SIGGRAPH 2011 (http://www.siggraph.org/s2011)

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  • All Programs [1]
  • My Schedule [2]
Sunday, 7 August
(All day)
The Sandbox
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Sandbox
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Sunday, 7 August
(All day)
Real-Time Live!
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Real-Time Live!
West Building, Ballroom C/D

Immerse yourself in the world’s most innovative and stimulating interactive real-time animation and graphics. As part of the Computer Animation Festival, an international jury selected submissions from several areas, including games, animation, performance, and visualization. Real-Time Live! is the premiere showcase for the latest trends and techniques for pushing the boundaries of interactive visuals.

Sunday, 7 August
(All day)
Emerging Technologies
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Emerging Technologies
West Building, Ballroom B

Emerging Technologies presents innovative technologies and applications in several fields, from displays and input devices to collaborative environments and robotics, and technologies that apply to film and game production.

Sunday, 7 August
(All day)
Art Gallery
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Art Gallery
West Building, Ballroom B
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 [3]

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 [4]

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 [5]

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 [6]

Memoirs

Memoirs is an interactive installation that depicts humanity’s struggle to invent home appliances in pursuit of happiness. It is composed of a custom Polaroid camera atop a TV. As you approach, the camera takes a picture by recognizing your face. While a physically simulated photo paper falls down inside the virtual interior of the piece, digital data travel halfway around the earth to a web server. Like bringing films to the printer, taking a card with a printed web address from a stack creates a space in which to reminisce about the good old days.

Artist Web Site [7]

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 [8]

Reveries and Line Drawings

In Reveries and Line Drawings, a projected video piece first shown at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's New Blood Exhibition, stored spatial reveries can be recalled and represented using both analog and digital technologies.

Georgia Wall Web Site [9]

Nick Bastis Wall Web Site [10]

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 [11]

tele-present wind

This installation consists of a field of x/y tilting devices connected to thin dried plant stalks installed in the gallery, and a dried plant stalk connected to an accelerometer outdoors. When the wind blows, it causes the stalk outside to sway. The accelerometer detects and transmits this movement in real time to the grouping of devices in the gallery.

Artist Web Site [12]

The Garden of Error and Decay

In this data-driven narrative of current world disasters, the artist, Twitter users, and stock-exchange information all influence the storytelling.

Artist Web Site [13]

The Insatiable

The Insatiable is a video installation composited from a dozen sets of footage filmed during an open night market in Taiwan. It is part of the Things that are edible series. The visual strategy is a fusion of macro and micro views. Originally from Taiwan, artist Jawshing Liou filmed this video during his recent artist residency in Taipei. The street scenes are only half a mile away from his home.

Artist Web Site [14]

Third Skin

Third Skin captures imagery of our social, digital, or urban neighborhoods and interiors, and transfers them to fabric and dress design. It plays with Marshall McLuhan's idea of "clothing being an extension of skin, in the way that media are an extension of the body". Photography, surveillance, and online footage become the source for hand-manufactured dresses as media narratives. They map the collective and shared (image documentation, digital and physical scenarios and objects) onto the domestic: a one-off garment as individual statement and choice.

Artist Web Site [15]

Tomorrow will get better

A graphite drawing and laser-cut paper series of homes destroyed by various natural and man-made disasters.

Artist Web Site [16]

Transplant

Transplant explores the lives of Japanese nationals and citizens who were interned in War Relocation Centers in the dusty desert of California during WWII, and how they cultivated gardens as a creative outlet to survive their confinement. Despite the horrendous conditions, residents of these “camps” constructed beautifully landscaped parks, ponds, and rock gardens. Transplant pays homage to their ingenuity and personal drive to transform gravel into gardens, altering their built environment as an act of defiance.

Artist Web Site [17]

Travel Stones

Travel Stones are fictitious cultural artifacts presented in the style of a museum exhibit. The imagined culture derives from an ancient people who carry their travel stones, like house keys, as a way to access their home center that is ultimately more spiritual than physical. Passed from generation to generation, the stones further serve as resonant objects in the tracing of the people's history. Prompted by the drawings on the stones, the ancients recount tales of their origins to the next generations as well as to those they meet in travel.

Artist Web Site [18]

#travelstones [19]

Wait

The companion-species relationship is the starting point for the critique explored in Wait. Human and canine communication methods are brought to bear within this interactive video installation. Taking cues from the movements of the visitor, the dog (as imaged in the video) points to the relationship of control. The dog appears to be waiting for direction; as the dog looks directly at viewers, a state of suspended agency is implied, and viewers are compelled to ask questions about their relationship to the dog. Wait was produced in co-production with the Banff New Media Institute.

Artist Web Site [20]

Sunday, 7 August
9am-5:30 pm
SIGGRAPH Symposium
SIGGRAPH Symposium: The Business Think Tank
East Building, Parkview Terrace 1-3

This one-day event brings together the leaders who have contributed to the direction, production, and evolution of the computer graphics community to elucidate the elements of finance, strategy, culture, and creativity. Separate admission fee required. Not included in any other SIGGRAPH 2011 registration categories. Attendance for this event is very limited.

Sunday, 7 August
11am-12:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
IVRC (International Collegiate Virtual Reality Contest)
Education
West Building, Room 116

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.

shirai (at) mail.com
IVRC Executive Committee
Sunday, 7 August
12-5:30 pm
The Studio
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Studio
Art
Education
Production Communities
West Building, Ballroom A

The Studio is the place for making and creating at SIGGRAPH 2011. Roll your sleeves up and get hands on in this three-ring circus of technological wonders.

Sunday, 7 August
12-5:30 pm
The Sandbox
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Sandbox
Education
Production Communities
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Sunday, 7 August
12-3:00 pm
SV Placeholder Session
Students
West Building, Ballroom Prefunction 1st Floor
Sunday, 7 August
12-1:45 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Scan – Model – Print: A Roundtable Chat
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Sunday, 7 August
12-5:30 pm
Posters
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Posters
Education
Research
East Building, Lobby Level 1
Sunday, 7 August
12:30-1:45 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Bringing ZBrush to Life: Advanced Visualization Techniques
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

This in-depth look at a sculpture created in ZBrush reviews sculpting techniques, methods used to create the character and scene, the steps needed to take this 3D scene and composite it properly as a 2D render in Photoshop, and how to bring the sculpture to life by printing it in 3D.

Sunday, 7 August
2-2:30 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
SandCanvas: New Possibilities in Sand Animation
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Sunday, 7 August
2-3:30 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Pushing Production Data
Production Communities
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
Coherent Out-of-Core Point-Based Global Illumination

This talk describes new techniques for coherent out-of-core point-based global illumination and ambient occlusion that are being used at DreamWorks Animation in the making of CG-animated feature films.

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".

PhotoSpace: A Vision-Based Approach for Digiziting Props

This talk concentrates on how some of the recent advances in computer graphics and vision fit into a visual-effects pipeline and how they are used to digitize props.

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".

