Talks

Alien vs Triangles

Aliens vs Triangles uses hardware tessellation to create more realistic and dynamic characters in real time. The demo uses an innovative method of blending multiple displacement maps to create a transformation of the alien's skin. Touching the alien's shoulder starts the transformation that slowly travels over the skin, turning him into a brutal soldier. On the other side of his body, when his hand is touched, an infection moves up his arm until he is fully transformed into a completely different mutant character. A laser blaster reveals the multiple levels of skin that can be blasted away to reveal his metal skeleton. The damage happens on several layers of displacements, starting with blisters, muscles, organs, and finally the metal skeleton. All of this is seamlessly blended using a multi-dimensional tessellation engine on a single-skinned and animated character.

Highlights of the demo include:

• Dynamic hardware tessellation to enable richer and more lifelike characters by dynamically increasing resolution based on eye-space distance, transformation maps, and damage maps.
• Blending of multi-dimensional displacement maps to enable a single-skinned character to seamlessly transform using many displacement maps.
• Tessallator knitting of each level of transformation and damage into a solid mesh, seamlessly integrating multiple displacement maps, tessellation amounts, and surface shaders.
• Hardware tessellation for adding detail to the environment, optimized to add detail only where needed.
• Seamless shader propagation and display of transformation and damage over a single-skinned character.
• Animation blending driven by texture lookups into transformation and damage textures (using DirectX occlusion query).
• DirectX Compute to calculate particle systems caused by laser blasts.

Mark Swain
NVIDIA Corporation

Hildapromenade 4

Philipp Engelhardt is a "magician" who had an idea to animate eight polaroids that he found on the street. The result was an animated photo album narrating a new story in a new context. He combined, reconstructed, and repeated his own graphical material and the collected jetsam of pictures to reveal them in a new context. To the observer, the visible alterations in the picture are not immediately apparent; the manipulation is seen as the reality it superposes.

Artist Web Site

Philipp Engelhardt
HFG Karlsruhe

Chrysaora: WebGL Jellyfish Simulation

Chrysaora is a real-time jellyfish simulation created entirely with web technologies such as javascript, WebGL, websockets and CSS. It uses realistic rendering and simulation techniques similar to those used in modern 3D video games, but it can run in an internet browser on any operating system. It takes advantage of WebGL API to deliver real-time hardware-accelerated graphics to the browser. At the same time, Chrysaora uses the latest web-socket technology for full-duplex communication over a single TCP socket to establish real-time synchronization across multiple browsers. This enables the application to render different parts of the scene on multiple computers while they are being synchronized by a remote server in real time.

Aleksandar Rodic
Savannah College of Art and Design

ItSpace

This wall-mounted interactive installation generates miniature pieces of music composed from the sounds of objects from around the artist's house. Visitors press buttons mounted in photographs of the objects to generate the pieces, and they are invited to mix and match objects as they please.

Artist Web Site

Peter Michael Traub
Independent Artist

Enlighten Real-Time Radiosity

Using Geomerics Enlighten technology, this demo shows how dynamic real-time lighting enhances game play and visual quality in computer games. Enlighten is a cross-platform, real-time radiosity solution that can generate bounce lighting for a game level in a fraction of a frame. By combining Enlighten real-time radiosity with a fully dynamic lighting environment in Unreal Engine 3, the demo shows how lighting can add an extra dimension to the traditional first-person shooter.

The demo shows the death-match level on a CUDA research platform, which provides an insight into lighting in the next generation of top-tier games. The death-match level contains 100 fighting “bots”, each with a flashlight, sentry rocket turrets, and vehicles with headlights. All lights are shadow casting, and they bounce radiosity lighting.

Weapon fire and explosions contribute most of the lighting to the scene. Action-filled shoot-outs light up the screen, with the radiosity lighting providing most of the fill lighting. The player can control the lighting in the immediate environment through weapon fire and see the lighting from distant fights as it illuminates the level. Dynamic changes in the time of day change the mood and atmosphere in the game, and the demo compares the appearance of the game with and without radiosity lighting.

Sam Martin
Geomerics Ltd.

0h!m1gas: biomimetic stridulation environment

0h!m1gas is a biomimetic stridulation environment based on the activity of an ant colony, under video and audio surveillance. The system archives the ants' movements and sounds inside a digital matrix. A pair of turntables constantly reacts to the colony's activities by spinning vinyl records and producing scratching sounds, similar to the original stridulations of the ants. Ants stridulate, human DJs scratch. This creates a sound-reactive space that reveals the connection between scratching, as an aesthetical expression created by human culture, and the stridulation phenomenon produced by ants as a modulation mechanism for communication.

Artist Web Site

Kuai Shen Auson
Academy of Media Arts Cologne

GPU-Based Interactive Simulation of Liver Resection

This GPU-based interactive simulation of laparoscopic liver resection is implemented using the open-source SOFA framework. While similar medical simulators have been developed in the past, this demo relies on advanced methods and the computational power of current GPUs to simulate multiple organs with high-resolution deformations and collisions in real time. It is based on recently proposed methods: high-resolution Finite Element Model (FEM) with implicit time-integration implemented on GPU, volume-contact constraints, an efficient numerical solver based on asynchronous preconditioning, and improvements in visual and haptic rendering. And it uses detailed meshes generated from segmented CT scans to facilitate reproduction of patient-specific scenarios, which is necessary for pre-operative rehearsal of complex or risky medical procedures.

These methods allow real-time simulation of all organs in the abdominal cavity using an improved level of precision compared to previous systems. The FEM formulation enables reproduction of specific material properties. Contacts are handled by precise constraints with frictions on detailed surface meshes. Both methods efficiently support topological changes, as demonstrated by performing a resection of a portion of a liver, an important step in surgical procedures performed to remove cancerous tumors. Users can examine the mechanical and collision models, and the generated contacts while the simulated patient is breathing, and manipulate a laparoscopic instrument to navigate through the abdominal cavity, push on organs, and perform a thermal ablation.

This project is a result of a collaboration between INRIA and IRCAD within the EU-funded PASSPORT project.More information

Hadrien Courtecuisse
INRIA

Stéphane Cotin
INRIA

Luc Soler
IRCAD

Jérémie Allard
INRIA

Open House

Open House is an installation that allows visitors to telematically squat in a Florida home undergoing foreclosure after the US housing collapse. Virtual markets transformed this otherwise livable property into a ghost house. Prior to the collapse, movements of global capital seemed like a distant reality, but it was imaginary systems of value, not bricks and mortar, that asserted ultimate authority. Open House temporarily resists eviction by mirroring the market and creating hybrid subjects who occupy both virtual and physical space. Cross the threshold, open the door, flicker the lights, and rattle the shutters.

Artist Web Site

Patrick LeMieux
Duke University

Jack Stenner
University of Florida

FuwaFuwa: Detecting Shape Deformations on Soft Objects Using Directional Photo-Reflectivity Measurements

Soft objects are widely used in day-to-day life, because they are safer and more comfortable than hard objects. They also provide a natural and rich haptic sensation, so soft interfaces can improve emotional attachment and entertainment value in human-machine interaction.

The FuwaFuwa sensor is a small, flexible, and wireless module that effectively measures shape deformations in soft objects using IR-based directional photo-reflectivity measurements. Multiple embedded FuwaFuwa sensors can easily convert any stuffed object into a touch-input device that can detect both touch position and surface displacement. Also, since the sensors re battery-powered and equipped with wireless communication, they can be easily installed in any common soft object without affecting its soft properties.

Gota Kakehi
TEAMLAB Inc.

Yuta Sugiura
Keio University, JST ERATO IGARASHI Design Interface Project

Anusha Withana
Keio University

Calista Lee
Keio University

Naohisa Nagaya
Keio University

Daisuke Sakamoto
The University of Tokyo, JST ERATO IGARASHI Design Interface Project

Maki Sugimoto
Keio University, JST ERATO IGARASHI Design Interface Project

Masahiko Inami
Keio University, JST ERATO IGARASHI Design Interface Project

Takeo Igarashi
The University of Tokyo, JST ERATO IGARASHI Design Interface Project

Kinectimals

Give your favorite wild animal a new home! Kinectimals puts you and your family in the middle of the most heart-warming animal experience ever. Adopt, name, care for, play with, and love your new friend. Kinectimals enables players to reach beyond the fourth wall and interact with a virtual pet using the Kinect sensor technology.

Kinectimals showcases Frontier's Cobra engine and their latest-generation animation system.

Paul Amer
Microsoft Games Studios

MOSTON

A 12-foot-tall suspended inflatable sculpture, MOSTON conjures a technology-driven amalgamation of Moscow and Boston with its three-dimensional form of mutated Russian nesting dolls and two-dimensional surface design of printed artwork and documentary footage projection.

Artist Web Site

Anya Belkina
Emerson College

InteractiveTop: An Entertainment System that Enhances The Experience of Playing Tops

Spinning tops have a long history as children’s toys. A top is a simple toy, but its behavior is unique compared to other physical toys. Its attractive behavior is based on the gyroscopic effect acting within the top. Children sense the force of the gyroscopic effect when they handle tops, which helps them discover a basic phenomenon of physics.

This project extends those experiences with augmented-reality technologies by providing visual, audio, and force feedback. Traditionally, the user applies an external force to the top, but direct touching often has the unintended effect of moving the top, hence limiting continuous interaction between the user and top. InteractiveTop is an entertainment system that supports virtual physical contact between the user and the top, which allows direct, prolonged interaction.

Toshiki Sato
The University of Electro-Communications

Yasushi Matoba
The University of Electro-Communications

Hideki Koike
The University of Electro-Communications

Raging Rapids Rides

This scene of a river flowing through a rough valley achieves a level of realism not seen before in real time. The river exhibits a variety of medium- and small-scale details, including breaking waves, waterfalls, foam, and splashes resulting from interaction with solids. The goal of the player or autopilot is to drive a boat past as many checkpoints as possible while avoiding falling rocks and logs as well as deformable water plants.

A hybrid water-simulation method combines a height-field grid with particles. The main body of water is simulated by solving the shallow-water equations on the grid. Four types of particles are auto-generated using physically inspired criteria. Wave fronts with slopes exceeding a limit emit particles to form breaking waves. Waterfall particles are generated when the water flows across steep terrain. Collisions of solids with the water surface produce splashes with a volume that depends on the impact velocity. When particles fall into the grid, they are turned into foam which is then advected with the horizontal flow of the water surface. When particles are created, they take away mass from the grid and deposit it again when they return. The system adds water-surface details using wave textures generated by an FFT-based simulation. Texture coordinates are advected with the water flow and regenerated periodically to reduce distortion. Rigid and deformable objects are two-way coupled with the height-field simulation. Solids alter the height and velocity of water, which in turn exerts drag, lift, and buoyancy forces on the solids.

The underlying simulation technique is an extension of Chentanez N. and Muller M., Real-time simulation of large bodies of water with small scale details, Proceedings of the 2010 ACM SIGGRAPH/Eurographics SCA.

Nuttapong Chentanez
NVIDIA Corporation

Matthias Muller
NVIDIA Corporation

RolyPoly

RolyPoly enables two individuals to “sense” the presence of each other even though they may be physically apart. This is achieved through the mirrored movements in a pair of RolyPolys. A gentle tap to rock one RolyPoly simultaneously rocks its partner RolyPoly to the same degree. Likewise, a sudden shake and rattle in one instantly produces a corresponding reaction in the other.

Artist Web Site

Design Incubation Centre
National University of Singapore

ISCAN3D and IFACE3D: 3D Scanners on iPhone by Digiteyezer

Thank to its embedded technology, Digiteyezer has invented a new concept for 3D scanning systems. The concept extends a new way of scanning to a wide range of users by delivering:

• Hardware-independent technology. Digiteyezer provides outstanding 3D scanning capabilities by using mono-lenticular systems like those in smart phones, DSLR cameras, webcams, embedded cameras (TVs, PCs, game consoles), and industrial cameras.

• 3D reconstruction with an automatic online process. Digiteyezer's architecture relies on an online reconstruction process for 3D models.

• Ease of use and user-oriented technology. Digiteyezer uses an embedded human interface that delivers 3D scanning capabilities to a wide range of users.

• 3D models with lifelike (or photo-realistic) rendering. Digiteyezer's technology allows creation and display of 3D models with a lifelike rendering, which gives users a brand-new relationship to 3D models. For example, when the applications are people oriented (face scanning, medical apps, fashion apps), the user experience is much more intense, because users see themselves as they are in the real life.

