(Los Angeles) - SIGGRAPH 2005, the 32nd conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques, attracted 29,122 artists, research scientists, developers, and academics from 81 countries to Los Angeles this week. More than 250 companies exhibited, including 65 for the first time, covering more than 70,000 net square feet of space.

"SIGGRAPH 2005 has exceeded all our expectations both in terms of attendance and the pervasive spirit of collaboration that was rampant in every venue of the conference," commented James L. Mohler, SIGGRAPH 2005 Conference Chair from Purdue University. "The level of attendance and exhibitor representation is a clear indicator of the strength of SIGGRAPH and the importance of computer graphics and IT in today's society."

George Lucas Reveals Motivation and Future Plans

Breaking new ground this year, the SIGGRAPH 2005 keynote event featured George Lucas in an interview format. In the revealing dialogue, Lucas, who is lauded as the father of digital cinema and internationally known for visionary cinematic feats such as "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones," explained, "I am a storyteller at heart."

Looking to the future, Lucas expressed his belief that advancements in artificial intelligence will vastly change technology and particularly the game industry. "I want to get to the point where you can talk to a game and the game will talk back." Lucas discussed his plans for Lucasfilm to head more into the television arena, and commented that unlike industry visionary Walt Disney, he does not plan to expand his Industrial Light & Magic effects shop into a film studio.

"This is the first group I could come to that didn't ask me what digital arts are." commented Lucas on his 1984 visit to SIGGRAPH. Explaining to the audience that he is not a computer person, Lucas stressed that his quest for innovation was a quest for immaculate reality, "How do we make this real? How do we get immaculate reality?" Looking to the thousands of SIGGRAPH faces before him, Lucas smiled and stated, "I don't care how you do it, I am just glad you are doing it."

Following the keynote, Lucas spent several hours touring the SIGGRAPH 2005 Emerging Technologies and Art Gallery venues.

SIGGRAPH 2005 Computer Animation Festival Awards

The Computer Animation Festival jury gave "9" by Shane Acker (United States) "Best of Show" honors. Jury Honors were also given to "Fallen Art" by Tomek Baginski of Platige Image (Poland) and "La Migration Bigoudenn" by Eric Castaing, Alexandre Heboyan, and Fafah Togora of Gobelins, l'ecole de l'image (France).

ACM SIGGRAPH Announces Award Winners

ACM SIGGRAPH presented three awards at the conference to recognize individuals who made a significant contribution to the computer graphics community.

Tomoyuki Nishita of the University of Tokoyo received the prestigious Steven Anson Coons Award for Outstanding Creative Contributions to Computer Graphics for his inspirational work on rendering of natural phenomena. Jos Stam, a senior research scientist at Alias, received the Computer Graphics Achievement Award for his pioneering work on subdivision surfaces and on fast algorithms for the simulation of natural phenomena, especially fire, fluids, and gases. Ronald Fedkiw of Stanford University received the Significant New Researcher Award for his contributions to the field of computational fluid dynamics.

Emerging Technologies Award Partnership with Laval Virtual France

Further emphasizing the collaboration that is the essence of SIGGRAPH, through an award partnership between Laval Virtual France and SIGGRAPH, the 2005 Emerging Technologies installation, "Touch Light: An Imaging Screen and Display for Gesture-Based Interaction," was selected by Laval Virtual France for presentation at their conference 26-30 April. The technology, developed by Andy Wilson of Microsoft Research is a unique transparent display using computer vision technology enabling new applications in gesture-based user interface, video conferencing, augmented reality, and ubiquitous computing. Two members of the SIGGRAPH 2006 conference planning committee will travel to Laval, France next April to select a winning installation to be invited to display at SIGGRAPH 2006 in Boston.