Sunday, 7 August
2-3:00 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Overview of SIGGRAPH 2011 (with Japanese interpreter)
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

Miho Aoki
mihoalaska (at) gmail.com

Sunday, 7 August
2-5:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Liquid Simulation with Mesh-based Surface Tracking
Research
East Building, Ballroom C

Animating detailed liquid surfaces has always been a challenge for computer graphics researchers and visual effects artists. Over the past few years, researchers in this field have focused on mesh-based surface tracking to synthesize extremely detailed liquid surfaces as efficiently as possible. This course provides a solid understanding of the steps required to create a fluid simulator with a mesh-based liquid surface.

The course begins with an overview of several existing liquid-surface-tracking techniques and the pros and cons of each method. Then it explains how to embed a triangle mesh into a finite-difference-based fluid simulator and describes several methods for allowing the liquid surface to merge together or break apart. The final section showcases the benefits and further applications of a mesh-based liquid surface, highlighting state-of-the-art methods for tracking colors and textures, maintaining liquid volume, preserving small surface features, and simulating realistic surface-tension waves.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Introduction and Welcome
Wojtan

2:05 pm
Liquid Surface Tracking Review
Müller-Fischer

2:35 pm
Embedding a Surface Mesh Into an Eulerian Fluid Simulation
Müller-Fischer

3:05 pm
Break

3:20 pm
Maintaining Surface Mesh Quality
Wojtan

3:35 pm
Topology Changes
Wojtan

4:25 pm
Advantages of a Mesh Surface
Brochu

5:10 pm
Conclusion
Wojtan

Chris Wojtan
Institute of Science and Technology Austria

Matthias Müller-Fischer
NVIDIA Corporation

Tyson Brochu
The University of British Columbia

Sunday, 7 August
2-3:30 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Introduction to Python Scripting
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Sunday, 7 August
2-5:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Introduction to Modern OpenGL Programming
Education
Production Communities
West Building, Rooms 109/110

OpenGL is the most widely available library for creating interactive computer graphics applications across all of the major computer operating systems. Its uses range from creating applications for scientific visualizations to computer-aided design, interactive gaming, and entertainment, and with each new version, its capabilities reveal the most up-to-date features of modern graphics hardware.

This course is an accelerated introduction to programming OpenGL, emphasizing the most modern methods for using the library. In recent years, OpenGL has evolved and fundamentally changed how programmers interact with the application programming interface (API). The most notable change was the introduction of shader-based rendering, which has expanded to subsume almost all functionality in OpenGL. The course reviews each of the shader stages in OpenGL and how to specify data for rendering with OpenGL. And it summarizes how OpenGL's wealth of new functionality and features enables creation of ever-richer content.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Greeting and Course Overview
Shreiner

2:10 pm
OpenGL Pipeline Introduction
Shreiner

2:35 pm
A Prototype Application
Angel

3:15 pm
The Fundamental Pipeline, Part 1: Vertex Shading
Angel

3:55 pm
The Fundamental Pipeline, Part 2: Fragment Shading
Angel

4:30 pm
The Advanced Pipeline, Part 1: Tessellation Shading
Shreiner

4:50 pm
The Advanced Pipeline, Part 2: Geometry shading
Shreiner

5:05 pm
Wrap-Up: Questions and Answers
Angel & Shreiner

Edward Angel
University of New Mexico

Dave Shreiner
ARM, Inc.

Sunday, 7 August
2-5:30 pm
Emerging Technologies
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Emerging Technologies
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

Emerging Technologies presents innovative technologies and applications in several fields, from displays and input devices to collaborative environments and robotics, and technologies that apply to film and game production.

Sunday, 7 August
2-5:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Destruction and Dynamics for Film and Game Production
Production Communities
East Building, Ballroom A/B

This course focuses on rigid-body and particle simulation and collision techniques used in breaking objects and large-scale destruction. Following a brief introduction to the basic theory, the course continues with examples from specific films and games. Topics include production aspects such as authoring tools (including the open-source Bullet physics library used in both game and film production) and computational and algorithmic issues.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Introduction and Overview of Destruction and Dynamics Techniques
Coumans

2:30 pm
Authoring Destruction With the Dynamica Bullet Maya Plugin
Baker

2:45 pm
Destruction and Dynamics Artist Tools at DreamWorks Animation
Zafar & Carlson

3:30 pm
Break

3:45 pm
Deformable Rigid Bodies and Fragment Clustering at Industrial Light & Magic
Criswell

4:30 pm
Procedurally Generating Fragmented Meshes at Disney Interactive Studios
Knight

4:45 pm
Accelerating Rigid-Body Simulation and Fracture Using GPU
Harada

Organizer
Erwin Coumans
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Lecturers
Erwin Coumans
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Takahiro Harada
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Nafees Bin Zafar
DreamWorks Animation

Mark Carlson
DreamWorks Animation

Brice Criswell
Industrial Light & Magic

Michael Baker
Art Instiute of Las Vegas

Phil Knight
Disney Interactive Studios

Sunday, 7 August
2-4:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Blender Foundation: Community Meeting
Art
West Building, Room 122

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.

ton (at) blender.org
Blender Foundation
Sunday, 7 August
2-5:30 pm
Art Gallery
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Art Gallery: Tracing Home
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

The SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Gallery: Tracing Home, presents exceptional digital and technologically mediated artworks that explore issues related to the concept of home in the networked age.

Sunday, 7 August
2-3:30 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Animation and Rigging in Blender
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Sunday, 7 August
2-5:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
3D Spatial Interaction: Applications for Art, Design, and Science
Education
Production Communities
West Building, Rooms 118-120

3D interfaces use motion sensing, physical input, and spatial interaction techniques to effectively control highly dynamic virtual content. Now, with the advent of the Nintendo Wii, Sony Move, and Microsoft Kinect, game developers and researchers must create compelling interface techniques and game-play mechanics that make use of these technologies. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that emerging game technologies are not just going to change the way we play games, they are also going to change the way we make and view art, design new products, analyze scientific datasets, and more.

This introduction to 3D spatial interfaces demystifies the workings of modern videogame motion controllers and provides an overview of how it is used to create 3D interfaces for tasks such as 2D and 3D navigation, object selection and manipulation, and gesture-based application control. Topics include the strengths and limitations of various motion-controller sensing technologies in today’s peripherals, useful techniques for working with these devices, and current and future applications of these technologies to areas beyond games. The course presents valuable information on how to utilize existing 3D user-interface techniques with emerging technologies, how to develop interface techniques, and how to learn from the successes and failures of spatial interfaces created for a variety of application domains.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Welcome, Introduction, and Roadmap
LaViola

2:15 pm
Common Tasks in 3D User Interfaces
LaViola

2:45 pm
Applications 1: Spatial Interfaces in Art and Design
Keefe

3:15 pm
Working With Video Game Motion Controllers
LaViola

3:45 pm
Applications 2: Spatial Interfaces in Scientific Visualization
Keefe

4:15 pm
Future 1: 3D Gesture Recognition Techniques
LaViola

4:45 pm
Future 2: Mix and Match Spatial Input
Keefe

5:15 pm
Questions and Answers
LaViola & Keefe

Joseph LaViola
University of Central Florida

Daniel Keefe
University of Minnesota

Sunday, 7 August
3-3:30 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The IGDA Presents Game Jam!
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

An annual activity of the International Game Developers Association, the Global Game Jam, each year in late-January, is the world's largest game-jam event. Over 5,000 games are developed in one weekend. This session presents an overview of the Global Game Jam and other activities of the IGDA.