Frederic Courteille
Digiteyezer

Benoit Boquillon
Digiteyezer

MoleBot: Mole in a Table

Many previous explorations of shape display (Feelex, Pop Up!, Lumen, and Relief) adopted the principle of the pinscreen and tried to develop a rigid yet flexible surface that renders dynamic three-dimensional forms in the real world. These shape displays involve hundreds of pins separately actuated by an elaborate mechanism. The MoleBot combines higher actuation speed, greater resolution, and smaller pixel size than demonstrated in previous projects, plus enhanced physical interactivity with objects on the table surface. It is based on a new shape-display method: a two-dimensional translating cam (mole cam), 15,000 closely packed hexagonal pins equivalent to cam followers, and a layer of spandex between the mole cam and the pins to reduce friction.

The MoleBot can interact with physical objects in two ways. The force from the mole cam can push objects or pull something sensitive to magnetism with a neodymium magnet. It could be a new game interface, in which people build a small world on a table by replacing hexagonal pixels with different types of small props and enjoy playful physical interactions between the MoleBot and objects in the real world.

Narae Lee
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Ju-Whan Kim
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Jungsoo Lee
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Myeongsoo Shin
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Woohun Lee
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Mommy Tummy: A Pregnancy Experience System Simulating Fetal Movement

Mommy Tummy is an interactive system that simulates pregnancy. A user wearing the Mommy Tummy jacket can feel the fetus’s temperature, movement, and heartbeat, and, by rubbing the jacket, communicate with the fetus. Within a few minutes, the jacket's weight and size change, simulating fetal growth over nine months. An auxiliary screen displays the condition of both the fetus and the mother in each simulated month with a 3D model of the fetus. The moods and activity of the fetus are displayed in a natural manner to simulate normal fetal development.

There are two types of fetal movement: kicking and wiggling. Achieving a kicking simulation is not so difficult, but wiggling simulation is not simple. It was achieved by using a technique inspired by the tactile funneling illusion (PhS) initially discovered by Georg von Bekesy as a type of illusory tactile sensation that arises between two points of simultaneous vibration or electric stimulation. Using PhS, Mommy Tummy simulates a wiggling sensation through continuous, temporally displaced operation of multiple air actuators.

When the user moves violently, the fetus enters a bad mood state and makes intense movements. On the other hand, when the user caresses the abdomen, the fetus enters a good mood state and makes steady movements. Heavy physical exercise is discouraged until a stable period is reached.

Takayuki Kosaka
Kanagawa Institute of Technology

Takuya Iwamoto
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Robert Songer
Kanazawa Technical College

Junichi Akita
Kanazawa University

Hajime Misumi
Kanagawa Institute of Technology

Photochromic Sculpture: Volumetric Color-Forming Pixels

Color-forming reflective displays like E Ink are easy on the eye even in bright environments. Applying photochromic materials (PM) and projected-light systems to this type of display makes it possible to control color without contact with the display surface. In this project, the concept of “contactless color control,” is extended to volumetric space to create “volumetric color-forming pixels”. The result is “photochromic sculpture”, which can generate a dynamically changeable 3D object.

The system consists of two components:

• A presentation component composed of laminated transparent plates coated with PM granules and Spiropyran, which produces color under ultraviolet light (UV) and gradually becomes colorless and transparent when the UV light is blocked

• A control component for manipulating projected light.

The project team is developing a projector that can provide a more complicated UV pattern and investigating how to create larger-scale photochromic sculptures in outdoor locations.

Tomoko Hashida
The University of Tokyo

Yasuaki Kakehi
Keio University

Takeshi Naemura
The University of Tokyo

PocoPoco: A Tangible Device That Allows Users To Play Dynamic Tactile Interaction

PocoPoco was created by a research team that focuses on interfaces that can change their own shapes dynamically. It is a box-shaped device that uses built-in solenoid actuators to control the movement of cylindrical units and deliver dynamic tactile sensations.

With its simple, intuitive tactile interface, PocoPoco can be used in a variety of applications that would normally employ a more "functional" device, such as a keyboard, that allows users to engage in a virtual world without being conscious of their physical manipulation and sensory input/output experience.

A musical variation of the system, PocoSeqencer, allows users to easily create aural and visual components of a performance at the same time by simply pushing cylindrical actuators.

Takaharu Kanai
Tokyo Metropolitan University

Yuya Kikukawa
Tokyo Metropolitan University

Tatsuhiko Suzuki
Tokyo Metropolitan University

Tetsuaki Baba
Tokyo Metropolitan University

Kumiko Kushiyama
Tokyo Metropolitan University

Recompose: Direct and Gestural Interaction With an Actuated Surface

Recompose builds on the Relief table developed by Leithinger. The table consists of an array of 120 individually addressable pins, whose height can be actuated and read back simultaneously to provide both input and output. Recompose extends this concept by placing a depth camera above the tabletop surface to detect basic user gestures.

The combination of direct manipulation, I/O coincidence, an instantaneous feedback loop, and gestural input is a largely unexplored research area. Recompose explores this area through a system that leverages the strengths of these interaction techniques. It uses a grammar of gestures to explore basic functions for interacting with an actuated surface. Initial explorations show that the most fundamental set of gestures includes: selection of a subset of the surface, translation of the selection, rotation of the selection, and scaling of the selection.

Recompose moves digital modeling into the physical space by adding intuitive hands-on design. This approach may contribute significantly to fields where rapid iteration and visualization are fundamental to the process of learning and creation, including (but not limited to) architectural design, three-dimensional product design, and medical imaging.

David Lakatos
MIT Media Lab

Matthew Blackshaw
MIT Media Lab

Anthony DeVincenzi
MIT Media Lab

Daniel Leithinger
MIT Media Lab

Ishii Hiroshi
MIT Media Lab

Surround Haptics: Sending Shivers Down Your Spine

Surround Haptics is a new tactile technology that allows generation of high-resolution, continuous, moving tactile sensations anywhere on the human body. The technology is inexpensive. It can be used with a broad range of off-the-shelf tactile actuators. It is compact. And it can easily be integrated into clothes, furniture, accessories, hand tools, mobile devices, and game accessories, among other potential applications.

Surround Haptics could become a key technology in a new generation of home-gaming platforms that integrate highly detailed and dynamic tactile experiences with full-body motion controls, stereoscopic visuals, and spatial sound. This demonstration presents two examples:

• A modular home tactile display: a custom plywood chair that can also be used in daily life, soft pads for the seat and backrest with embedded tactile grids, and a wireless control board. The user controls the game with full-body gestures using Microsoft Kinect.

• A high-intensity driving simulator game, Split/Second by Black Rock Studio. A broad range of game events was enhanced with complex tactile sensations, including collisions, road imperfections, tire traction, skidding, ripples of landing forces, acceleration, braking, falling objects, damage, etc. This multi-sensory gaming experience produces a deep sense of immersion, believability, and excitement.

The Surround Haptics technology is based on new models of tactile perception that were formulated in a series of rigorous psychophysical studies. These new models further expand and deepen our understanding of human tactile perception.

Ali Israr
Disney Research Pittsburgh

Ivan Poupyrev
Disney Research Pittsburgh

Christopher Ioffreda
Carnegie Mellon University

Jim Cox
Black Rock Studio (Disney Interactive Studios)

Seung-Chan Kim
Disney Research Pittsburgh

Nathan Gouveia
Black Rock Studio (Disney Interactive Studios)

Huw Bowles
Black Rock Studio (Disney Interactive Studios)

Anastasios Brakis
Black Rock Studio (Disney Interactive Studios)

Baylor Knight
Black Rock Studio (Disney Interactive Studios)

Kenny Mitchell
Black Rock Studio (Disney Interactive Studios)

Tom Williams
Black Rock Studio (Disney Interactive Studios)

Telenoid: Tele-Presence Android for Communication

This new system of telecommunication focuses on the idea of transferring human “presence”. A minimal human conveys the impression of human existence at first glance, but it doesn’t suggest anything about personal features such as gender or age. The minimal appearance allows people to use Telenoid to transfer their presence to distant places regardless of their personal features.

Telenoid's tele-operation system is simple and intuitive. It can be controlled by even novice users. Its face-tracking system automatically captures the operator’s facial movements and expressions. Field tests revealed that most users tended to have a strange and negative feeling impression of Telenoid in the beginning, but eventually they became comfortable. Elderly people had very positive feelings about Telenoid at first sight.

Kohei Ogawa
ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication

Shuichi Nishio
ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication

Kensuke Koda
ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication

Koichi Taura
ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication

Takashi Minato
ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication

Carlos Toshinori Ishii
ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication

Hiroshi Ishiguro
ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication

Thermal Interactive Media

The Thermal Interactive Media (TIM) display is a multi-sensory experience that combines beautiful visual elements, the soothing touch of water, and the bubbling sounds of flowing water combined with the gentle clacking sound of deer chasers.

The display consists of a horizontal rear-projection screen covered with a thin layer of water and two basins filled with water, one on each side of the display. One basin is filled with hot water, one with cold. Mounted above and pointing at the screen is a FLIR thermal imaging camera. Driving the whole system is a PC workstation generating two simultaneous video streams, one “hot” and one “cold”.

Users can choose to pour hot or cold water onto the display, using ladles in the basins. Wherever the user pours in hot water, TIM displays the “hot” video stream. Wherever the user pours in cold water, TIM displays the “cold” video stream. In the regions in between, the two video streams mix and swirl together based on the water temperature. By observing how the two video streams mix together, users can see real-world fluid dynamics in action and watch in real time as the thermal energy dissipates and distributes throughout the water. The experience is simultaneously magical, educational, entertaining, and relaxing.

For an extra level of fun, users can don ChromaDepth glasses to augment the experience with a pseudo-stereoscopic effect. Regions of warm water colored red float above the screen and the cool regions of water colored blue punch holes deep into the surface.

Mark Mine
Walt Disney Imagineering

Dustin Barnard
Walt Disney Imagineering

Bei Yang
Walt Disney Imagineering

True 3D Display

This research team was the first to use laser-plasma technology for a true-3D display device that allows users to draw 3D images in midair (True 3D Display Using Laser Plasma in the Air, Emerging Technologies, SIGGRAPH 2006). Now the team has developed a much more compact and precise display, called SRV (Super Real Vision)-5000, based on advanced laser technology. One remarkable feature of the new device is its enhanced resolution: from 300 points per second to 50,000 points per second. It displays 3D objects more faithfully in real time and increases the range of possible applications.

Hidei Kimura
Burton Inc.

Akira Asano
Burton Inc.

Issei Fujishiro
Keio University

Ayaka Nakatani
Keio University

Hayato Watanabe
Keio University

The Cyclone Display: Rotation, Reflection, Flicker, and Recognition Combined With the Pixels.

Cyclone Display has three significant points in comparison to other displays:

• It has rotating pixels made of patterned paper disks.
• Flicker and body movements (eye blinking or hand waving) can change the appearance of the disk patterns.
• It uses lighting conditions to display recognizable scenes.

The pattern variations in the disks (determined by disk-rotation speed) create a display. Flickering light is provided by a timed RGB projector.

Yoichi Ochiai
University of Tsukuba

Hiromu Takai
University of Tsukuba

Volumetric Display Based on Vibrating Mylar Beam Splitter and LED Backlit LCD

This new volumetric display produces full-color, high-spatial-resolution aerial images out in front of the apparatus. It is based on a new optical element: the large, tunable-resonance, edge-driven, varifocal beam splitter.

Previous varifocal systems stretch an opaque Mylar mirror over the aperture of a loudspeaker. The speaker vibrates the mirror. making it alternately concave and convex. A synchronized, high-speed (oscillograph) image is viewed in the mirror and swept in depth. This type of display was commercialized as Spacegraph 3D in the late 1970s, but a number of problems limited its acceptance. The loudspeaker was noisy. The image was virtual (behind the mirror), since the mirror curvature is insufficient to create real images. The systems had small viewing apertures, since the display blocked the user's mirror view. Non-standard (now obsolete) oscillograph displays were used, and the systems were bulky, since it was difficult to fold their optical paths.

This new display uses a circular Mylar beam splitter and adds a tension-adjusting metal hoop pressed against its surface. The beam splitter is adjusted, with high Q, to a specific resonance frequency. Three rim-mounted impulse drivers apply low-amplitude sinusoldal drive. Due to the high Q, the diaphram's sympathetic vibration is large. The beam splitter folds the optical path, and the system includes a fixed-curvature concave mirror to create real images that appear out in front of the apparatus. It produces high-quality 3D images that occupy a one-third-meter cube 1/3 meter out in front of the apparatus. The image is viewable over a 30 degree viewing angle.

Lanny Smoot
Disney Research

Quinn Smithwick
Disney Research

Daniel Reetz
Disney Research

IVRC (International Collegiate Virtual Reality Contest)

10th anniversary of IVRC! The International Collegiate Virtual Reality Contest is organized through the Virtual Reality Society. IVRC2011, the 19th annual competition, is scheduled for this fall.

