crying Baby? You picked it up and rocked it and then it seemed to cry more!

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I met Joseph when he was at Johns Hopkins and he is kick putt performance artist who is also performing at SIGGRAPH.

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I like that the art gallery is including animations in a venue that relates to the art gallery instead of just the animation theater or each animation having its own station.

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Gregory Garvey from Quinnipiac University had a nice interactive work via this Port Hole. I like that it changes when you open it and he seemed like a nice guy.

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Moving 3D inflatable display. I need to take a better picture tomorrow of this. Very interesting. The screen inflates into shapes to create a moving surface. A different type of 3D TV – I am guessing based on depth maps (and none of it was photographic) a nice idea and prototype.

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Collage all made from various images of pills used to treat mental illness. Nice image and nice idea.

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So I was playing with ‘Reactable’ this Multi User Audio Table Thing when my phone started to vibrate in my pocket which scared the crap out of me because I thought it was coming from the table. The table is neat and I will need to visit it again to learn everything that it really does.

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The phone call was Aaron (who I work with) who had just arrived! He is going to try and pod cast from the show.

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Jenny played with this Pollack Painting Thing. She pointed out that there really are too many painting things that don’t appear all that innovative at first. They might be and I will investigate but with e-tech you really need to put your best foot forward and I’m not as a whole thrilled with e-tech this year.

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I liked this motorized balloon grid thing. It changed into various shapes throughout the day.

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Cell Phone Ping Pong – I want to try this!

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LED Waterfall – very subtle very nice as the water hit the LEDs they got brighter. It was very organic and I want to see it again.

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I’m not so sure about this – you touched it and it was cold and it made crystals. Interesting but I need to see it again. you start to realize after a while that you are hitting the threshold of how much can hold your interest and its time to visit again later.

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This muscle controlled device looks a lot like an invention of mine though it does something else entirely and everyone kept pointing me to it.

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This Slice viewer was interesting because the data was interesting and it allowed you to look inside things very easily. It was nicely done.

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When they used it for ‘fun’ it was even better – you could move the people around the board and they would interact.

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This is what I call a bad demo. People watched the Powered Shoes and no one wanted to try and when someone did it looked hard to do and very unstable to wear. It might be a good device but from the outside it looked scary.

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Water Touch Screen – I wanted to make the fish run away and all I did was get my finger wet. I don’t think I did it right and that’s not a good first impression.

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The Fabcell Fabric Textile Display looks interesting but I don’t quite know what it does yet.

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This interactive water fountain was pretty and ‘might’ be high tech but most people were like ‘so a fountain?’ again not the best foot forward – though it was pretty.

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The Interactive Musical Harp was well done – nice audio – fun to touch – people played songs.

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MIT Robotic Teddy Bear. I love these guys from MIT. I want to go back and see more. They make it look easy.

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The biggest tragedy of the show is probably the way people are looking at the Morphovision display. This display takes a model and spins it really fast and then uses strobes to allow you to see various distortions in real time. It is a brilliant idea and well done! BUT!!! It is too close to the sign for the Laser Plasma 3D display. So people were walking up and thinking they were seeing projected full color laser plasma and the most wonderful 3D projected display system in the world! When the model stopped spinning and they realized they had misunderstood there was this disappointment (and feeling of fraud though not the Morphovision people’s fault) and its hard to see the Morphovision brilliance after that.

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So the Laser Plasma 3D Display isn’t always running which adds to the previous confusion. When it does it cracks and hums and looks dangerous (with the demonstrators wearing goggles) but it is 3D in mid air and it animated and it was cool. But I was still scared. Is this the future of displays?

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Movable circuitry – I liked the idea of just moving things around it looked nice. Pick it up and just punch it back down again.

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Deskrama – Architectural Cut Through Display. Probably one of the best things I have seen here. There is an architectural blueprint on the table and the screen (which is perpendicular) when moved across shows the orthographic cut through at that location. You can just move the screen back and forth (and at angles) to see all parts of it. The potentials for this are amazing! Very simple and elegant. And it also demonstrates that no matter how tired or burnt out you are that good ideas LOOK like good ideas. I was ready to just go and there it was and I could see exactly what it was.

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We saw Jana from Purdue and then asked where her husband was and then like magic Kim arrived.

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The Mayor of Boston (who is not responsible for BIG DIG).

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We bumped into Margaret Dolinsky from Bloomington Indiana. She does great VR work.

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For no reason while people were waiting for the dancers to end and the good to open people just started to line up behind Jenny.

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The theme of the food was RGB (and sugar!)

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Charles (Chuck) Csuri who they are having a retrospective art show for this year. I heard him speak and met him when the NMC conference was at Ohio State.

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Sound ballet dancers – they performed after before the food was served and then mingled with us.

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Bonnie Mitchell from Bowling Green – she is in charge of the Art Gallery. We had met when I visited BGSU.

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Jenny recognized Bob as the guy at the ‘next years SIGGRAPH booth’ from last year and he told us how he got the job and how he hopes to have it again next year as well.

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On the way out of the convention center we saw the Harvard Asian American Dancers. Really nice!

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The 19th Anniversary CG Performances and opening Barrel. It has really grown since the first one that I attended into a huge event.

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Jenny with her fan and box.

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An amazing performance by Alissa Cardone with CG Artist Yoichiro Kawaguchi – she danced in perfect sequence to the graphics behind her it was amazing. And her shadow played a part as well and the distance from the screen made the shadow grow and shrink so there were so many elements dancing. It was wonderful.

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The Therapy Seal Again – no sake for the seal!

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Honored guests crack the Sake barrel!

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So it turns out after all that Jenny doesn’t like Sake. (But at least she tried it)

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Sebastian and his fiance we hung out a few years back. Also he had some work in the Teapot exhibition.

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Ken Lager has this parrot – its real and not a robot.

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Ken’s business card is a dollar with his contact info written on it.

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Alissa Cardone wanted to see the parrot so he put it on her shoulder.

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Eventually it ran back to Ken – though it got pretty tense there for a second. I didn’t like the look of the unhappy parrot.

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Sebastian and his ceramic rapid prototype teapot. I only took it with him and not his fiance cause he said he was the artist and then after I took the photo she said that she was responsible for the ceramics and such and I felt bad but then I looked again at the program and it said he was the artist so I don’t feel bad cause I just wanted ‘the artist and his teapot’ (and if he wanted he could have corrected me before I took the photo!)

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Dinner Finally!
We stopped at the California Pizza Kitchen and I had a great Waldorf Salad

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Sorry for all the delays horrible times uploading the files but have a new procedure to follow so hopefully tomorrow will be better.

See ya!

Jared