Jack Bogdan
jack (at) igda.org

Sunday, 7 August
3-3:30 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
A Unified Dynamics Pipeline for Hair, Cloth, and Flesh in Rango
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Sunday, 7 August
3:30-4:00 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters Present Local Animation Festivals
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

Animation festivals remain a hugely popular activity with all segments of the digital-media community. This is your chance to find out about how two chapters run their festivals. If you're interested in finding out more about how to run such a festival, or just want to take a peek behind the curtain, don't miss this talk.

Scott Lang
New York City ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter
scott (at) siggraph.org

Sunday, 7 August
3:45-5:15 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Using the Giga Pan Imaging System
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Sunday, 7 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Panels
Full Conference
Successful Creative Collaboration Across Time and Space
Education
Production Communities
West Building, Rooms 211-214

Twenty years ago, large projects in computer graphics animation, game development, and visual effects typically involved a half-dozen artists and engineers working together in a single studio space. Ten years later, the size of project teams had grown to include sometimes hundreds of collaborators, but the work remained largely housed within a single campus. In 2011, many projects, large and small, are distributed across multiple locations and time zones. Facilitating creative problem solving among team members remains the key to success, but the tools and behaviors within the creative process are changing dramatically.

This panel discusses issues surrounding globally distributed projects in animation, games, and visual effects. Success in these ventures depends on unique production structures, review processes, universal tool sets, and adaptation of artists and engineers to technology-mediated communication. Topics include speculation on possible future work environments and how the rising generation of artists and engineers will influence the collaboration process. Each panelist brings a specific area of expertise to the general topic and represents an organization recognized for successfully advancing industry capability with distributed projects.

Sunday, 7 August
3:45-4:15 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
SolidState Drives in Developer and Artist Workstations
Research
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

By optimizing games to exploit the capabilities of the latest platform technology and tools, game developers can create games featuring innovations that give players greater immersion. Spend your engineering time making the content more realistic and immersive instead of working around storage delays. With this idea in mind, Intel partnered with Iron Galaxy and Digital Extremes to deliver a proof of concept showing the content quality that can be achieved by exploiting the performance of Intel SSDs and second-generation Intel Core Family processors.

Sunday, 7 August
3:45-5:00 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Phase One Digital Tools
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A
Sunday, 7 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Facing Hairy Production Problems
Production Communities
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
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.

Making Faces: Eve Online’s New Portrait Rendering

Tthe portrait system that drives Eve Online's new high-fidelity avatars. Breaking down the final image into its components, this talk surveys the various techniques (including some that didn't work out) for real-time skin, eyes, hair, and shadows on commodity graphics hardware.

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.

GPU Fluids in Production: A Compiler Approach to Parallelism

A language and heterogeneous compiler for efficiently solving structured grids on the CPU or the GPU, designed from the ground up with parallelism in mind.

Sunday, 7 August
4-6:00 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

A discussion of 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

Sunday, 7 August
4-6:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community
Art
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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.

rubin (at) siggraph.org
Cynthia Beth Rubin
Sunday, 7 August
4-6:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Blender Foundation: Artist showcase
Art
West Building, Room 122

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.

ton@blender.org
Blender Foundation
Sunday, 7 August
4:30-5:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Standards in 3D Modeling: Case Study and Applications from Stock 3D
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

TurboSquid and Falling Pixel use a case study from the stock 3D industry as a lens to discuss the challenges presented by a lack of standards in 3D modeling as a whole.

Sunday, 7 August
5-5:30 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Dan Gustafson
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A
Sunday, 7 August
6-8:00 pm
Technical Papers Fast Forward
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Technical Papers Fast Forward
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

#siggraph #techpapers [21]

An entertaining, illuminating summary of SIGGRAPH 2011 Technical Papers [22] in one exciting, fun-filled hour! The author(s) of each paper are allowed a little less than a minute to wow the crowd with their results and entice attendees to hear their complete paper presentation later in the week.

Sunday, 7 August
8:30-11:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Taipei ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter Reunion
Research
Hastings

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

robin (at) ntu.edu.tw
Bing-Yu Chen
Monday, 8 August
(All day)
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
NVIDIA Exhibitor Session: Advanced Rendering Solutions
Education
West Building, Room 220
Monday, 8 August
9am-5:30 pm
The Studio
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Studio
Art
Education
Production Communities
West Building, Ballroom A

The Studio is the place for making and creating at SIGGRAPH 2011. Roll your sleeves up and get hands on in this three-ring circus of technological wonders.

Monday, 8 August
9am-5:30 pm
The Sandbox
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Sandbox
Education
Production Communities
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Monday, 8 August
9am-5:30 pm
Posters
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Posters
Education
Research
East Building, Lobby Level 1
Monday, 8 August
9am-12:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
PhysBAM: Physically Based Simulation
Education
Production Communities
West Building, Rooms 211-214

This course is as an introduction to the PhysBAM simulation library developed at Stanford University and used in both academic and industrial settings, including Intel Corporation, Industrial Light & Magic, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Pixar Animation Studios. The course contains information on the release of PhysBAM as well as information on how to obtain the source code, set up the library, and use it to run example smoke and water simulations. It also summarizes a visualization tool and a rendering tool included in the release of the library.

Physically based simulation is a vital part of the special-effects toolkit. Traditionally, special effects are obtained by constructing scale or full-size models, whether the scene calls for a sinking ship or a burning building. Unfortunately, this is very expensive and at times not feasible. Physical simulation is also used for special effects in animated films,
where traditional special effects methods cannot easily be applied. And it is increasingly used in the gaming community as enhanced processing power enables simulations to occur at real-time rates.

In addition to the PhysBAM library, the course explains the underlying techniques that make these simulations possible, in particular level set methods such as fast marching, fast sweeping, and the particle level set method. It also addresses the important aspects of a fluid simulation, including advection, viscosity, and projection.

COURSE SCHEDULE

9 am
The New Intel Center I
Dubey

9:10 am
The New Intel Center II
Hanrahan

9:20 am
The New Intel Center III.
Fedkiw

9:35 am
PhysBAM Tools Library
Lentine

10:15 am
PhysBAM Geometry Library
Schroeder

10:55 am
Level Set Algorithms
Schroeder

11:40 am
Water Simulation
Schroeder

Craig Schroeder
Stanford University
Monday, 8 August
9-9:30 am
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
New and Used Cars
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Monday, 8 August
9-10:30 am
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Getting Started in Maya
Education
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

The first half of this workshop focuses on navigating the user interface, layout, basic tools, and panels in Maya. The second half focuses on how to use simple primitives to create projects and basic objects, and how to place objects in a scene.

Monday, 8 August
9am-5:30 pm
Emerging Technologies
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Emerging Technologies
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

Emerging Technologies presents innovative technologies and applications in several fields, from displays and input devices to collaborative environments and robotics, and technologies that apply to film and game production.

Monday, 8 August
9-10:30 am
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Drawing, Painting and Stylization
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
ShadowDraw: Real-Time User Guidance for Freehand Drawing

ShadowDraw, a system for guiding the freeform drawing of objects. As the user draws, ShadowDraw dynamically updates a shadow image underlying the user's strokes. The shadows suggest object contours to guide the drawing process.