IVRC Executive Committee
shirai (at) mail.com

Scan – Model – Print: A Roundtable Chat

The SIGGRAPH 2011 Studio kicks off this year’s conference with a Roundtable Chat that explores the past, present, and future of digital technologies. The Scan – Model – Print: Roundtable Chat panel visionaries are:

Moderator
Cory Doctorow
The Guardian, The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and Wired, Contributor and Boing Boing blog Co-EditorPanelists
Hyeong-Seok Ko
SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 Conference Chair
Seoul National University

Michael Raphael
Direct Dimensions, Inc.

Peter Weijmarshausen
Shapeways

Dallas Luther
Maker Faire Vancouver

Adam Mayer
MakerBot Industries

SandCanvas: New Possibilities in Sand Animation

Inspired by the history, popularity, and aesthetics of sand animation(also known as sand art), this new multitouch digital artistic medium simplifies creation of sand animations and enables entirely new expressions.

Rubaiat Kazi
National University of Singapore

Kien-Chuan Chua
National University of Singapore

Shengdong Zhao
National University of Singapore

Richard Davis
Singapore Management University

Low Kok-Lim
National University of Singapore

Overview of SIGGRAPH 2011 (with Japanese interpreter)

Members of the SIGGRAPH 2011 Committee present an overview of the conference and highlights of their programs.

Miho Aoki
mihoalaska (at) gmail.com

Introduction to Python Scripting

In this introduction to Python, a powerful scripting language used by many 3D applications, attendees learn the basics and explore small example scenarios gleaned from actual game and film productions. The sessions are taught in a way that should empower attendees to immediately begin creating time-saving python scripts and applications.

Chris Evans
CryENGINE

Blender Foundation: Community Meeting

Chairman Ton Roosendaal presents the results of the past year's work on the open-source 3D program Blender, summarizes plans for next year, and invites attendees to provide feedback.

Blender Foundation
ton (at) blender.org

Animation and Rigging in Blender

An introduction to Blender for users of other 3D software. The talk focuses on rigging and animation for "unusual" setups: effects sequences such as growing, timel apse, and motion graphics. But it also touches on some of Blender's character-animation tools and add-ons, modeling materials and rendering, and the Blender "mental model" for user interfaces, data structures, and scripting.

Bassam Kurdali

Destroying Metro City: An Artist-Friendly and Efficient Demolition Pipeline for "Megamind"

This complete demolition system combines an efficient pipeline with the artist-friendly simulation tools used to destroy a city in DreamWorks Animation's "Megamind".

David Lipton
DreamWorks Animation

Eli Bocek-Rivele
DreamWorks Animation

Greg Gladstone
DreamWorks Animation

Fangwei Lee
DreamWorks Animation

Mark Carlson
DreamWorks Animation

Artistic Rendering of Feathers for Animated Films

This powerful feather-rendering system emphasizes artistic control and flexible workflow. It was critical to realization of feathered characters like Crane, Fifi, and Lord Shen, the anti-hero in "Kung Fu Panda 2".

Feng Xie
DreamWorks Animation

A Unified Dynamics Pipeline for Hair, Cloth, and Flesh in "Rango"

This dynamics pipeline integrates all forms of deformable simulation, consolidates the artist's toolset, and opens the door to high-quality and convincing dynamics.

Stephen Bowline
Industrial Light & Magic

Using the GigaPan Imaging System

The GigaPan system of hardware, image-processing software, and a web application supports the capture, creation, and presentation of gigapixel images. In this workshop, attendees participate in creating a GigaPan image from start to finish: scouting a shooting location near the conference center, setting up the GigaPan robot, taking the source images, stitching these images into a GigaPan, uploading to a web site, and annotating the final GigaPan. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own digital cameras for use with the GigaPan robot, but a limited number of digital cameras will be provided.

Gene Cooper
Four Chambers Studio, LLC

Rich Gibson
Carnegie Mellon University

Phase One Digital Tools

Lee Peterson

Kami Geometry Instancer: Putting the “Smurfy” in Smurf Village

Kami is a geometry-instancing pipeline to generate and deform simple primitives like curves (for fur, hair, and grass) and arbitrarily complex shaded hierarchical geometry. The system has been most recently used in "The Smurfs" movie to populate a village with plants, flowers, and grass.

François Chardavoine
Sony Pictures Imageworks

Armin Bruderlin
Sony Pictures Imageworks

SpeedFur: A GPU-Based Procedural Hair and Fur Modeling System

SpeedFur is a node-based procedural hair and fur modeling system that provides a GPU-accelerated real-time preview of the hair and renders on a traditional CPU-only render node.

Vilhelm Hedberg
Fido

Mattias Lagergren
Fido

Fredrik Limsäter
Fido

SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community

Join us to discuss the year round activities of the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community, including online curated exhibitions, our virtual community, and discussions. Bring announcements and ideas.

Cynthia Beth Rubin
rubin (at) siggraph.org

Blender Foundation: Artist showcase

Artists from past Blender Open Movie projects will give demos of work they did. This is an open-stage event for which everyone is invited to show work as well.

Blender Foundation
ton@blender.org

Dan Gustafson
Next Engine

Taipei ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter Reunion

This session is for attendees from Taiwan and everyone interested in graphics research or the computer graphics industry in Taiwan.

Bing-Yu Chen
robin (at) ntu.edu.tw

Test drive current game-development technologies, explore game design, and play the games that are defining the next generation of digital interactivity.

New and Used Cars

This talk presents three shading innovations developed for the film "Cars 2": a layering method that is efficient and flexible, a procedural metal-flake illumination model that approximates the complex properties of modern car paint, and a new model for rendering reflection-aligned concentric micro-scratches.

Philip Child
Pixar Animation Studios

Junyi Ling
Pixar Animation Studios

Alex Seiden
Pixar Animation Studios

Build Your Own Glasses-Free 3D Display

Driven by the recent resurgence of 3D cinema, depth cameras and stereoscopic displays are becoming commonplace in the consumer market. Introduced last October, Microsoft Kinect has already fostered gesture-based interaction for applications well beyond the intended Xbox 360 platform. Similarly, consumer electronics manufacturers have begun selling stereoscopic displays and inexpensive stereoscopic cameras. Most commercial 3D displays continue to require cumbersome eyewear, but inexpensive, glasses-free 3D displays are imminent with the release of the Nintendo 3DS.

At SIGGRAPH 2010, the Build Your Own 3D Display course demonstrated how to construct both LCD shutter glasses and glasses-free lenticular screens, providing Matlab-based code for batch encoding of 3D imagery. This follow-up course focuses more narrowly on glasses-free displays, describing in greater detail the practical aspects of real-time, OpenGL-based encoding for such multi-view, spatially multiplexed displays.

The course reviews historical and perceptual aspects, emphasizing the goal of achieving disparity, motion parallax, accommodation, and convergence cues without glasses. It summarizes state-of-the-art methods and areas of active research. And it provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to construct a lenticular display. The course concludes with an extended question-and-answer session, during which prototype hardware is available for inspection.

COURSE SCHEDULE

9 am
Introduction: History and Physiology
Hirsch

9:15 am
Constructing Glasses-Free 3D Displays
Lanman

9:30 am
Multi-View Rendering Using OpenGL
Hirsch

9:45 am
Multi-View Interlacing Using GLSL
Lanman

10 am
Designing Content for Glasses-Free 3D Displays
Hirsch

10:10 am
Emerging Technology
Lanman

Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games: Part I

Advances in real-time graphics research and the ever-increasing power of mainstream GPUs and consoles continue to generate an explosion of innovative algorithms suitable for fast, interactive rendering of complex and engaging virtual worlds. Every year, the latest video games employ a vast variety of sophisticated algorithms to produce ground-breaking 3D rendering that pushs the visual boundaries and interactive experience of rich environments.

This course is the next installment in the established series of SIGGRAPH courses on real-time rendering. It summarizes the best graphics practices and research from the game-development community and provides practical and production-proven algorithms. The first part of the course includes speakers from the makers of several award-winning games, such as Bungie, Media Molecule, Crytek, and Avalanche. Topics include practical methods of real game-rendering pipelines, deferred rendering improvements, complex lighting techniques, scene voxelization and participating media, and other exciting production secrets. The focus is on the intersection between the game-development community and state-of-the-art 3D graphics research, and the potential for cross-pollination of knowledge in future games and other interactive applications.

COURSE SCHEDULE

9 am
Introduction
Tatarchuk

9:05 am
Making Game Worlds From Polygon Soup: Visibility, Spatial Hierarchy and Rendering Challenges
Chen, Silvennoinen, and Tatarchuk

9:45 am
Rendering in Cars 2
C. Hall, R. Hall, D. Edwards

10:30 am
Two Uses of Voxels in LittleBigPlanet2’s Graphics Engine
Evans & Kirczenow

11:15 am
Secrets of CryENGINE 3 Graphics Technology
Sousa, Kasyan, and Schulz

OverCoat: An Implicit Canvas for 3D Painting

OverCoat is a 3D painting system that allows the user to treat the full 3D space as a canvas. Paint strokes applied in 2D are embedded in a 3D scalar field that is shaped by proxy geometry, and rendered such that the result always looks like a 2D digital painting.

Johannes Schmid
ETH Zürich, Disney Research Zürich

Martin Sebastian Senn
ETH Zürich, Disney Research Zürich

Markus Gross
ETH Zürich, Disney Research Zürich

Robert Sumner
Disney Research Zürich

A Programmable System for Artistic Volumetric Lighting

Designing and shading volumetric effects in feature-films is a difficult problem. This system, modeled after the way expert artists think about participating media, allows for intuitive control and authoring of both physically accurate and non-physical, artistic volumetric effects.

Derek Nowrouzezahrai
Disney Research Zürich

Jared Johnson
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Andrew Selle
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Dylan Lacewell
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Michael Kaschalk
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Wojciech Jarosz
Disney Research Zürich

Coherent Noise for Non-Photorealistic Rendering

This noise function suitable for non-photorealistic rendering creates random variation that moves with the objects in a scene.

Michael Kass
Pixar Animation Studios

Davide Pesare
Pixar Animation Studios

The Spirit of "Rango": Dissection of Character Animation and Rigging

"Rango" presented many challenges: the number of characters and their realism, complexity, and unique stylized look had probably never been achieved before in an animated feature. This talk provides a broad overview of the workflow and tools that were used for rigging and animating the characters.

Julien Cohen Bengio
Industrial Light & Magic

Kevin Martel
Industrial Light & Magic

Brian Paik
Industrial Light & Magic

NVIDIA Exhibitor Session: OpenGL & CUDA Based Tessellation

Creating a Multi-Platform Real-Time Portfolio for Your Artwork Using Unity

This session gives attendees all the tools they need to move their real-time art from their 3D app of choice into Unity and deploy it to a web browser, mobile, device, or stand-alone device in simple, artist-friendly steps. No programming knowledge required.

Joe Robins
Unity Technologies

Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow is a contributor to The Guardian, The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and Wired, and co-editor of the popular blog Boing Boing. He was formerly director of European affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil liberties group that defends freedom in technology law, policy, standards, and treaties. He is a visiting senior lecturer at Open University (UK) and previously served as the Fulbright chair at the Annenberg Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

In 2008, his novel, Little Brother, was a New York Times best seller. Tachyon Books published a collection of his essays called Content: Selected Essays in Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future, and IDW published a collection of comic books inspired by his short fiction called Cory Doctorow’s Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now. Doctorow’s latest works include an adult novel, Maker, published by Tor Books/HarperCollins UK; For the Win, a young adult book about video games, labor politics, and economics; and a short story collection entitled Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present.

He has won the Locus and Sunburst Awards, and he has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and British Science Fiction Awards. He co-founded the open-source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola, which was sold to OpenText, Inc. in 2003. He serves on the boards of the Participatory Culture Foundation, the MetaBrainz Foundation, Technorati, Inc., the Organization for Transformative Works, Areae, the Annenberg Center for the Study of Online Communities, and Onion Networks, Inc.

Photo: Jonathan Worth

NVIDIA Exhibitor Session: Parallel Nsight 2.0 and CUDA 4.0 for The Win!

Creation of Your Own Digital Fashion Show

Did you ever dream of showing your fashion design on a body of your own creation on the fashion runway? In this workshop, attendees learn how to use the Digital Clothing Suite's human character and pattern data to seam patterns, simulate garment draping, apply and manipulate images to generate their own textile designs, and save the final result into an animation clip. The clips are shown in The Studio, where attendees vote on their favorite designs. The best designer receives a six-month free trial of the Digital Clothing Suite.

Kathi Martin
Drexel University

Hyeong-Seok Ko
Seoul National University

Daily Art Tours

Members of the Art Galley committee offer 30-minute guided tours to introduce visitors to Tracing Home and some of the specific artworks displayed in the exhibition. The daily tours begin in the Art Gallery.

