SIGGRAPH 2024
Author: Julian Gómez Issue: 2024-08-21
SIGGRAPH 2024
by Julian Gómez
The SIGGRAPH 2024 conference was held in Denver, Colorado at the end of July. The Colorado Convention Center is huge, absolutely tremendous, which was good, because this year's conference had an unusual amount of content.
The academic part of SIGGRAPH is generally focused on technical publications, art publications, and ongoing research. The first two areas are presentations of reviewed papers. The immersive pavilion is research projects considered interesting by the review committee. It is entirely comprised of installations where the viewers are expected to physically engage in the research project.
I’m going to describe one in detail because it involved so many sensory inputs: “WaterForm: Altering the Liquid to Generate Multisensory Feedback for Enhancing Immersive Environment” from The National Taipei University of Technology.
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Sit down on a stool and remove shoes. Insert feet into thin plastic Wellingtons. Place feet inside a wading pool. Don VR headset (note: any worthwhile VR headset includes stereo audio, with the audio sources typically spatially positioned). Staff place tools (not VR controllers) into each hand - right hand is a brush, left hand is a water ladle. Each is about 2 ½ feet long and equipped with gyros and vibrating motors that are under wireless host control.
The virtual experience is that you’re sitting in a boat gliding across a lake in the mountains, past a temple complex. You are supposed to use the tools to interact with the water, with the electronics providing haptic feedback to simulate the weight and resistance of water.
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Senses activated: Visual and audio from the VR headset. Haptics from the tools. There was a fan to create an actual breeze. Haptic from having lower legs inserted into the real water in the wading pool, which had a pump to move the water. Actual water mist, during the time that virtual water mist was displayed.
Another major segment of the conference is the vendor expo. For many years a big component has been DCC (Digital Content Creation) tools. However, this year I noticed half a dozen booths featuring GAI products, showing that it already has a position in the commercial market, certainly to the point where the vendors could afford a booth at the SIGGRAPH expo. Even the Getty is getting in on the action.
The other major part of SIGGRAPH is art. Art papers are reviewed, but the art gallery is curated. Similar to the pavilion, most of the art pieces were interactive. I’d like to mention “Spambots” as a terrific example of merging art and technology to comment on the human experience.
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This piece was a bunch of Spam cans emptied out and filled with electronics and actuators. Each can had a small keyboard in front, and its two actuators tapped keys on the keyboard. See the ACM Digital Library Spambots entry for more information, and the photo for the curators’ abstract. The art gallery catalog is free to download (for the moment).
At this year's conference I was the program chair for Retrospective, which covers the history of computer graphics. My program this year had a focus on the history of computers and art, with curated presentations. A presentation by Llach and Vardouli was based on a book(1) they recently published on the social aspects of how computer graphics got developed, e.g., what social pressures were in place to fund different R&D programs in the history of computer graphics, and likewise what social pressures were present in applying computer graphics.
Their presentation was part of an entirely new area this year, what I would call the social aspects of computer graphics. There was a session on computer graphics for peace, including a presentation from the head of the International Red Cross. This topic has only very sketchily shown up in SIGGRAPH's history.
SIGGRAPH is phasing out the history part of the conference. It will be interesting to see if the social commentary program is continued.
(1) Llach, D. C., & Vardouli, T. (2023). Designing the Computational Image, Imagining Computational Design. ORO Applied Research + Design.
Related:
- Julian Gómez (author)
- 2024 (year)
- Topics: Events and Gatherings