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.

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.

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.

Monday, 8 August
9-10:15 am
Computer Animation Festival - Screenings
Computer Animation Festival
Commercials, Games, and Music
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A
Monday, 8 August
9-10:30 am
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Capturing & Modeling Humans
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
Physically Valid Statistical Models for Human Motion Generation

This paper shows how statistical modeling techniques can be combined with physics-based modeling techniques to address the limitations of both techniques. The power of this new model is generated by a wide range of physically realistic motions that achieve goals specified by the users.

Motion Capture From Body-Mounted Cameras

A wearable motion capture system that uses mounted cameras in natural environments.

Motion Reconstruction Using Sparse Accelerometer Data

A novel framework for generating full-body animations controlled by only four 3D accelerometers that are attached to the extremities of a human actor. This approach relies on a knowledge base that consists of a large number of motion clips obtained from marker-based motion capturing.

Video-Based Characters: Creating New Human Performances From a Multi-View Video Database

This paper presents a new data-driven approach for image-based synthesis of realistic video animations containing user-defined human motions seen from user-defined camera views.

Monday, 8 August
9-10:30 am
Courses
Full Conference
Build Your Own Glasses-Free 3D Display
Research
West Building, Rooms 109/110

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 [23] 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

Douglas Lanman
MIT Media Lab

Matthew Hirsch
MIT Media Lab

Monday, 8 August
9am-5:30 pm
Art Gallery
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Art Gallery: Tracing Home
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

The SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Gallery: Tracing Home, presents exceptional digital and technologically mediated artworks that explore issues related to the concept of home in the networked age.

Monday, 8 August
9am-12:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games: Part I
Production Communities
East Building, Ballroom A/B

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

Natalya Tatarchuk
Bungie, Inc.

Hao Chen
Bungie, Inc.

Ari Silvennoinen
Umbra Software Ltd

Christopher Hall
Avalanche Software, Disney Games

Robert Hall
Avalanche Software, Disney Games

David Edwards
Avalanche Software, Disney Games

Alex Evans
Media Molecule

Tiago Sousa
Crytek

Nickolay Kasyan
Crytek

Nicolas Schulz
Crytek

Monday, 8 August
9-10:30 am
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
3D Motion Graphics with Photoshop and After Effects
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

In this exploration of a 3D motion-graphics production pipeline between Photoshop and After Effects, attendees learn basic file translation and organization techniques, camera and rig setup, and animation techniques.

Monday, 8 August
9:30-10:30 am
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Spirit of Rango: Dissection of Character Animation and Rigging
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

"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.

Monday, 8 August
10-10:30 am
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH: We Make it Home
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

Vancouver has long been a hub for the CG industry. This talk showcases the talent from the vibrant, passionate local community and offers a glimpse into what you can expect at one of our inspiring presentations. Welcome to our city, SIGGRAPH 2011!

Jules Morgan
Vancouver ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter
jules.m.morgan (at) gmail.com

Monday, 8 August
10:15-11:15 am
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
NVIDIA Exhibitor Session: OpenGL & CUDA Based Tessellation
Education
West Building, Room 220
Monday, 8 August
10:30-11:00 am
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Digital Clothing: A New Paradighm for Fashion
Research
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

The study of physically based reproduction of clothing has made striking improvements over the past decade. Digitally simulated versions of clothes, generated with a single personal computer, now look more real than most people would expect for computer-generated animations. In the past, clothing simulation remained in the realm of movie and game production. Now, thanks to additional fashion-specific developments, the technology is on the verge of leading a revolutionary change in the fashion industry.

This talk summarizes the current state of the art of digital clothing technology: a collection of modeling, animation, and rendering systems targeted to fashion and animation production. The Studio features hands-on-experience classes associated with this presentation: the short class Creation of Your Own Digital Fashion Show (two sessions) and the long class Advanced Creation of Your Own Digital Fashion Show (one session).

Monday, 8 August
10:40am-12:10 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Creating a Multi-Platform Real-Time Portfolio for Your Artwork Using Unity
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Monday, 8 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Digital Abstract Art With Real Flow and Maya
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

This session demonstates how to use Nextlimit RealFlow to construct an abstract water simulation, then move that mesh into Autodesk Maya for rendering of a single frame and into Photoshop for compositing.

Monday, 8 August
11am-1:00 pm
Keynote Speaker
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Cory Doctorow - Science fiction novelist, blogger, and technology activist
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

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 [24]

Monday, 8 August
11am-12:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
3D Color Printing Using ZCorp Rapid Prototyping
Production Communities
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A
Monday, 8 August
11:30am-12:30 pm
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
NVIDIA Exhibitor Session: Parallel Nsight 2.0 and CUDA 4.0 for The Win!
Education
West Building, Room 220
Monday, 8 August
12-1:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Creating Cool Games Without a Programmer
Education
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

This session shows how artists without any programming knowledge can create fun and entertaining games with Unity. Using simple scripts and a modular approach, the session gives artists and programmers a good overview of the main Unity workflow.

Monday, 8 August
12:15-1:45 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Creation of Your Own Digital Fashion Show
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Monday, 8 August
12:30-1:45 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Beauty of Black and White
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

How to master black and white in Adobe CS5: from techniques for converting photos or 3D to masterful black-and-white illustrations to using Photoshop tools in ways they were not intended to create fantastic results.

Monday, 8 August
12:45-2:15 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Screenings
Computer Animation Festival
Visual Effects for Live Action
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A
Monday, 8 August
12:45-1:30 pm
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
NVIDIA Exhibitor Session: Using the GPU to Create a Seamless Display From Multiple Projectors
Education
West Building, Room 220
Monday, 8 August
1-1:30 pm
Art Gallery - Tours
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Daily Art Tours
Art
Art Gallery, West Building, Ballroom B

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.

Monday, 8 August
1:15-1:45 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Technology Creativity Ratio
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

If your daily work is related to media and entertainment software, how can you make sure you have the right computer to match your creative potential? Do you know the difference between a desktop, a notebook, and a workstation? Do you understand how CPUs, GPUs, and other technology components can affect the results you need to set yourself apart by reaching your creative vision as quickly as possible?

Scott Hamilton, Media and Entertainment Market Strategist at Dell and former Autodesk Technical Specialists Manager, shares his insights on how to choose the best workstation for typical applications such as computer graphics animation, effects, and editing.

Monday, 8 August
1:45-3:00 pm
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
NVIDIA Exhibitor Session: VFX Trendspotting: Unlocking GPU Performance
Education
West Building, Room 220
Monday, 8 August
2-3:30 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Understanding Shapes
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
Exploration of Continuous Variability in Collections of 3D Shapes

This paper proposes a new technique for exploring unorganized collections of 3D shapes. The approach represents the variability in the collection as a constrained deformation model of a base template shape, which the user can directly manipulate to explore the set of shapes.

Characterizing Structural Relationships in Scenes Using Graph Kernels

This paper shows how to represent scenes as graphs that encode models and their semantic relationships. It then defines a kernel between these relationship graphs that compares common virtual substructures in two graphs and captures the similarity between their corresponding scenes.