NVIDIA Exhibitor Session: VFX Trendspotting: Unlocking GPU Performance

Procedural Mosaic Arrangement In "Rio"

This talk explains how Blue Sky Studios created iterative, procedurally arranged tile mosaics in the sidewalks and streets of Rio de Janeiro. The was designed to be highly directable. It had to be automated yet nimble enough to achieve evolving production goals.

Rhett Collier
Blue Sky Studios

Josh Smeltzer
Blue Sky Studios

Storytelling With Color

Color is mysterious, emotional, enigmatic. Opinions are strong about what they mean, or do not mean. Theses have been written about the emotional significance of color in film, psychology, and clothing. This course discusses storytelling choices in fine art, illustration, and films (animated and live action), and how color selection supports the story. Topics include color rules, when and how to break them, and the differences between the analog and digital palettes. The course includes plenty of visuals and is appropriate for everyone interested in color.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Introduction and Overview: The Hidden Influence of Color
Altieri & Walvoord

2:10 pm
Creating a Design Universe in Film; Story, Emotions, and Art
Altieri

2:30 pm
"Kung Fu Panda 2" Color Overview
Walvoord

2:45 pm
Analysis of Color in Animated Films
Altieri

3 pm
KFP2 Techniques: Color Supporting the Story
Walvoord

3:15 pm
Questions and Answers

From Concept to Creation

This is a hands-on workshop on digital fine art creation and perfecting your final print.

Stephen Burns, the author of CS5 Trickery & FX takes you on a journey of creative possibilities to fine art creation. He shares digital creative techniques and how to optimize your imagery for successful final output. Jack Duganne, the originator of the printmaking term giclée, summarizes the process of digitally printing your final version.

Stephen Burns
Chrome Allusion

Dynamic 3D & Photoshop Integration

How to creatively integrate 3D models into Photoshop CS5 Extended to create concept art. This session focuses on how to import, texture, and build a mate painting with third-party 3D models in CS5.

Stephen Burns
The San Diego Photoshop Users Group

Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games: Part 2

Advances in real-time graphics research and the ever-increasing power of mainstream GPUs and consoles continue to generate an explosion of innovative algorithms suitable for fast, interactive rendering of complex and engaging virtual worlds. Every year, the latest video games employ a vast variety of sophisticated algorithms to produce ground-breaking 3D rendering that pushs the visual boundaries and interactive experience of rich environments.

This course is the next installment in the established series of SIGGRAPH courses on real-time rendering. It summarizes the best graphics practices and research from the game-development community and provides practical and production-proven algorithms. The first part of the course includes speakers from the makers of several award-winning games, such as Electronic Arts (Vancouver, Montréal, and Black Box), Treyarch, Sony Online, and CCP Games. The focus is on the intersection between the game-development community and state-of-the-art 3D graphics research, and the potential for cross-pollination of knowledge in future games and other interactive applications.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Welcome
Tatarchuk

2 pm
More Performance Without Quality Compromise: Five Rendering Ideas From Battlefield 3
White & Barre-Brisebois

2:50 pm
Physically Based Lighting in Call of Duty: Black Ops
Lazarov

3:30 pm
Real-Time Image Quilting: Arbitrary Material Blends, Invisible Seams, and No Repeats
Malan

4:15 pm
Dynamic Lighting in God of War 3
Filippov

4:45 pm
Pre-Integrated Skin Shading
Penner

Generating Displacement From Normal Map for Use in 3D Games

This algorithm can automatically convert normal map to displacement map to reduce the cost of creating tessellated 3D game assets.

Kirill Dmitriev
NVIDIA Corporation

Evgeny Makarov
NVIDIA Corporation

Interactive Hybrid Simulation of Large-Scale Traffic

A method for integrating disparate traffic-simulation techniques that allows for interactive, large-scale visualizations of traffic flow without compromising quality. The approach uses both agent-based and continuum techniques to balance user needs and achieve a high level of performance.

Jason Sewall
Intel Corporation

David Wilkie
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Ming Lin
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Probabilistic Reasoning for Assembly-Based 3D Modeling

A probabilistic model of shape structure that encodes semantic and geometric relationships among shape components. The model is trained on a shape database and is used to present relevant components during interactive 3D modeling.

Siddhartha Chaudhuri
Stanford University

Evangelos Kalogerakis
Stanford University

Leonidas Guibas
Stanford University

Vladlen Koltun
Stanford University

Spherical Skinning With Dual Quaternions and QTangents

Building upon previous work on dual quaternion skinning, and with the introduction of a new way to represent tangent frames (QTangent), this talk presents improvements to quality, performance, and memory footprint of skinned geometry achieved during development of the Crysis franchise.

Ivo Zoltan Frey
Crytek

Ivo Herzeg
Crytek

Facial Cartography: Interactive High-Resolution Scan Correspondence

A technique for high-resolution correspondence of independent facial expression scans, incorporating inverse rendering, GPU computation, and real-time user direction during the optimization; corresponded expression data are mapped into a common domain for use in realistic facial animation.

Cyrus Wilson
USC Institute for Creative Technologies

Oleg Alexander
USC Institute for Creative Technologies

Borom Tunwattanapong
USC Institute for Creative Technologies

Pieter Peers
College of William and Mary

Abhijeet Ghosh
USC Institute for Creative Technologies

Jay Busch
USC Institute for Creative Technologies

Arno Hartholt
USC Institute for Creative Technologies

Paul Debevec
USC Institute for Creative Technologies

French Animation Showcase - Session 1

Come and enjoy a selection of state-of-the art animation films from the best French schools and artists! A selection by Annie Dissaux - AFCA. Networking opportunities after the session.

French Consulate in Vancouver, Masters of Digital Media Program, Association française du cinéma d'animation, Rencontres Audiovisuelles de Lille
raynald.belay (at) consulfrance-vancouver.org

Embroidery Modeling and Rendering in Real Time

Techniques for automatically producing embroidery layouts from line drawings and rendering those layouts in real time on potentially deformable 3D objects with hardware acceleration.

Xinling Chen
University of Waterloo

Rapid Solutions to 3D Scanning

Michael Raphael
Direct Dimensions, Inc.

How to Write Fast iPhone and Android Shaders in Unity

This in-depth session on how to make shaders as fast as possible on mobile platforms explains basic graphics optimization techniques for mobile GPUs, Unity’s rendering and lighting pipeline, and how to use it effectively. For programmers and technical artists.

Aras Pranckevicius
Unity Technologies

Eulerian Solid Simulation With Contact

A new method for simulating realistic behavior of highly deformed, interacting solids without requiring explicit representation of the objects themselves.

David I.W. Levin
The University of British Columbia

Joshua Litven
The University of British Columbia

Garrett L. Jones
The University of British Columbia

Shinjiro Sueda
The University of British Columbia

Dinesh K. Pai
The University of British Columbia

A Versatile HDR Video Production System

An optical architecture for HDR imaging that allows simultaneous capture of high-, medium-, and low-exposure images, and an HDR merging algorithm that avoids undesired artifacts. This paper explains implementation of a prototype HDR-video system and present sresults from the acquired HDR video.

Michael D. Tocci
Contrast Optical Design & Engineering, Inc. and University of New Mexico

Chris Kiser
University of New Mexico

Nora Tocci
Contrast Optical Design & Engineering, Inc.

Pradeep Sen
University of New Mexico

StereoFX: Survey of the Main Stereo Film-Making Techniques

CANCELLED

A concrete survey of stereo film-making techniques based on three recent Moving Picture Company projects.

Damien Fagnou
The Moving Picture Company

Toward High-Quality Modal Contact Sound

This asynchronous mode-level-adaptive integrator with modified staggered projections synthesizes realistic multibody contact sounds. It resolves modal vibrations in both collision and frictional contact processing stages, thereby enabling non-rigid sound phenomena such as micro-collisions, vibrational energy exchange, and contact damping.

Changxi Zheng
Cornell University

Doug James
Cornell University

Illumination Decomposition for Material Recoloring With Consistent Interreflections

Changing the color of an object is a basic image-editing operation, but a high-quality result must also preserve natural shading. This approach decomposes illumination into direct lighting and indirect illumination from individual materials to consistently modify material colors and their associated interreflections.

Robert Carroll
University of California, Berkeley

Ravi Ramamoorthi
University of California, Berkeley

Maneesh Agrawala
University of California, Berkeley

Processing.js: Sketching With Canvas

Processing.js 1.0, a complete port of the Processing language, brings interactive 2D and 3D graphics to the web without the use of plug-ins.

Andor Salga
Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology

Daniel Hodgin
Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology

Anna Sobiepanek
Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology

Scott Downe
Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology

Mickael Medel
Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology

Catherine Leung
Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology

Tracing Home participating artists casually explain and discuss their works, process, and ideas . These talks are followed by short Q & A sessions and an opportunity to meet and chat with the artists. All talks are presented in the Art Gallery.

NVIDIA Exhibitor Session: GPU Ray Tracing

ACCAD/Ohio State University Alumni Gathering

This reception is for alumni of The Ohio State University who studied at the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts & Design (ACCAD), the Computer Graphics Research Group (CGRG) and/or worked at Cranston/Csuri Productions.

Elaine Smith
elaine (at) accad.osu.edu

Blending of Transforms With Non-Uniform Parent Scale

Imageworks' parent constraint spXformInterp optimally blends multiple transformations while correctly handling the shear induced when rotation is followed by non-uniform scale, and it can do so in an arbitrary space. This is particularly important with forward/inverse kinematics and motion capture, where several redundant skeletons and multiple constraints would otherwise be needed.

Daniel Weston
Sony Pictures Imageworks

The 24th Anniversary CG Show and SAKE Barrel Opening Party at SIGGRAPH 2011

For attendees interested in the CG Show of Yoichiro Kawaguchi, an established Japanese CG artist, and those who would like to reunite or socialize with other attendees.

Yoichiro Kawaguchi
k-yoshida (at) iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Prop Building for VFX

Learn how custom effects and props are built, how they can assist VFX, the processes that go into modern prop building (from laser cutting to CNC and 3D printing), how to use props to provide supplemental lighting and reference, and how to combine these disciplines to create new effects.

Dallas Luther
Maker Faire Vancouver

Studio Views of Student Demo Reels

Industry professionals from various computer animation and visual effects facilities explain what they (and their studios) look for when reviewing demo reels and portfolios of students and recent graduates.

Marc J. Barr (SIGGRAPH Education Committee) and Craig Slagel
mjbarr (at) mtsu.edu

Blue-Noise Point Sampling Using Kernel Density Model

A new method for generating spatially varying stochastic-point distributions with blue-noise spectrum in linear time. The method relies on a novel multi-scale strategy that draws samples from an interacting particles statistical model that formalizes the problem.

Raanan Fattal
Hebrew University

"Rango": A Case of Lighting and Compositing a CG-Animated Feature in an FX-Oriented Facility

A summary of some of the tricks, tools, setups, and procedures used by lighting and compositing artists at Industrial Light & Magic in the production of the animated feature "Rango".

Leandro Estebecorena
Industrial Light & Magic

Nelson Sepulveda
Industrial Light & Magic

Greg Grusby
Industrial Light & Magic

Computer Graphics in the Washington DC Area

A brief talk about the Washington-area computer graphics market, and some of the activities carried out by the Washington DC ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter, showcasing a reel of work by our members at NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board.

Roberto Ortiz
robertoortiz1 (at) yahoo.com

Building Volumetric Appearance Models of Fabric Using Micro CT Imaging

This paper builds volume-appearance models based on density data from X-ray computed tomography (CT) scans and appearance data from photographs under uncontrolled illumination. The resulting models show extreme detail in closeups, while at larger scales the distinctive textures and highlights of a range of fabrics emerge automatically.

Shuang Zhao
Cornell University

Wenzel Jakob
Cornell University

Steve Marschner
Cornell University

Kavita Bala
Cornell University

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Educators Forum Asks: Vocation vs. Sandbox, Which Way Does Your Curriculum Lean?

This session is for attendees who are interested in animation and computer graphics education at all levels. It includes an open discussion led by educators and an opportunity to network.

Dori Littell-Herrick
dori.littell-herrick (at) woodbury.edu

Efficient Maximal Poisson-Disk Sampling

This paper solves the problem of generating a uniform Poisson-disk sampling that is both maximal and unbiased over bounded non-convex domains. The method is fast, requires little memory, and is guaranteed to terminate without any bias. The paper also demonstrates a parallel GPU implementation that performs MPS in a bias-free fashion.

Mohamed Ebeida
Sandia National Laboratories

Anjul Patney
University of California, Davis

Scott Mitchell
University of California, Davis

Andrew Davidson
University of California, Davis

Patrick Knupp
Sandia National Laboratories

John Owens
University of California, Davis

Ocean Mission on "Cars 2"

The challenges and solutions across multiple disciplines in addressing integration of an ocean with characters and lighting in the fast-paced opening action sequence of "Cars 2".

