I have, over the years, seen many ideas and inventions come and go. I have seen much, and have had the benefit of witnessing first hand a lot of nifty things.  I have also (from time to time) been accused of being a bit of a trade show addict and had (so I thought) pretty much seen it all.

I arrived at SIGGRAPH 2007 with little or no expectations to see much of anything new.  I was prepared for a quiet week, a chance to get away from the hustle and bustle of San Jose for a bit of rest and relaxation.

Boy was I wrong .

Starting Saturday morning we hit the ground running with a breakfast with Chapter officers/leaders from around the globe. Scott Lang called the group to order and laid out the business at hand. We went to work straight away being briefed by senior leaders on items that were of concern to all various Chapter leadership positions. Rounding out the morning were round table discussions (no pun intended) on ways to improve the membership experience for current and future ACM SIGGRAPH members. Many good suggestions were brought forth and will be reviewed by ACM leadership for possible implementation. It was a full day with much interaction and a very generous culinary spread for both breakfast and lunch.

Sunday saw early morning briefings as to what was expected of those of us with conference access and media passes. With waning dreams of my one chance at being obnoxious Paparazzi, it was becoming clear that no Tom Foolery was going to be allowed.

With my eyes wide open and a realization that my "all access" pass to the land of Oz could be rescinded (for bad behavior) at anytime, it was time for the "games to begin".

(Side) Armed with my convenient pocket sized conference and exhibition locator (who, what where & when) and clutching my goodie bag, I set forth into the San Diego Convention Center with the vigor of a 5 year old on Halloween night (one who was now coming alive with the sounds and sights of a county fair for computer graphic geeks...I mean Professionals). I had planned on trying to steer clear from Animated CG to allow more time for all the other things that there was to do. The grand "locator" directed me to “A Look Inside Ratatouille's Kitchen”, just one of Sunday’s 6 half day courses. In addition, of interest to me were 5 more full day courses offering detailed "under the hood" presentations on things like Computational Photography, Rendering using Ray Tracing and Photon Mapping, Mesh Parameterization and Massive model Visualization and much, much more.

The conference (like a carnival) has many courses every day, occurring simultaneously, so scheduling your itinerary in advance is always prudent (as there is no way to attend everything). After sitting still for several hours of painful realization that my CG work will never come close to PIXAR's tour de force, it was time to look at some emerging technologies.

Arriving at the Emerging Technologies hall, I thought I had made a wrong turn at the escalator and was somehow instantaneously tele-ported to Palo Alto (perhaps to a Sand Hill Road funded underground vault at Stanford). "Hands-on" demonstrations of haptic (force feedback) input/output devices, Stereo Video displays (no glasses required) and contraptions of every size greeted me. Standing out, from a graphic input perspective, was a very novel interface for transferring a graphic image to paper by digital rubbing. While still a work in progress, it will allow people to copy graphic images from a tablet PC onto paper using a rubbing technique. By using a side-to-side rubbing motion, children as well as adults can transfer a digital image directly to paper (the end result maintains a natural texture, just like traditional rubbing). As the "TransPen" evolves, it will be possible to leave graphic data on everyday objects and perhaps even collect (input) information by rubbing an existing drawing and then transferring it to another object. For example (in the future) one might transfer a favorite cartoon character from the comic pages of the newspaper. To do so, you would rub back and forth with the pen-like device in a scanning operation, then transfer that stored image to another object (say a notebook or T-Shirt) with the same tool switched over to a writing mode. Commercial applications might include RFID-embedded drawing boards that would allow drawing of popular cartoon characters, or complicated graphics beyond the artistic skill set of the operator.

When I set out for San Diego, I was hoping to see some fine samples of still (non-animated) CG. While perhaps not as "sexy" as their moving counterparts, still art has always held an appeal to me; I have both loved and awaited the coming emergence (and acceptance) of (framable) still computer graphic art as a contender to traditional media art. Both "SpaceTime" (the student competition & exhibition) and the Art Gallery (upstairs, intermingled in part with the Emerging Technology hall) had exceptional pieces. Fair comparison is hard, as judging art in any category is a subjective study, making it hard to say that one project is better than another. That having been said, (the author said comma) a few pieces stood out for me. Just inside the door was a 5 1/2-ft. wide 7-ft. tall wall display by Anna Chupa, from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. This art display consisted of various and numerous objects, including photography and art prints, placed in such a way that they resembled a religious alter. Centered on this wall-sized mosaic was an Apple 23-in. monitor that displayed slowly moving (panning/scrolling) art, giving the project just a touch of movement. Some of the surrounding art images were in 3D using lenticular lens technology to create a visual stereo effect (without the use of holograms or need for special eye-ware). Also worthy of notice was a monster sized (44 X66in.) horizontal parallax Hologram by Paula Dawson, from New South Wales Australia, featuring the artistic renderings of two women in a blizzard-like storm of small geometric shapes. Shawn Lawson & Wafaa Bilal, both of Rensselaer Polytechnic University in New York, presented their "A Bar at the Folies Bergère" (a monitor based artwork) which utilized a hidden camera in the wall to record and composite an image (of the upper torso of anyone who stepped up to view the artwork) into the artwork. The permanent subject matter of the artwork (a young woman) would, from time to time, momentarily turn her head as if to acknowledge the new "addition" to her world within the frame.

Perhaps lacking the bigger budgets and multi-discipline training to compete with the heavy hitters upstairs, downstairs, the student art show (SpaceTime) was impressive in its own right. The Space-Time competition was an international juried exhibition for currently enrolled students working in computer graphics and digital arts. The Space-Time exhibition encompassed print, animation and interactive works. This year’s print division included the traditional poster exhibition, but also added a new digital print category. The Digital Print Competition and Poster Design competitions’ theme was "Face Tomorrow" and had almost 300 applications and 247 completed submissions. Piero Macgowan took first place in the digital print competition with his surreal, dream like, nearly monochromatic piece, "The Rediscovery". Wayne Silasi came in at a close second with "Exile", which featured a city floating in the clouds above a well rendered body of water. Barbra Leigh also placed well, coming in third, with her "7 little tads". Her piece featured a stylized look at life in a pond - an adult frog perched on a lily pad surrounded by darting and leaping tadpoles. The poster design competition also included university entries. Students of Bergen County Academies, of Hackensack NJ, took 1st & 2nd place honors in the High School Poster Design Competition. One could say this gave the older (university) students a first glimpse of the competition that they will face in the not too distant future.

Standing back and looking at all this innovative modern art, I could not help but wonder what Andy Warhol, the cutting edge artist of a half century ago, would have thought of all this "new" art. I wonder, with all this new technology, what kind of art would Andy Warhol have made? Unfortunately, we will never know.

It would take tens and tens of thousands of more words to convey all that I saw at SIGGRAPH 2007, but I hope I have piqued your interest enough to keep this yearly event in your mind.  I had a great time and, if you have never attended a SIGGRAPH conference and exhibition, I highly encourage you to attend at your next opportunity.