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.

Shape Google: Geometric Words and Expressions for Invariant Shape Retrieval

Using heat diffusion kernels as "geometric words", this technique employs the "bag of features" paradigm to construct invariant shape descriptors. The descriptors provide state-of-the-art results on large-scale shape retrieval benchmarks.

Monday, 8 August
2-3:30 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Tiles and Textures and Faces Oh My!
Art
Production Communities
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
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.

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.

Per-Face Texture Mapping for Real-Time Rendering

Originally invented for offline rendering, this technique for rendering per-face texture-mapping datasets in real-time on commodity Direct3D 11 hardware eliminates the texture-unwrap step of the art creation process while producing an image that avoids texture discontinuities frequently found in models.

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.

Monday, 8 August
2-3:30 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Production Sessions
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
The Visual Effects of Thor and Captain America: So Different Yet So Marvel
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

Marvel Studios devotes great time and effort to deliver great storytelling, strong visuals and compelling characters to movie audiences. This session compares the films "Thor" and "Captain America" and shows how visual effects are a critical aesthetic ingredient in their success. Visual effects supervisors Wesley Sewell and Christopher Townsend and their teams from Digital Domain, Double Negative, Whiskytree, Luma Pictures, and Lola VFX review how the films combine beauty and authenticity.

Monday, 8 August
2-3:30 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Storytelling With Color
Education
West Building, Rooms 109/110

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

Kathy Altieri
DreamWorks Animation

Dave Walvoord
DreamWorks Animation

Monday, 8 August
2-2:30 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
MakerBot
Production Communities
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

There is no machine more steam-punk than the MakerBot Industries Thing-O-Matic 3D printer. Between five and 10 machines are available for autonomous printing on demand in The Studio.

Monday, 8 August
2-3:30 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
From Concept to Creation
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Monday, 8 August
2-3:30 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Eye on the Road
Research
West Building, Rooms 118-120
MotorStorm Apocalypse: Creating Urban Off-Road Racing

This talk illustrates improvements and additions to the render pipeline and the tools pipeline to enable fast, slick game play mixed with cinematic explosions and dynamic events to produce the most visceral, exciting racing title possible.

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.

Impact of Subtle Gaze Direction on Short-Term Spatial Information Recall

The ability to direct a viewer’s gaze about a scene has important applications in computer graphics and data visualization. This talk describes an experiment designed to study the impact of subtle gaze manipulation on short-term spatial information recall.

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.

Monday, 8 August
2-3:30 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Dynamic 3D & Photoshop Integration
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Monday, 8 August
2-3:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Cortex Open Source Framework
East Building, Room 19

For current and prospective users of the Cortex open-source framework for visual effects software development.

john (at) image-engine.com
John Haddon
Monday, 8 August
2-5:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Advances in Real-Time Rendering in Games: Part 2
Production Communities
East Building, Ballroom A/B

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

Natalya Tatarchuk
Bungie, Inc.

John White
Electronic Arts Black Box

Colin Barré-Brisebois
Electronic Arts Montréal

Dimitar Lazarov
Treyarch

Vassily Fillipov
Sony Santa Monica

Hugh Malan
CCP Games

Christopher Hall
Avalanche Software

Robert Hall
Avalanche Software

David Edwards
Avalanche Software

Eric Penner
Electronic Arts Vancouver

Monday, 8 August
2-3:30 pm
ACM SIGGRAPH Award Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
ACM SIGGRAPH Award Talks
Education
West Building, Rooms 211-214

Jim Kajiya
Microsoft Research
Steven Anson Coons Award for Outstanding Creative Contributions to Computer Graphics

Charles Csuri
The Ohio State University
Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art

Richard Szeliski
Microsoft Research
Computer Graphics Achievement Award

Olga Sorkine
ETH Zürich
Significant New Researcher Award

Monday, 8 August
2:15-3:30 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Screenings
Computer Animation Festival
Long Shorts Reel
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A
Monday, 8 August
2:30-4:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
French Animation Showcase - Session 1
East Building, Room 18

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.

raynald.belay (at) consulfrance-vancouver.org
French Consulate in Vancouver, Masters of Digital Media Program, Association française du cinéma d'animation, Rencontres Audiovisuelles de Lille
Monday, 8 August
2:30-3:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
2020 3D Media Ongoing Research
West Building, Room 122

2020 3D Media is researching new ways of capturing, producing, and exhibiting S3D and immersive audiovisual content. This interdisciplinary meeting presents the approach and first results.

santi.fort (at) barcelonamedia.org
Santi Fort
Monday, 8 August
3-3:30 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Embroidery Modeling and Rendering in Real Time
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Monday, 8 August
3:15-4:15 pm
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
NVIDIA Exhibitor Session: Tools for Mobile Photography and Vision
Education
West Building, Room 220
Monday, 8 August
3:30-5:00 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Screenings
Computer Animation Festival
Animated Shorts
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A
Monday, 8 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Tone Editing
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
HDR-VDP-2: A Calibrated Visual Metrics for Visibility and Quality Predictions in All Luminance Conditions

A metric for predicting visible differences (discrimination) and image quality (MOS) in high-dynamic-range images. The metric is based on new contrast sensitivity measurements and calibrated against several datasets. The visibility predictions are shown to be improved compared to the original HDR-VDP and VDP metrics.

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.

Perceptually Based Tone Mapping for Low Light Conditions

A perceptually based algorithm for modeling the color shift that occurs for human viewers in low-light scenes. Known as the Purkinje effect, this color shift occurs as the eye transitions from photopic, cone-mediated vision in well-lit scenes to scotopic, rod-mediated vision in dark scenes.

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.

Monday, 8 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Panels
Full Conference
The Need for Standardization Within Global Visual Effects Productions Through Open Source and Open Standards
Production Communities
West Building, Rooms 211-214

This panel highlights some of the open-source projects that are helping visual-effects companies share data worldwide and explore areas for future improvement. In most cases, production companies need to set up a hub to ingest data from sets and/or locations during principal photography, and then send and receive data from the various visual-effects vendors during post production. Because there is not much standardization in this area, a standard framework for information exchange could provide huge efficiencies for both production companies and vendors. The panel explores options for sharing assets such as plates, models, and textures as well as new issues related to stereo conversion.

The panel also explores two open-source initiatives:

• Image Interchange Framework (IIF), which provides improved color management within pipelines and between facilities as well as file-format specifications (a restricted EXR format) and metadata standards.

• Alembic, an open-source exchange format that aims to become the standard for exchanging animated computer graphics scenes between content-creation software packages and facilities.

Monday, 8 August
3:45-4:15 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Rapid Solutions to 3D Scanning
Production Communities
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A
Monday, 8 August
3:45-5:15 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
How to Write Fast iPhone and Android Shaders in Unity
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Monday, 8 August
3:45-5:00 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Cross-Platform Concept Illustration
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

Using multiple software suites and tools in 2D and 3D in tandem to quickly create concept illustrations.

Monday, 8 August
3:45-5:35 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Contact and Constraints
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
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.