Alexis Angelidis
Pixar Animation Studios

Josh Anon
Pixar Animation Studios

Gary Bruins
Pixar Animation Studios

Jon Reisch
Pixar Animation Studios

Esdras Varagnolo
Pixar Animation Studios

Pocket Reflectometry

A simple, fast solution for reflectance acquisition with a BRDF chart, a linear light source, and a video camera on a mobile phone. Convincing svBRDF results are obtained after less than 30 seconds of data capture in casual environments.

Peiran Ren
Tsinghua University

Jiaping Wang
Microsoft Research Asia

John Snyder
Microsoft Research

Xin Tong
Microsoft Research Asia

Baining Guo
Microsoft Research Asia

Rendering the Interactive Dynamic Natural World of the Game: From Dust

CANCELLED

From Dust is a new game for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC developed at Ubisoft Montpellier. It features a fully dynamic world where sand, water, lava, and vegetation are constantly evolving and ruled by a realistic simulation.

Ronan Bel
Ubisoft Montpellier Studio

Benoît Vimont
Ubisoft Montpellier Studio

Collaboration With the Future: An Infrastructure for Art+Technology at the San José International Airport

This paper summarizes development and implementation of a three-part infrastructure for the ongoing program of technology-based public artwork at Silicon Valley’s newly expanded airport. The physical, technological, and human infrastructure provides flexibility and opportunities for future artists and future technologies while providing a robust framework for ongoing maintenance and evolution of the program, and mediating between the needs of artists and the constraints of an airport.

Matt Gorbet
Gorbet Design, Inc.

Susan Gorbet
Gorbet Design, Inc.

Banny Banerjee
Stanford University

Filtering Solid Gabor Noise

Existing noise functions either introduce discontinuities of the solid noise at sharp edges (wavelet noise, Gabor noise) or result in detail loss when anti-aliased (Perlin noise, wavelet noise). This paper presents a new noise function that preserves continuity over sharp edges and supports high-quality anti-aliasing.

Ares Lagae
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and REVES/INRIA Sophia-Antipolis

George Drettakis
REVES/INRIA Sophia-Antipolis

Art and Code: The Aesthetic Legacy of Aldo Giorgini

Working extensively as both artist and scientist, Aldo Giorgini was one of the first computer artists to combine software writing with early printing technologies. His innovative process consisted of producing pen-plotted drawings embellished by painting, drawing and screen-printing. In 1975, he developed a FORTRAN program called FIELDS, a numerical visual laboratory devoted entirely to art production.

This paper, the product of a multi-year study of Giorgini’s primary source materials provided by his estate, examines the methods he used during the 1970s to create computer-aided art. It is an attempt to ensure that future generations of digital artists, technologists, and scientists can learn about Giorgini’s aesthetic legacy and its contribution to the history of digital art.

Esteban Garcia
Purdue University

David Whittinghill
Purdue University

The Readers Project: Procedural Agents and Literary Vectors

The Readers Project is an aesthetically oriented system of software entities designed to explore the culture of human reading. These entities, or "readers", navigate texts according to specific reading strategies based on linguistic feature analysis and real-time probability models harvested from search engines. They function as autonomous text generators, writing machines that become visible within and beyond the typographic dimension of the texts on which they operate. The system has been deployed in a number of interactive art installations where the aggregate behavior of the readers can be viewed on a large screen, and viewers can subscribe, via mobile devices, to individual reader outputs. As the structures on which these readers operate are culturally and aesthetically implicated, they shed critical light on a range of institutional practices, particularly those of reading and writing, and explore what it means to engage with literary components in digital media.

Daniel Howe
City University of Hong Kong

John Cayley
Brown University

GigaPan Time Machine: Explorable, Gigapixel-Scale Time-Lapse Imagery Authoring Multiresolution, Gigapixel-Scale Video Exploration

This talk presents a system for capturing and stitching gigapixel-scale time-lapse imagery, and for exploring the resulting gigapixel-scale video in four dimensions: 2D translation, zoom, and time. Topics include algorithms for synthesis of gigapixel-scale video, server and client architectures that allow scalable real-time exploration via the web, gigapixel-scale time-lapse videos, and a breadth of applications.

Randy Sargent
Carnegie Mellon University

Costa Rica's CGI Business: Beyond the Rainforest and the Beach!

Costa Rica's growing computer graphics industry is reaching international markets. Discover the creative and innovative side of this thriving and natural country. Presenters include:

Itzamn Huelat
Foreign Trade Office of Costa Rica in Canada

Douglas Sánchez
Costa Rica Investment Promotion Agency

Gustavo Madrigal
Morpho Animation Studio

Itzamn Huelat
ihuelat (at) procomer.com

The XVJ (Xpressive Video-Jockey)

This XVJ session imagines the future of gesturally expressive video-jockeying. It goes beyond knobs and sliders to experiment with I-CubeX sensors, controllers, and input devices that capture more human movements to control audio-visual effects in real time, using Resolume and Live.

Axel Mulder
Infusion Systems Ltd.

Pixar: "La Luna"

"La Luna" is the timeless fable of a young boy who is coming of age in the most peculiar of circumstances. Tonight is the very first time his Papa and Grandpa are taking him to work. In an old wooden boat, they row far out to sea, and with no land in sight, they stop and wait. A big surprise awaits the little boy as he discovers his family's most unusual line of work. Should he follow the example of his Papa, or his Grandpa? Will he be able to find his own way in the midst of their conflicting opinions and timeworn traditions?

Following the Canadian premiere screening of "La Luna", its director, Enrico Casarosa discusses the journey that led him to create this very personal short and demonstrates the singularly artistic style by which the film was crafted.

Enrico Casarosa
Pixar Animation Studios

GlobFit: Consistently Fitting Primitives by Discovering Global Relations

A method to align locally detected RANSAC primitives using global relations, which are learned and conformed to using a combination of graph reduction and constrained optimization. The paper demonstrates applications on synthetic and scanned data, even under structured noise and anisotropic sampling.

Yangyan Li
Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology

Xiaokun Wu
Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology and Zhejiang University

Yiorgos Chrysanthou
University of Cyprus

Andrei Sharf
Ben-Gurion University and Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology

Daniel Cohen-Or
Tel Aviv University

Niloy J. Mitra
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

3D Workflows in Photoshop Cs5 Extended

This summary of all the 3D features in Photoshop CS5 Extended demonstrates key 3D workflows that are important for every designer. Topics include: how 3D works in Photoshop (lights, cameras, materials, extrusions) and cool effects like depth of field, animations, image-based lights, and more!

Zorana Gee
Wacom Co., Ltd.

Global Registration of Dynamic Range Scans for Articulated Model Reconstruction

The articulated global registration algorithm presented in this work aligns multiple range scans simultaneously to reconstruct a full poseable 3D model. Solving for surface motion using linear-blend skinning and automatically modeled joints allows users to interactively manipulate the resulting 3D model and create new animations.

Will Chang
University of California, San Diego

Matthias Zwicker
Universität Bern

Parameterizing Animated Lines for Stylized Rendering

A method to parameterize temporally coherently lines generated from animated 3D models in the context of animated line drawings.

Bert Buchholz
École d'Ingénieurs Télécom ParisTech

Tamy Boubekeur
École d'Ingénieurs Télécom ParisTech

Noura Faraj
École d'Ingénieurs Télécom ParisTech

Elmar Eisemann
École d'Ingénieurs Télécom ParisTech

Sylvain Paris
Adobe Systems Incorporated

Texture-Lobes for Tree Modeling

In this lobe-based tree representation for modeling trees, the tree’s foliage is abstracted into compact canonical geometry structures, called lobe-textures. The method introduces techniques to encode a given tree as lobe-based representation and decode the representation and synthesize a fully detailed tree model.

Yotam Livny
Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology

Soeren Pirk
Universität Konstanz

Zhanglin Cheng
Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology

Feilong Yan
Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology

Oliver Deussen
Universität Konstanz

Daniel Cohen-Or
Tel-Aviv University

Baoquan Chen
Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology

Multiperspective Rendering for Anime-Like Exaggeration of Joint Models

This proposed method, viewpoint hierarchy, offers a multiperspective rendering specialized to depict anime-like exaggeration of perspective of a figure model in accordance with camera motion and the figure's posture, using a tree structure of multiple cameras.

Kei Utsugi
Hitach, Ltd.

Takeshi Naemura
The University of Tokyo

Takafumi Koike
Hitachi, Ltd.

Michio Oikawa
Hitachi, Ltd.

ℓ1-Sparse Reconstruction of Sharp Point Set Surfaces

With this ℓ1-sparse reconstruction of piecewise smooth objects, common objects can be characterized by a small number of features that introduce sparsity into the model. The reconstruction gives rise to shapes that consist mainly of smooth modes, with the objective function residual concentrated near sharp features.

Haim Avron
Tel-Aviv University, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Andrei Sharf
Ben Gurion University

Chen Greif
The University of British Columbia

Daniel Cohen-Or
Tel-Aviv University

Learning to Classify Human Object Sketches

This talk summarizes design of a large training dataset of over 5,000 human sketches in about 200 object categories and how classifiers were trained to accurately predict object categories for a large variety of sketches.

Mathias Eitz
Technischen Universität Berlin

James Hays
Brown University

Ornate Screens

Ornament has been abolished by the avant-garde, and ornamentation has been replaced by material aesthetic. This talk argues that ornament is not a parergon, an unnecessary accessory, but that the parergon, the ornament, actually becomes the ergon, the main element.

Judith Reitz
Akademie für Internationale Bildung and Texas A&M University

ISEA International Foundation - Open Forum

Founded in the Netherlands in 1990, ISEA International Foundation (formerly Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts) is an international nonprofit organization fostering interdisciplinary academic discourse and exchange among culturally diverse organizations and individuals working with art, science, and technology. The main activity of ISEA International is the annual International Symposium on Electronic Art. Selection of ISEA symposia is made by the ISEA International Foundation Board.

This discussion includes information about the organization, the upcoming ISEA2012 Albuquerque: Machine Wilderness, a symposium and series of events exploring the discourse of global proportions on the subject of art, technology, and nature. It also previews ISEA2013, in Sydney, Australia. All interested members of the electronic arts community are invited to learn about the future symposia and share ideas for potential organizational collaborations.

Sue Gollifer
Director, ISEA International Headquarters
info (at) isea-web.org

Creation of Your Own Digital Fashion Show

Did you ever dream of having your fashion design on a body of your own creation walking the fashion runway? In this class, which uses the Digital Clothing Suite software, human character and pattern data are given to the attendees so that they can learn how to seam patterns, simulate draping of the garment on a walking model, apply and manipulate different images to generate their own textile design, and save the final result into an animation clip. Your clips will be shown in The Studio during the conference. Conference attendees will vote on their favorite designs and the best designer will be awarded a six month free trial of the Digital Clothing Suite at the end of the conference. Participants are welcome to bring images/graphics to use for their custom textile design and to save their work on a flash drive to take home with them.

Kathi Martin
Drexel University

Hyeong-Seok Ko
Seoul National University

ACM SIGGRAPH Carto BOF

This ACM SIGGRAPH Cartographic Visualization (Carto) sessioin explores how viewpoints and techniques from the computer graphics community can be effectively applied to cartographic and spatial datasets.

Theresa-Marie Rhyne
theresamarierhyne (at) gmail.com

Daily Art Tours

Members of the Art Galley committee offer 30-minute guided tours to introduce visitors to Tracing Home and some of the specific artworks displayed in the exhibition. The daily tours begin in the Art Gallery.

How to Capture Your Dream

Ping Fu, founder and CEO of Geomagic Inc., describes her journey from a computer science student to a computer graphics pioneer and ultimately an entrepreneur dedicated to advancing and applying 3D technology for the benefit of humanity. Her talk weaves technology, applications, and social impact to illustrate the importance of visual computing and its contribution to everyday life today and in the future.

Ping Fu
Geomagic Inc.

Web3D Consortium - Declarative 3D for the Web

Declarative 3D for the Web is a W3C Community Group that explores and suggests options for integrating a declarative approach to interactive 3D graphics directly into HTML, which enables its use in any web page.

Johannes Behr Kristian Sons
Johannes.Behr (at) igd.fraunhofer.de kristian.sons (at) dfki.de

Modeling 3D Urban Spaces Using Procedural and Simulation-Based Techniques

Traditionally, modeling urban spaces has been a mostly manual task that consumes significant amounts of resources. With the growing requirements of quantity and quality in urban content, there is an imperative need for alternative solutions that allow for fast, semiautomatic urban modeling. This course explains new modeling techniques for urban environments as an important complement to traditional modeling software. It explains how to use procedural, image-based, and simulation-based techniques to efficiently create highly detailed three-dimensional urban models for computer games, movies, architecture, and urban planning.