Efficient Elasticity for Character Skinning With Contact and Collisions

A new and efficient algorithm for skinning skeleton-driven physically based elasticity. The algorithm and implementation are designed for efficiency with parallelism, matrix-free solvers, and branch-free vectorized and multi-threaded SVD computation. The paper demonstrates the system on real-world examples with contact and collisions.

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.

A Nonsmooth Newton Solver for Capturing Exact Coulomb Friction in Fiber Assemblies

This paper focuses on the challenging problem of simulating frictional contact between thin elastic rods. Following the seminal work by Alart and Curnier in contact mechanics, this work simultaneously models contact and exact Coulomb friction as a root-finding problem that can be simply solved using a nonsmooth Newton algorithm.

Large-Scale Dynamic Simulation of Highly Constrained Strands

A new framework for the simulation of constrained strands, which combines Lagrangian and Eulerian approaches. The two contributions are the reduced node, whose degrees of freedom precisely match the constraint, and the Eulerian node, which allows constraint handling that is independent of the initial discretization of the strand.

Monday, 8 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Changing Dimension
Education
West Building, Rooms 109/110
Design and Realization of Stereoscopic 3D for Disney Classics

The stereoscopic conversions of Disney's "The Lion King" and "Beauty and the Beast" required development of novel techniques for art direction, editing, and visualization of 3D stereoscopic depth without the use of geometric models.

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.

Developing Tools for 2D/3D Conversion of Japanese Animations

Production of "Inazuma Eleven: the Movie" required a set of new tools to enable conversion from Japanese animation to 3D stereoscopic movie. This talk summarizes those in-house tools and how OLM used Japanese animation specificity to build up an efficient conversion system.

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.

Monday, 8 August
4-5:00 pm
Art Gallery - Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
MOSTON; Travel Stones; The Insatiable
Art
Art Gallery, West Building, Ballroom B

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.

Monday, 8 August
4-4:30 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Developing a Computer Graphics Community - Communication, Conference and Industry Representation in Austria
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

In recent years, several activities and foundations have generated large improvements in the general graphics community in Austria. This talk presents endeavors that culminated in the internet forum CGForum.at, the international PIXEL conference, and the Interest Group on Computer Graphics.

Christoph Staber
Kris (at) arxanima.com

Ralf Habel
Ralf (at) cg.tuwien.ac.at

Monday, 8 August
4:30-5:15 pm
Real-Time Live!
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Real-Time Live!
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

Immerse yourself in the world’s most innovative and stimulating interactive real-time animation and graphics. As part of the Computer Animation Festival, an international jury selected submissions from several areas, including games, animation, performance, and visualization. Real-Time Live! is the premiere showcase for the latest trends and techniques for pushing the boundaries of interactive visuals.

Monday, 8 August
4:30-5:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Per-Face Texture Mapping for Real-time Rendering
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

This technique renders texture-seam-free meshes without unwrapping the model into UV space at interactive frame rates.

Monday, 8 August
4:30-5:30 pm
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
NVIDIA Exhibitor Session: GPU Ray Tracing
Education
West Building, Room 220
Monday, 8 August
4:30-6:00 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
CG in Asia
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

An overview of the state of CG in Asia, including the evolution of SIGGRAPH Asia. The Chair of SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 summarizes the upcoming conference in December in Hong Kong.

Lee Yong Tsui
MYTLEE (at) ntu.edu.sg

Monday, 8 August
4:30-6:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
ACCAD/Ohio State University Alumni Gathering
Education
Princess Louisa Room

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 (at) accad.osu.edu
Elaine Smith
Monday, 8 August
5-6:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Encontro dos Brasileiros 2011
Production Communities
West Building, Room 116

This session is for attendees interested in computer graphics in Brazil who want to exchange experiences and meet some friends!

cad (at) luizgarrido.com
Luiz Garrido
Monday, 8 August
5-5:30 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Blending of Transforms with Non-Uniform Parent Scale
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Monday, 8 August
5:30-7:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Linux and Graphics pipeline tools.
Garibaldi Room

This session may be interesting to those who are building grapics pipelines on Linux and encountering difficulties associated with products, QT versions, python versions, gcc, etc.

kevin.p.gambrel (at) disney.com
Kevin Gambrel
Monday, 8 August
6-7:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
The 24th Anniversary CG Show/SAKE Barrel Opening Party at SIGGRAPH 2011
Ballroom 1

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.

k-yoshida (at) iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Yoichiro Kawaguchi
Monday, 8 August
6-8:00 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Electronic Theater
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Computer Animation Festival - Electronic Theater
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A

The year's best work in animation, visual effects, games, and visualization.

Monday, 8 August
9-11:00 pm
The Studio
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Studio
Art
Education
Production Communities
West Building, Ballroom A

The Studio is the place for making and creating at SIGGRAPH 2011. Roll your sleeves up and get hands on in this three-ring circus of technological wonders.

Monday, 8 August
9-11:00 pm
The Sandbox
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Sandbox
Education
Production Communities
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Monday, 8 August
9-11:00 pm
Reception
Full Conference
SIGGRAPH 2011 Networking Dessert Reception
West Building, Level 1 Foyer
Monday, 8 August
9-11:00 pm
Emerging Technologies
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Emerging Technologies
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

Emerging Technologies presents innovative technologies and applications in several fields, from displays and input devices to collaborative environments and robotics, and technologies that apply to film and game production.

Monday, 8 August
9-11:00 pm
Art Gallery
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Art Gallery: Tracing Home
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

The SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Gallery: Tracing Home, presents exceptional digital and technologically mediated artworks that explore issues related to the concept of home in the networked age.

Tuesday, 9 August
9am-5:30 pm
The Studio
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Studio
Art
Education
Production Communities
West Building, Ballroom A

The Studio is the place for making and creating at SIGGRAPH 2011. Roll your sleeves up and get hands on in this three-ring circus of technological wonders.

Tuesday, 9 August
9am-5:30 pm
The Sandbox
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Sandbox
Education
Production Communities
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Tuesday, 9 August
9-10:00 am
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Studio Views of Student Demo Reels
Education
Production Communities
West Building, Room 122

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.

mjbarr (at) mtsu.edu
Marc J. Barr (SIGGRAPH Education Committee) and Craig Slagel
Tuesday, 9 August
9-10:30 am
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Sampling & Noise
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
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.

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.

Differential Domain Analysis for Non-Uniform Sampling

Existing spatial and spectral methods for analyzing sample distributions are restricted to uniform domains. This paper presents differential domain analysis for general non-uniform scenarios including adaptive, anisotropic, and surface sampling, by reformulating standard Fourier analysis that depends on sample locations into an equivalent form that depends on only location differentials.

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
9-10:30 am
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Rigging Characters for CryENGINE
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

How to rig, skin, and export a character for CryENGINE 3. Topics include physics setup, building characters from many skinned meshes, and creating Character Definitions and Character Parameter files. These rigging basics are applicable to most run-time game engines.

Tuesday, 9 August
9am-5:00 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Screenings
Computer Animation Festival
RealD Presents 3D Day!
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A
Tuesday, 9 August
9-9:30 am
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Prop Building for VFX
Production Communities
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
9am-5:30 pm
Posters
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Posters
Education
Research
East Building, Lobby Level 1
Tuesday, 9 August
9-10:30 am
Talks
Full Conference
Out of Core
Education
Production Communities
Research
West Building, Rooms 109/110
Google Body: 3D Human Anatomy in the Browser

Google Body provides an intuitive 3D context for learning and discussing human anatomy on a browser, smart phone or tablet. It allows the user to peel away layers of anatomy, rotate and zoom, navigate, and search, all without a plug-in because of the WebGL standard and efficient data transmission.