The course surveys five major topics:

• Urban layouts and road modeling
• Computational building design
• Image-based modeling of facades and buildings
• Urban simulation and visualization work
• Procedural urban modeling in industry

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Introduction

2:10 pm
Urban Layouts and Road Networks
Aliaga

2:40 pm
Computational Building Design
Wonka

3:05 pm
Image-based Buildings and Façades
Aliaga & Wonka

3:30 pm
Break

3:45 pm
Bridging the gap between Urban Simulation and Urban Modeling
Vanegas

4:20 pm
Procedural Urban Modeling in the Industry
Müller

4:50 pm
Modeling the City of London in Cars 2
Frederickson

5:05 pm
Final Remarks

Interactive and Anisotropic Geometry Processing Using the Screened Poisson Equation

A general framework for performing curvature-aware geometry processing through solution of a screened Poisson equation and a parallel streaming implementation for constructing and solving the associated linear system at interactive rates.

Michael Kazhdan
Johns Hopkins University

Ming Chuang
Johns Hopkins University

Dynamic 3D & Photoshop Integration

How to creatively integrate 3D models into Photoshop CS5 Extended to create concept art. This session focuses on how to import, texture, and build a mate painting with third-party 3D models in CS5.

Stephen Burns
The San Diego Photoshop Users Group

CG in Latino Countries

This overview of the state of CG in Latino countries includes a special presentation by various studios in Latin America, including 3D Animation Rocks, the largest animation school in Argentina, and a university in Chile. The session ends with a celebratory piñata.

Sandro Alberti
salberti (at) siggraph.org

Beyond Programmable Shading II

There are strong indications that the future of interactive graphics programming is a more flexible model than today’s OpenGL/Direct3D pipelines. Graphics developers need to have a basic understanding of how to combine emerging parallel programming techniques and more flexible graphics processors with the traditional interactive-rendering pipeline.

As the second in a series, this course introduces trends and directions in this emerging field: parallel graphics architectures, parallel programming models for graphics, and how game developers are investigating the use of these new capabilities in future rendering engines.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Welcome and Re-Introduction
Houston

2:05 pm
Toward a Blurry Rasterizer (State of the Art)
Munkberg

2:45 pm
Order-independent transparency (state of the Art)
Salvi

3:15 pm
Interactive Global Illumination (State of the Art)
Wyman

3:45 pm
User-Defined Pipelines for Ray Tracing
Parker

4:15 pm
Panel: "What Is the Right Cross-Platform Abstraction Level for Real-Time 3D Rendering?"
Moderator:
Peter-Pike Sloan, Disney Interactive

Panelists:
David Blythe, Intel Corporation
Raja Koduri, Apple, Inc.
Henry Moreton, NVIDIA Corporation
Mike Houston, AMD
Chas Boyd, Microsoft

Advanced Creation of Your Own Digital Fashion Show

This workshop is a sequel to Creation of Your Own Digital Fashion Show. Advanced topics include: how to create a custom body; edit the patterns; create and apply darts, gathers, and pleats to the patterns; render and create high-resolution images; and import and export body and clothing data between Maya and the Digital Clothing Suite. Finished animations are shown in The Studio, where attendees vote on their favorite designs. The best designer receives a six-month free trial of the Digital Clothing Suite.

Kathi Martin
Drexel University

Hyeong-Seok Ko
Seoul National University

A Comprehensive Theory of Volumetric Radiance Estimation Using Photon Points and Beams

A novel, comprehensive theory of volumetric radiance estimation that leads to new insights and includes all previous radiance estimates as special cases. The authors use this theory to develop a more efficient rendering method for participating media based on "photon beams".

Wojciech Jarosz
Disney Research Zürich

Derek Nowrouzezahrai
Disney Research Zürich and University of Toronto

Iman Sadeghi
University of California, San Diego

Henrik Wann Jensen
University of California, San Diego

"Megamind" - Lighting Metro City at Night

Lighting Metro City at night required solving the lighting challenge known as the "many lights" problem. This sketch describes how the lighting department solved this challenge.

Jimmy Maidens
DreamWorks Animation

Philippe Denis
DreamWorks Animation

Gianni Aliotti
DreamWorks Animation

An Efficient Scheme for Curve and Surface Construction Based on a Set of Interpolatory Basis Functions

By interpolating basis functions built on the Sinc function with a Guassian multiplier, this technique constructs freeform interpolatory curves and surfaces through scattered data points.

Renjiang Zhang
Zhejiang Gongshang University

Weiyin Ma
City University of Hong Kong

Cache-Oblivious Ray Reordering

A novel heuristic ray-reordering method for incoherent secondary rays. Its benefits are demonstrated in two stochastic rendering methods and different cache levels.

Bochang Moon
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Yongyoung Byun
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Tae-Joon Kim
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Pio Claudio
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Hye-sun Kim
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute

Yun-ji Ban
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute

Seung Woo Nam
Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute

Sung-eui Yoon
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

OpenColorIO Meetup

OpenColorIO is an open-source color management framework for visual effects and animation, sponsored by Sony Pictures Imageworks. Meet the developers, ask questions, and learn about upcoming developments.

Jeremy Selan
jeremys (at) imageworks.com

French Animation Showcase - Session 2

Come and enjoy a selection of state-of-the art animation films from the best French schools and artists! A selection by Annie Dissaux - AFCA. Networking opportunities after the session.

French Consulate in Vancouver, Masters of Digital Media Program, Association française du cinéma d'animation, Rencontres Audiovisuelles de Lille
raynald.belay (at) consulfrance-vancouver.org

Motion Graphics

This session is for attendees interested in motion graphics. Come and see cool projects, and exchange techniques and ideas!

Gil Irizarry
gil (at) conoa.com

Web3D Consortium Town Hall Meeting

This year has been particularly exciting, since a host of new technologies and initiatives are coming out of the Web3D Consortium. This session reviews the latest developments. Meet consortium members and learn more about our technology.

Anita Havele
anita.havele (at) web3d.org

Let There Be Hair

The trademark look of Rapunzel in Disney's "Tangled" presented unique challenges in grooming, rendering, and pipeline management. This talk discusses the original hair road map, changes required during production, and how the XGen system was used for grooming, rendering, and managing the hair data.

Thomas V. Thompson II
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Sean Jenkins
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Chuck Tappan
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Digital Painting With ArtRage

ArtRage (owned by Ambient Design) is an easy-to-use, stylish painting package for Windows, Mac OS X, and iPad. This session explains the basics of ArtRage's painting functionality for texturing and art.

Uwe Maurer

Expression Flow for 3D-Aware Face Component Transfer

This paper addresses the problem of transferring facial components between images with different expressions. Expression Flow is a 2D flow field that warps the target face globally so that the warped face becomes compatible with the new feature to be blended in.

Fei Yang
Rutgers University

Jue Wang
Adobe Systems Incorporated

Eli Shechtman
Adobe Systems Incorporated

Lubomir Bourdev
University of California, Berkeley

Dimitri Metaxas
Rutgers University

Articulated Swimming Creatures

A general approach to creating realistic swimming behavior for a given articulated creature body, which includes creature/fluid simulation and swimming gait optimization. For a wide variety of aquatic creatures with different body shapes, the resulting motion matches that of real-world animals.

Jie Tan
Georgia Institute of Technology

Yuting Gu
Georgia Institute of Technology

Greg Turk
Georgia Institute of Technology

Karen Liu
Georgia Institute of Technology

Accurate Contact Resolution for Interpolated Hairs

An accurate, robust, and efficient method to handle penetration between interpolated hairs and subdivision surfaces during render time. The method works by converting the subdivision surfaces to Bezier patches and performing accurate hair-patch intersections using Newton's method. The method works on every frame independently.

Rony Goldenthal
Industrial Light & Magic

Exploring Photobios

A method for generating face animations from large image collections of the same person, by computing an optimized, aligned subsequence. This approach is the basis for the Picasa's Face Movies feature. A key contribution of this paper is proving why the cross dissolve produces a strong motion effect.

Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman
University of Washington

Eli Shechtman
Adobe Systems Incorporated

Rahul Garg
University of Washington

Steven M. Seitz
University of Washington

Composite Control of Physically Simulated Characters

This approach to constructing composite controllers that track multiple trajectories in parallel generates both high-quality animations and natural responses to certain disturbances.

Uldarico Muico
University of Washington

Jovan Popović
Abobe Systems Incorporated

Zoran Popović
University of Washington

Tracing Home participating artists casually explain and discuss their works, process, and ideas . These talks are followed by short Q & A sessions and an opportunity to meet and chat with the artists. All talks are presented in the Art Gallery.

Global Pipelines v2

This companion event to the panel titled is an informal gathering to discuss the complex relationships between technology and collaboration for distributed work environments.

Erik Strauss
estrauss (at) imageworks.com

Dynamic Simulation in Production

This session is for attendees interested in hearing about and discussing the latest trends in dynamic simulation (rigid, cloth, hair, fluids, etc.) in production. Come. Connect. Collaborate. Experience. Enjoy. Eat.

Mark A. McLaughlin
mark.mclaughlin (at) disney.com

ACM SIGGRAPH Pioneer Reception

Open to all Pioneers.

What Industry Needs Graduates and New Hires to Know

Knowledge and skill requirements for graduates and new hires.

Marc J. Barr (SIGGRAPH Education Committee) and Ryan Kuba
mjbarr (at) mtsu.edu

Stereoscopy From XY to Z

Stereoscopy has been very well known since the 19th century. The theory is very simple: just present a left view of a scene to the left eye, and a right view to the right eye, and the viewer's brain perceives the depth of the scene. In 2011, stereoscopy is everywhere: in the latest blockbuster movies, in theaters, at home on 3D displays, in games on all platforms, and even on the go with the new wave of capable portable devices. Though the concept is simple, realizing a comfortable and convincing stereoscopic experience for the user implies many aesthetic and technical considerations that revolutionize our way of creating graphics content.

This comprehensive course summarizes standard stereo-projection techniques, audience depth perception and comfort factors, recommended uses of depth as a storytelling tool, how stereo is used in gaming and real-time applications, details on conversion of 2D content to 3D, guidance on new creative choices, and using depth in an aesthetic way.

COURSE SCHEDULE

9 am
Introduction and Welcome
Gateau

9:05 am
Stereoscopy Fundamentals and Depth Perception
Gateau

9:40 am
Stereopsis and 3D Hints
Salvati

10:10 am
Depth as a Storytelling Tool
Neuman

10:30 am
Real-Time and Gaming Techniques
Gateau

11 am
Cartoon Authoring for 3D
Salvati

11:30 am
Creative Choices for 3D
Neuman

11:50 am
Managing a Depth Budget
Neuman

12:10 pm
Conclusion: Questions

Industrial Light & Magic Presents: Getting Dirty: Bringing the Digital Feature “Rango” to Life

This in-depth discussion focuses on the production of Industrial Light & Magic’s first animated feature “Rango”. ILM’s unique approach to the genre brings a new dimension to the animated feature, giving “Rango” the visceral quality that the company is best known for in its visual effects work. The presenters review all aspects of the work from initial asset development through animation, simulation, lighting, and compositing.

Developing a Fab Lab for 3D Data Capture, Modeling, and Prototyping

Carlo Sammarco
Arizona State University
Dan Collins
Arizona State University

Don Vance
Arizona State University

Cinematography: The Visuals & the Story

The virtual or actual camera, its placement in a scene, the choice of lens, the camera's movement, the lighting, color, and exposure all contribute to visual communication between the storytelling cinematographer and the audience. How each of these visual variables is controlled and used to help tell a story gives dramatic structure to a sequence and ultimately communicates moods and emotions to the viewer is critical to making any story come alive. A story has structure. The visuals must have structure, too.

COURSE SCHEDULE

9:05 am
Visual Space

9:20 am
Story Structure and Visual Structure

9:50 am
Line and Shape

10 am
Color and Tone

10:15 am
Movement and Rhythm

10:25 am
Summary and Review

ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters Business Meeting

The annual business meeting for the ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters.

Scott Lang
scott (at) siggraph.org

Animation Workflow in Killzone 3: A Fast Facial Retargeting System for Game Characters

Applying facial motion capture data on a virtual actor is always a tedious task. This talk explains a technique that helped Guerrilla Games deliver more than 30 different faces over 70 minutes of cut scenes for the AAA PlayStation 3-exclusive title Killzone 3.

Andrea Arghinenti
Guerrilla Games

Visualizing and Understanding Players’ Behavior in Video Games: Discovering Patterns and Supporting Aggregation and Comparison

There is a growing need for procedures that can support analysis and understanding of players’ behaviors within game environments. This paper proposes a system that allows analysts to build and compare visualizations of clusters of players to better understand the causes and effects of players’ actions.