Interactive Indirect Illumination Using Voxel Cone Tracing: An Insight

This novel algorithm to interactively compute indirect illumination is based on a filtered voxel octree representation of the scene used as a proxy for lighting information and coupled with an approximate voxel cone tracing that allows a fast estimation of the visibility and incoming energy.

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.

Out-of-Core GPU Ray Tracing of Complex Scenes

An interactive desktop GPU ray tracer for large models composed of several hundred million polygons.

Tuesday, 9 August
9-10:30 am
Talks
Full Conference
Let There Be Light
Production Communities
East Building, Ballroom A/B
"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".

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".

Untangling Hair Rendering at Disney

This talk discusses the challenge of rendering hair on Disney's "Tangled". After a review of the shader, it examines the initial problems faced by artists, the extensive developments to resolve them, and how those tools produced the final look and contributions to future productions.

Tuesday, 9 August
9-10:30 am
Art Papers
Full Conference
Intervals: Media Time, Space, and Language
Art
West Building, Rooms 118-120
Conserving Digital Art for Deep Time

Displaying digital art in the late 20th and early 21st centuries can be challenging. Exhibiting this same art in the distant future may be impossible, unless today's artists, conservators, and curators adopt new thinking and practices. Established software engineering methods for dealing with aging systems can provide a new model for conservation of digital art and a foundation for enhancement of art history scholarship.

Shadow Awareness: Enhancing Theater Space Through the Mutual Projection of Images on a Connective Slit Screen

This study presents media technology that enables improvisational and continuous creation of performers' physical expression as they are inspired by the imagery evoked from the audience. To realize this, the authors focus on "shadow media", a system that promotes continuous creation of imagery through "bodily awareness". The system projects shadows of the performers, which are then transformed into various shapes and colors. The shadows are connected to the performers' feet and projected on a "passable" slit screen set up between the stage and the audience. The result demonstrates that interactive and mutual creation of imagery from performers and audience can form an "empathetic" stage. To demonstrate its validity, the system was applied to a dance performance at Festival della Scienza in Genoa, Italy.

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.

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.

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
9am-5:30 pm
Emerging Technologies
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Emerging Technologies
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

Emerging Technologies presents innovative technologies and applications in several fields, from displays and input devices to collaborative environments and robotics, and technologies that apply to film and game production.

Tuesday, 9 August
9-10:30 am
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Creating Characters With Character
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

How to create a cast of thousands of stylish characters with off-the-shelf assets using Poser Pro2010 and Zbrush.

Tuesday, 9 August
9-9:30 am
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Graphics in the Washington DC Area
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

Tuesday, 9 August
9-10:30 am
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Collaborative Undergraduate Computing Studios Facilitating Decentralized Participation
Port of San Francisco

This meeting is for studio instructors and industry advisors associated with the NSF CreativeIT research project, Collaborative Undergraduate Computing Studios Facilitating Decentralized Participation.

marge (at) viz.tamu.edu
Margaret Lomas Carpenter
Tuesday, 9 August
9-10:30 am
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Capturing Geometry and Appearance
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
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.

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.

Microgeometry Capture Using an Elastomeric Sensor

This paper describes a system for measuring microscopic surface geometry using an elastomeric sensor and a single camera. The system is not affected by the optical characteristics of the surface and can be configured as a portable device. Results from a variety of real-world materials are presented.

CATRA: Interactive Measuring and Modeling of Cataracts

A novel interactive method to assess cataracts in the human eye by crafting an optical solution that measures the perceptual impact of forward scattering on the foveal region. The method goes beyond traditional evaluation procedures by computing maps for opacity, attenuation, contrast, and point-spread function of cataracts.

Tuesday, 9 August
9am-12:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Beyond Programmable Shading I
Production Communities
West Building, Rooms 211-214

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 first 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

9 am
Introduction
Lefohn

9:20 am
Research in Games
Sloan

9:45 am
The "Power" of 3D Rendering
Koduri

10:15 am
Real-Time Rendering Architectures
Houston

10:45 am
Scheduling the Graphics Pipeline
Ragan-Kelley

11:15 am
Parallel Programming for Real-Time Graphics
Lefohn

11:35 am
High Performance Graphics on the CPU With ISPC
Pharr

11:45 am
Software Rasterization on GPUs
Laine & Pantaleoni

Michael Houston
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Aaron Lefohn
Intel Corporation

Raja Koduri
Apple, Inc.

Jonathan Ragan-Kelley
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Samuli Laine
NVIDIA Corporation

Jacopo Pantaleoni
NVIDIA Corporation

Peter-Pike Sloan
Disney Interactive

Matt Pharr
Intel Corporation

Tuesday, 9 August
9-10:30 am
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Educators Forum Asks: Vocation vs. Sandbox, Which Way Does Your Curriculum Lean?
West Building, Room 116

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 (at) woodbury.edu
Dori Littell-Herrick
Tuesday, 9 August
9am-5:30 pm
Art Gallery
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Art Gallery: Tracing Home
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

The SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Gallery: Tracing Home, presents exceptional digital and technologically mediated artworks that explore issues related to the concept of home in the networked age.

Tuesday, 9 August
9:30am-6:00 pm
Job Fair
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Job Fair
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall B
Tuesday, 9 August
9:30-10:30 am
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
GigaPan Time Machine: Explorable, Gigapixel-Scale Time-Lapse Imagery Authoring Multiresolution, Gigapixel-Scale Video Exploration
Research
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
9:30am-6:00 pm
Exhibition
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Exhibition
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall C

The world's leading providers of software, hardware, and services for computer graphics and interactive techniques.

Tuesday, 9 August
10-11:30 am
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Costa Rica's CGI Business: Beyond the rainforest and the beach!
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

Tuesday, 9 August
10:30-11:30 am
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Special Effects With Depth
Education
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

This session presents various graphics techniques using depth and normals buffers. The methods range from improving standard techniques such as particle effects to creating entirely new ones (for example, approximate volumetric effects), and advanced image post-processing. In many cases, the buffers used are natural products of the rendering pipeline and offer a way to infer a surprising volume of information about the scene, allowing for very rich and fast graphics effects. The session is designed for artists and programmers. It discusses the possibilities of the post-processing effects and their technical side.

Tuesday, 9 August
10:40am-12:10 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The XVJ (Xpressive Video-Jockey)
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Walk the Line
Research
West Building, Rooms 109/110
Motion Comics: Browsing and Searching for Human Motion Data

A comic-based user interface for human motion data browsing and searching.

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.

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.

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Stochastic Rendering & Visibility
Research
East Building, Ballroom A/B
High-Quality Spatio-Temporal Rendering Using Semi-Analytical Visibility

This paper presents:

• A novel spatio-temporal anti-aliasing algorithm with essentially noise-free results. Visibility is solved for along line samples in screen space and in time.
• A new method for ambient occlusion based on line samples/ The method can also handle motion-blurred ambient occlusion.