Dinara Moura
Simon Fraser University

Magy Seif el-Nasr
Simon Fraser University

Christopher D. Shaw
Simon Fraser University

LR: Compact Connectivity Representation for Triangle Meshes

LR is a compact data structure for representing the connectivity of manifold triangle meshes. It supports constant-time incidence and adjacency queries while storing only one integer reference per triangle. Its greedy, linear-time construction involves ordering the vertices along a nearly Hamiltonian cycle.

Topraj Gurung
Georgia Institute of Technology

Mark Luffel
Georgia Institute of Technology

Peter Lindstrom
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Jarek Rossignac
Georgia Institute of Technology

Evaluating Gesture-Based Games With Older Adults on a Large-Screen Display

This work reports on design and evaluation of three novel gesture-based games with healthy older adults. It describes key features in the physical and social engagement, and general usability of the games, to determine their applicability to the target audience.

Mark Rice
Institute for Infocomm Research

Marcus Wan
Institute for Infocomm Research

Min-Hui Foo
Institute for Infocomm Research

Jamie Ng
Institute for Infocomm Research

Zyndie Wai
Institute for Infocomm Research

Janell Kwok
Institute for Infocomm Research

Samuel Lee
Institute for Infocomm Research

Linda Teo
Institute for Infocomm Research

High-Resolution Relightable Buildings From Photographs

A low-cost image-based system that facilitates recovery of gross scale geometry, local surface detail, and approximated albedo to create highly detailed 3D models of building façades from photographs. The system requires simple data capture and modest user intervention.

Francho Melendez
The University of Manchester

Mashhuda Glencross
Loughborough University

Gregory. J. Ward
Dolby Canada

Roger J. Hubbold
The University of Manchester

The Impact of Negative Game Reviews and User Comments on Player Experience

This study of how game reviews and user comments influence player experience found that players who read negative reviews rated the game lower than those who read either positive reviews or no reviews at all.

Ian Livingston
University of Saskatchewan

Lennart Nacke
University of Saskatchewan

Regan Mandryk
University of Saskatchewan

OPTIS

Physics-Based Virtual Reality
Thanks to their unique physics-based approach, OPTIS light-simulation specialists provide real-time, predictive visualization solutions based on measured physical properties of surfaces and materials. OPTIS solutions are used by engineers, ergonomists, and designers to optimize perceived quality and the visual ergonomics of HMIs.

Practical integration of Alembic

A dialogue with the Alembic development team focused on pipeline integration and optimization of the format. Topics include API usage, collaboration with studio partners, and standardization of the format.

Erik Strauss
estrauss (at) imageworks.com

Motion Capture Society

This session is open to everyone who has an interest in motion capture. Topics and presentations include various hardware and software solutions, pipelines, and techniques for getting the best data.

Troy McFarland
troy.mcfarland (at) gmail.com

Animation by Young Asian Artists

The Digital Content Association of Japan (DCAJ) shows some of the animation works by young Asian artists who won prizes at the Digital Creators Competition 2010.

Eddie Suzuki
suzuki (at) dcaj.or.jp

World Creation in CryENGINE

Have you ever wanted to make a videogame? This session shows how to build a small level in the freely available CryENGINE 3 SDK. Topics include: world building and tools (FlowGraph, CryENGINE's visual scripting language, and Trackview, the camera sequencing and directing tools). In less than an hour, attendees create their own playable video games.

Chris Evans
CryENGINE

Production Volume Rendering 1

Computer-generated volumetric elements such as clouds, fire, and whitewater are becoming commonplace in movie production. The goal of this course is to familiarize attendees with the technology behind these effects. The presenters have experience with and have authored proprietary volumetrics tools.

The course begins with an introduction to generating and rendering volumes, then presents a production-usable volumetrics toolkit, focusing on the feature set and why those features are desirable. Special emphasis is focused on the approaches taken in tackling efficient data structures, shading approaches, multi-threading/parallelization, holdouts, and motion blurring.

COURSE SCHEDULE

10:45 am
Introduction to Production Volume Rendering
Bin Zafar

11 am
Volume Modeling Fundamentals Wrenninge

11:40 am
Volume Rendering Fundamentals
Bin Zafar

12:10 pm
Questions and Answers

Industrial Application of CG in Japan

The Digital Content Association of Japan (DCAJ) presents some of the most recent examples of industrial application of CG technology in Japan.

Eddie Suzuki
suzuki (at) dcaj.or.jp

We Built This City: Big City Design and Implementation in "Kung Fu Panda 2"

This presentation describes construction of a large city environment for DreamWorks Animation's "Kung Fu Panda 2", including how the chosen technique was driven at every step by the film's design language and story needs to deliver an epic setting within reasonable time constraints.

Wes Burian
DreamWorks Animation

Dynamic 3D & Photoshop Integration

How to creatively integrate 3D models into Photoshop CS5 Extended to create concept art. This session focuses on how to import, texture, and build a mate painting with third-party 3D models in CS5.

Stephen Burns
The San Diego Photoshop Users Group

Local Laplacian Filters: Edge-Aware Image Processing With a Laplacian Pyramid

This paper demonstrates state-of-the-art edge-aware image processing using Laplacian pyramids. The advantage of this approach is its conceptual simplicity and flexibility, based on simple point-wise nonlinearities; no optimization or post-processing is required. The method produces consistently high-quality results, without degrading edges or introducing halos.

Sylvain Paris
Adobe Systems Incorporated

Sam Hasinoff
Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago and MIT CSAIL

Jan Kautz
University College London

Frame-Based Elastic Models

A new type of deformable model that combines the realism of physically based models and the usability of frame-based skinning methods. The degrees of freedom are coordinate frames. Viscoelastic forces are computed based on continuous media mechanics applied to the smoothly deformed volume.

Benjamin Gilles
The University of British Columbia, INRIA

Guillaume Bousquet
Université de Grenoble, LJK, INRIA

François Faure
Université de Grenoble, LJK, INRIA

Dinesh Pai
The University of British Columbia

Domain Transform for Edge-Aware Image and Video Processing

A new approach for performing high-quality edge-preserving filtering of images and videos in real time.

Eduardo S.L. Gastal
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Manuel M. Oliveira
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Example-Based Elastic Materials

This example-based approach for simulating complex elastic material behavior constructs an example manifold that acts as an additional elastic attractor and guides the object toward preferred shapes. It allows implementation of inhomogeneous and anisotropic materials in a direct and intuitive way.

Sebastian Martin
ETH Zürich

Bernhard Thomaszewski
Disney Research Zürich and ETH Zürich

Eitan Grinspun
Columbia University

Markus Gross
Disney Research Zürich and ETH Zürich

Non-Rigid Dense Correspondence With Applications for Image Enhancement

A new efficient method for joint recovery of both reliable local dense correspondences and a global parametric color transformation model between two images. The paper demonstrates several applications of this method for automatic example-based enhancement of photographs that share some content.

Yoav Hacohen
The Hebrew University

Eli Shechtman
Adobe Systems Incorporated

Dan Goldman
Adobe Systems Incorporated

Dani Lischinski
The Hebrew University

Starting a New, Remote Studio

Studio heads from Pixar Canada, Digital Domain (Vancouver), and Sony Imageworks (Vancouver) host an interactive panel session on setting up new remote studios in Vancouver.

Sarah McNair
smcnair (at) pixarcanada.com

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

OpenCL and OpenGL/DirectX Interoperability
The computing power of GPUs is now accessible to improve the interactivity of 3D graphics. Leveraging this capability requires optimum interoperability between compute (OpenCL) and graphics APIs (OpenGL/DirectX). This talk demonstrates how to compute and update geometry with OpenCL on APUs, how to update VBO on discrete GPUs, and how to compute physics data on OpenCL and transfer those data to discrete GPUs.

rest3d BOF

This session is for attendees interested in creating a RESTful web service for 3D content. More information: rest3d.org

Remi Arnaud
remi (at) acm.org

Professional and Student ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters Start-Up Meeting

The Professional and Student Chapters of ACM SIGGRAPH span the globe. Within their local areas, chapters continue the work of ACM SIGGRAPH on a year-round basis via their meetings and other activities. Each chapter consists of individuals involved in education, research and development, the arts, industry, and entertainment who are interested in the advancement of computer graphics and interactive techniques, related technologies, and their applications. Chapter members gather throughout the year at meetings, site visits, conferences, video screenings, art shows, and special events.

This session explains how to start and run a successful ACM SIGGRAPH Professional or Student Chapter. Topics regarding the process are outlined in detail by members of the Chapters Committee, and the session concludes with a Q&A session.

Scott Lang
scott (at) siggraph.org

Daily Art Tours

Members of the Art Galley committee offer 30-minute guided tours to introduce visitors to Tracing Home and some of the specific artworks displayed in the exhibition. The daily tours begin in the Art Gallery.

The New Media and the Industry in China

Representatives from Chinese industry and universities discuss how their digital media programs are developing to meet the needs of their exploding economy.

SIGGRAPH Education Committee, Marc J. Barr
mjbarr (at) mtsu.edu

Games at SIGGRAPH Meetup

The goal of this session is to encourage dialog about new technologies in game development and interactive graphics. Discussion topics include mobile and social games, research in games and interactive graphics, and effective collaboration.

David Milam
dma35 (at) sfu.ca

Production Volume Rendering 2

Computer-generated volumetric elements such as clouds, fire, and whitewater are becoming commonplace visual effects. This course provides a behind-the-scenes look at the techniques used and how they are implemented. It demonstrates tools and workflows that are not typically covered in production talks but are integral to successful completion of many effects.

The presenters, who have innovated the use of volumetric methods in industry and created some of the most impressive on-screen effects, summarize how specific artistic needs lead to innovations and review the success and evolution of their methods. They also discuss the software-engineering issues they have encountered and their solutions.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Introduction
Bin Zafar

2:05 pm
Rhythm & Hues
Tessendorf & Grant

2:35 pm
Clinton

3:05 pm
Weta Digital
Bouthors

3:35 pm
Break

3:55 pm
Double Negative
Harding & Graham

4:25 pm
Sony Pictures Imageworks
Wrenninge

GPU Ray Tracing

Join the third annual GPU Ray Tracing Birds of a Feather session. Show off your demos. Share your use cases, ideas, and gripes. High-performance CPU ray tracing is welcome, too.

NVIDIA Advanced Rendering Center
davemc (at) nvidia.com

End of Line: Character Destruction in "Tron: Legacy"

The tools developed at Digital Domain to create unique character destruction effects that are art directable.

Atsushi Ikarashi
Digital Domain

Edmond Smith
Digital Domain

Ryo Sakaguchi
Digital Domain

Brian Gazdik
Digital Domain

Nafees Bin Zafar
DreamWorks Animation

Character Rigging, Deformations, and Simulations in Film and Game Production

This course focuses on rigging, deformations, dynamics, and production practices in animation, visual effects and game development. Topics include analysis of performance requirements, motion system set-up, procedural rigging for secondary animation, and efficient extension of techniques over a wide range of primary and secondary characters.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Welcome and Introductions of Speakers
McLaughlin

2:05 pm
Structure of the Course and Overview of Our Approach to Rigging [What the Course is and What it is Not]
McLaughlin

2:15 pm
Rigging for Visual Effects
McLaughlin

3:05 pm
Immediate Questions
McLaughlin

3:10 pm
Rigging for Games
Coleman

4 pm
Immediate Questions
Coleman

4:05 pm
Rigging for Feature Animation
Cutler

4:55 pm
Immediate Questions
Cutler

5 pm
General Questions and Answers
McLaughlin, Coleman, and Cutler

An Introduction Into After Effects for Motion Graphics

An overview of the basic function of timeline-based animation using Adobe After Effects for motion graphics. Topics include: interface, workflow, using the timeline, layers, integration with Photoshop basic type, and object animation.

Mike Ring
The Garden

Blended Intrinsic Maps

This method for inter-surface mapping generates a map between two surfaces by blending multiple low-dimensional (conformal) maps with smoothly varying weights. Performance is evaluated on a diverse dataset and compared our resulting maps to several state-of-the-art methods.

Vladimir Kim
Princeton University

Yaron Lipman
Princeton University

Thomas Funkhouser
Princeton University

Kali: High-Quality FEM Destruction in Zack Snyder's "Sucker Punch"

The Moving Picture Company introduces Kali, a finite-element-based simulation toolkit for large-scale and detailed destruction, developed in collaboration with Pixelux. The toolkit is described with examples from Zack Snyder's "Sucker Punch".

Ben Cole
The Moving Picture Company

Interactive Region-Based Linear 3D Face Models

A linear face modelling approach that generalizes better to unseen data and allows click-and-drag interaction for animation. The model consists of a collection of linear submodels independently trained but related through shared boundaries. It is demonstrated on dense-face motion capture data.

J. Rafael Tena
Disney Research Pittsburgh

Fernando De la Torre
Carnegie Mellon University

Iain Matthews
Disney Research Pittsburgh

Photo-Inspired Model-Driven 3D Object Modeling

An algorithm for photo-inspired creative 3D modeling where the user draws inspiration from a single photograph and the modeling process is supported by an available set of candidate objects.

Kai Xu
National University of Defense Technology and Simon Fraser University

Hanlin Zheng
Zhejiang University

Richard (Hao) Zhang
Simon Fraser University

Daniel Cohen-Or
Tel Aviv University

Ligang Liu
Zhejiang University

Yueshan Xiong
National University of Defense Technology

Choreographing Destruction: Art Directing a Dam Break in "Tangled"

Creation of a highly art directed "dam breaking with resulting flood" sequence for Disney's "Tangled" by applying the 12 basic principles of animation to a fluid-based simulation through post manipulation of timing and shape.

Michael Kaschalk
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Brett Boggs
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Andrew Selle
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Lawrence Chai
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Using Processing and G-Speak as Tools Within a Foundations Program at a School of Art and Design

Teaching design with Processing, drawing with G-Speak: how the Rhode Island School of Design's Division of Foundation Studies is expanding the envelope of introductory digital concepts for students of art and design.

Mark Milloff and Clement Valla
mmilloff (at) risd.edu

Rhinoceros 5.0: A Look at the UDT Commands

Explore Rhino commands that use its uniform deformation technology to morph and bend 3D geometry.

Jerry Hambly
McNeel Associates

Join the International Resources Committee in 2012!

Informal overview of the ACM SIGGRAPH International Resources Committee, its year-round activities, and the International Center at the annual SIGGRAPH conference.

Are you a world citizen interested in international culture and the state of computer graphics across the globe? The committee is looking for volunteers to represent these world regions: USA + Canada, Mexico, South + Central America, Southern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe + Russia, Africa + Middle East, Korea, Southeast Asia + China + India, Japan, Australia + New Zealand.

Sensor Calibration

Each camera model has different exposure responses as it performs accurate long exposures or combines exposures for HDR. For optimum results, it is imperative to know your specific camera's sensor response. This presentation explains sensor response, sensor noise, and how to establish the appropriate sensor response for your camera. Topics include:

• How does a camera sensor work?
• What is sensor noise?
• How to evaluate your camera sensor.
• What does sensor noise add to your image exposure?
• How to build an exposure-gain chart for your camera.
• Post noise control.
• Determining image-sensors limitations.

Lee Peterson

Organic Motion

Organic Motion Unveils the Latest Developments in Next-Generation Computer Vision
Preview the building blocks of human-computer interaction.

Crowds on "Cars 2"

A discussion of how the "Cars 2" character and crowd departments co-developed a strategy to maximize show asset efficiency and agent behavioral flexibility into a production pipeline doubling the shot throughput.

Robert Moyer
Pixar Animation Studios

Michael Lorenzen
Pixar Animation Studios

J.D. Northrup
Pixar Animation Studios

Trent Crow
Pixar Animation Studios

Stephen Gustafson
Pixar Animation Studios

Jake Merrell
Pixar Animation Studios

Make it Home: Automatic Optimization of Furniture Arrangement

This paper introduces a framework for automatic generation of furniture arrangement, considering human factors such as accessibility, visibility, pathways, etc. The framework generates arrangements for a variety of scenarios.

Lap-Fai Yu
University of California, Los Angeles

Sai-Kit Yeung
University of California, Los Angeles

Chi-Keung Tang
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Demetri Terzopoulos
University of California, Los Angeles

Tony F. Chan
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Stanley Osher
University of California, Los Angeles

Two-Scale Particle Simulation

A two-scale method for particle-based fluids that allocates computing resources to regions of the fluid where complex flow behavior emerges. This method produces similar surface details as the single-resolution simulation while improving the efficiency.

Barbara Solenthaler
ETH Zürich

Markus Gross
ETH Zürich

Interactive Furniture Layout Using Interior Design Guidelines

An interactive furniture layout system that assists users by suggesting furniture arrangements based on interior design guidelines. Results demonstrate that the suggestion-generation functionality measurably increases the quality of furniture arrangements produced by participants with no prior training in interior design.

Paul Merrell
Stanford University

Eric Schkufza
Stanford University

Zeyang Li
Stanford University

Maneesh Agrawala
University of California, Berkeley

Vladlen Koltun
Stanford University

A PML-Based Nonreflective Boundary for Free Surface Fluid Animation

This paper presents a method for achieving non-reflecting boundaries when animating free surface fluids. The boundaries are based on the perfectly matched layer (PML) approach and are intended to allow localized high-quality simulations of large fluid domains such as oceans.

Andreas Söderström
Linköpings universitet

Matts Karlsson
Linköpings universitet

Ken Museth
DreamWorks Animation

Interactive Architectural Modeling With Procedural Extrusions

Procedural extrusion is a new, easy-to-use tool that combines arbitrary plans and profiles to create a wide range of architectural forms. This paper demonstrates the technique's application to procedural modeling of cityscapes.

Tom Kelly
University of Glasgow

Peter Wonka
Arizona State University

Guide Shapes for High-Resolution Naturalistic Liquid Simulation

To efficiently obtain natural-looking liquid simulations subject to art direction, this method processes approved low-resolution geometry into a "guide shape" just below the liquid surface. The final high-resolution simulation runs just a surface layer constrained by the guide, with benefits for both speed and control.

Michael Nielsen
Weta Digital Ltd

Robert Bridson
University of British Columbia and Weta Digital Ltd

Animating Fire With Sound

A technique for synthesizing synchronized sounds for physically based fire animations. A hybrid method simulates low-frequency flame sounds using a physics-based approach, and then uses bandwidth extension and sound-texture synthesis to synthesize fiery high-frequency details.

Jeffrey Chadwick
Cornell University

Doug James
Cornell University

OpenGL

Learn more about OpenGL, the most widely adopted 2D/3D graphics API, from the ARB and leading OpenGL companies.

Khronos Group
marketing (at) goldstandardgroup.com

Undergraduate Research Alliance

The Undergraduate Research Alliance was created to foster and support computer graphics research by undergraduates. Faculty and students are encouraged to attend.

Undergraduate Research Alliance
joelw (at) wcsu.edu

Web3D Consortium

X3D: 3D Anywhere!

From mobile devices to enterprise workstations to immersive CAVEs, X3D is the only open-standard (ISO), royalty-free file format and run-time specification for interactive virtual environments. With multiple encodings and API bindings, it is compatible with numerous web and industry technologies and remains the most robust and versatile open standard for implementing high-integrity and high-capability 4D multimedia information spaces. New features and data integration (such as HTML5 and volume rendering) are rapidly expanding X3D 3.3's value in applications ranging from mobile to AR, CAD, and medical. This talk presents the innovative community of content and application developers that ensures the interoperability, longevity, and ownership of your content. See the latest real-world interactive 3D applications and find out how you can build and protect your content investment in this ever-changing competitive market.

Blacks in Animation & VFX

Join us for our third annual networking event with students, artists, recruiters, educators, and executives of color in the animation, VFX, and gaming industries.

Krystal Cooper
blackanimation (at) gmail.com

Vignette Correction in GigaPan Stitch

GigaPan Stitch stitches together hundreds or thousands of overlapping images to create a very-high-resolution mosaic image. Without correction, such mosaics can be marred by vignetting (darkening of photographs in the lens periphery). Fortunately, it is possible to infer the vignetting attenuation function from the image overlaps and apply correction during blending. This workshop presents an algorithm for vignette correction that is fast, robust, and automatic.

Paul S. Heckbert
GigaPan

Randy Sargent
Carnegie Mellon University

The New Media and the Academy in China

Representatives from Chinese academic digital media programs discuss how their programs are developing to meet the needs of their exploding economy.Panel Discussion
Patrick Pennefather
Centre For Digital Media, Vancouver

Lu Xin
Communication University of China, Beijing

Fu Zhiyong
Tsinghua University

Bai Xuezhu
Communication University of China

Richard Smith
Centre For Digital Media, Vancouver

Zhang Xiaofu
Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing
Electroacoustic Music Association of China

Yang Xiaosong
National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth University

Larry Bafia
Centre For Digital Media, Vancouver

Closing Remarks
Marc J. Barr
Chair, ACM SIGGRAPH Education Committee

Photochromic Sculpture: Volumetric Color-Forming Pixels

Photochromic sculpture, which consists of a presentation part composed of laminated transparent plates coated with photochromic material granules and a control part for projecting UV light patterns that color volumetric pixels, can generate a dynamically changeable three-dimensional sculpture.

Tomoko Hashida
The University of Tokyo

Yasuaki Kakehi
Keio University

Takeshi Naemura
The University of Tokyo

Sensitive Couture for Interactive Garment Modeling and Editing

A novel interactive tool for garment design that enables interactive bidirectional editing between 2D patterns and 3D high-fidelity simulated draped forms. Artists can now interactively edit 2D pattern designs and immediately obtain stable, accurate online feedback.

Nobuyuki Umetani
University of Tokyo

Danny M. Kaufman
Columbia University

Takeo Igarashi
University of Tokyo

Eitan Grinspun
Columbia University

Compiler Techniques for Rendering

This course summarizes five cutting-edge projects that apply compiler technology to improve the performance and functionality of renderers and shading systems. Several of the projects use LLVM, so the course begins with a gentle introduction to LLVM architecture and concepts. Topics include: customizing shading languages for global illumination and other advanced rendering, analysis of shaders so that renderers may perform physically based light transport in correct units, automatic differentiation, and use of LLVM and dynamic code generation for improved shader performance.

COURSE SCHEDULE

9 am
Introduction to LLVM, and Native RSL Shader Compilation
Leone

9:45 am
Open Shading Language
Gritz

10:15 am
Break

10:30 am
AnySL: Efficient and Portable Multi-Language Shading
Slusallek

11 am
Automatic Bounding of Shaders for Efficient Global Illumination
Walter

11:30 am
Compilation for GPU Accelerated Ray Tracing in OptiX

12:05 pm
Questions and Answers

Scalable and Coherent Video Resizing With Per-Frame Optimization

A scalable and temporal coherent video retargeting method that factors the problem into spatial and motion components. The sub-problem sizes are proportional to a frame resolution, and they can be solved in parallel. The system dramatically reduces computational time and memory consumption without compromising quality.

Yu-Shuen Wang
National Chiao Tung University

Jen-Hung Hsiao
National Cheng Kung University

Olga Sorkine
New York University and ETH Zürich

Tong-Yee Lee
National Cheng Kung University

Real-Time Large-Deformation Substructuring

A technique for making model reduction of FEM deformable objects undergoing large deformations adaptable in space. The object is decomposed into several domains, which are reduced independently, and combined with elastic and inertial coupling. The method can simulate rich, detailed deformations of complex structures at hard real-time rates.

Jernej Barbič
University of Southern California

Yili Zhao
University of Southern California

Practical Occlusion Culling in Killzone 3

KIllzone 3 features complex occluded environments. To cull non-visible geometry early in the frame, the game uses PlayStation 3 SPUs to rasterize a conservative depth buffer and perform fast synchronous occlusion queries against it. This talk presents an overview of the approach and key lessons learned during its development.

Michal Valient
Guerrilla Games

Tonal Stabilization of Video

This paper presents a method for reducing undesirable tonal fluctuations in video: minute changes in tonal characteristics, such as exposure, color temperature, brightness, and contrast in a sequence of frames. These distracting fluctuations are typically caused by the camera's automatic setting adjustment.

Zeev Farbman
The Hebrew University

Dani Lischinski
The Hebrew University

Physics-Inspired Upsampling for Cloth Simulation in Games

With this method for learning linear upsampling operators in physically based cloth simulation, coarse meshes are enriched with mid-scale details in minimal time and memory budgets, as required in computer games.

Ladislav Kavan
Disney Interactive Studios

Daniel Gerszewski
University of Utah

Adam Bargteil
University of Utah

Peter-Pike Sloan
Disney Interactive Studios

Rhinoceros 5.0 Workflow Improvements

See how Rhino 5 will improve your modeling techniques and process.

Pascal Golay
McNeel

Exhibition

Lighting Worlds in Unity

This in-depth session shows how artists can make the most of Unity's real-time lights, built-in Beast lightmapping, and light probes. Part two of the talk discusses custom lighting models using Unity's surface shaders and alternative applications of light probes. The session is designed for artists and programmers, and requires basic understanding of lighting concepts in games.

Robert Cupisz
Unity Technologies

Computational Stereo Camera System With Programmable Control Loop

This computational stereo camera system closes the control loop to handle traditionally difficult shots. It is completely programmable, so complex shots can easily be scripted and adjusted depending on the scene and artistic preferences.

Simon Heinzle
Disney Research Zürich

Pierre Greisen
Disney Research Zürich and ETH Zürich

David Gallup
University of North Carolina