Frequency Analysis and Sheared Filtering for Shadow Light Fields of Complex Occluders

A new frequency analysis and sheared filter for computing shadows cast by complex occluders. The approach uses ray tracing to sparsely sample the scene and a sheared 4D filter to share shadow samples between neighboring pixels.

Temporal Light Field Reconstruction for Rendering Distribution Effects

In this paper, a method for reconstructing high-quality images from sparse stochastic samples is applied to simultaneous motion blur, depth of field, and soft shadows.

The Area Perspective Transform: A Homogeneous Transform for Efficient In-Volume Queries

This paper introduces a homogeneous transform that reduces the computation required to determine the set of points or primitives inside a tetrahedral volume. It describes how application of this transform can improve the efficiency of soft shadows and defocus blur computations.

Tuesday, 9 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Production Sessions
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Pixar: La Luna
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

"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.

Tuesday, 9 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Geometry Acquisition
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
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.

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.

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.

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Building Blocks
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
KinectFusion: Real-Time Dynamic 3D Surface Reconstruction and Interaction

KinectFusion uses a moving-depth camera to create high-quality 3D models of a whole room and its contents. GPU-based implementations for camera tracking and surface reconstruction allow running at interactive real-time rates and enable compelling application possibilities for augmented reality and human-computer interaction.

SBL Mesh Filter: Fast Separable Approximation of Bilateral Mesh Filtering

Determining two well-chosen orthogonal directions on the surface to decompose a 2D bilateral filter into two 1D filters.

Band Decomposition of 2-Manifold Meshes For Physical Construction of Large Structures

This talk introduces an approach for easy construction of unusually shaped large physical structures that are designed as 2-manifold mesh surfaces.

Pattern Mapping With Quad-Pattern-Coverable Quad Meshes

This work shows that it is possible to seamlessly cover any surface of positive genus periodically with plane symmetric tiles or aperiodically with Wang tiles.

Tuesday, 9 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
3D Workflows in Photoshop Cs5 Extended
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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!

Tuesday, 9 August
11:15am-12:15 pm
Exhibitor Tech Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
West Building, Hall C, Booth 801

Video Processing With AMD FirePro Solutions
PC architecture and graphics-processing units have become ubiquitous in broadcast and post-production workflows. This talk reviews the types of processing and rendering that the GPU excels at and illuminates some of the emerging trends for tightening GPU integration into these workflows.

Tuesday, 9 August
11:30am-12:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Ornate Screens
Art
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
12-1:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Revolution Evolution-Forging Industrial-Academic Collaboration
Education
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

This talk aims to emphasize the collaborative opportunities available to educators as a result of communication technology. A successful collaboration between Texas A&M and DreamWorks Animation serves as a case study.

Tuesday, 9 August
12-1:30 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
ISEA International Foundation - Open Forum
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

Tuesday, 9 August
12:15-1:15 pm
Poster Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Poster Presentations
Research
East Building, Lobby Level 1
Tuesday, 9 August
12:15-1:45 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Creation of Your Own Digital Fashion Show
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
12:30-1:45 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Power of the (Wacom) Pen
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

This hands-on seminar explains the power of the pen! Everything from how to hold the pen to essential tips and techniques that the pros use to create their images, how to enhance your everyday tools with a pressure-sensitive pen, masking and painting capabilities that have been all but denied to mouse users, and how the tablet itself can improve productivity.

Tuesday, 9 August
12:30-2:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
ACM SIGGRAPH Carto BOF
Research
West Building, Room 102

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.

theresamarierhyne (at) gmail.com
Theresa-Marie Rhyne
Tuesday, 9 August
1-3:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
StudioSysAdmins
Production Communities
West Building, Room 122

This session encourages sharing of all non-proprietary information to maintain open discussions among studios, vendors and VARs to determine standards that will improve studio infrastructures.

john.hickson (at) studiosysadmins.com
John Hickson
Tuesday, 9 August
1-1:30 pm
Art Gallery - Tours
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Daily Art Tours
Art
Art Gallery, West Building, Ballroom B

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
1-2:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
3D Medical Visualization Using X3D
Research
West Building, Room 101

Learn more about X3D Medical for 3D medical imaging in DIACOM and implementation of X3D Volume rendering.

npolys (at) vt.edu
Nicholas Polys
Tuesday, 9 August
1:15-1:45 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
How to Capture Your Dream
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
2-3:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Web3D Consortium - Declarative 3D for the Web
Research
West Building, Room 101

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 (at) igd.fraunhofer.de
kristian.sons (at) dfki.de
Johannes Behr
Kristian Sons
Tuesday, 9 August
2-3:30 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Volumes & Photons
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
A Quantized-Diffusion Model for Rendering Translucent Materials

With these new techniques for rendering translucent materials such as human skin, modified diffusion theory and a new quantized-diffusion method derive efficient and accurate scattering functions for both offline and real-time rendering.

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".

Progressive Photon Mapping: A Probabilistic Approach

A novel formulation of progressive photon mapping based on a probabilistic derivation. Unlike the original progressive photon-mapping algorithm, this method does not require maintenance of local photon statistics. It extends progressive photon mapping to arbitrary kernels and includes stochastic ray tracing and volumetric photon mapping.

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
2-4:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Multi-Projector Auto-Calibration Standards (MPACS)
Production Communities
Garibaldi Room

A opportunity to meet people in the field of projector auto-calibration. The session reviews the current market landscape and what's coming in the future.

bei.yang (at) disney.com
Bei Yang
Tuesday, 9 August
2-5:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Modeling 3D Urban Spaces using Procedural and Simulation-based Techniques
Education
Research
West Building, Rooms 109/110

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

Peter Wonka
Arizona State University

Daniel Aliaga
Purdue University

Carlos Vanegas
Purdue University

Pascal Müller
Procedural Inc.

Michael Frederickson
Pixar Animation Studios

Tuesday, 9 August
2-3:30 pm
Art Gallery - Reception
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Leonardo, Art Papers, and Art Gallery
Art
Education
Art Gallery, West Building, Ballroom B

Experience "home" in the networked age. Talk with the artists, designers, and Art Papers authors about their work. And meet the members of the SIGGRAPH 2011 committee who organized this year's Art Gallery.

Tuesday, 9 August
2-3:30 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Geometry Processing
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
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.

DINUS: Double Insertion, Non-Uniform, Stationary Subdivision Surfaces

The double insertion, non-uniform, stationary subdivision surface (DINUS) generalizes both the non-uniform, bicubic spline surface and the Catmull-Clark subdivision surface. DINUS allows arbitrary knot intervals on the edges, allows incorporation of special features, and provides limit point as well as limit normal rules.

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
2-3:30 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Fine Art Printmaking Workflow
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

A session with one of the original architects of digital fine art printmaking and the originator of the term “Giclée”.

Tuesday, 9 August
2-2:30 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Dynamic 3D & Photoshop Integration
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
2-3:30 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Production Sessions
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
DreamWorks Animation: The Yin and Yang of Creating the Final Battle in “Kung Fu Panda 2”
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

The climax of the CG-animated movie “Kung Fu Panda 2” is an epic battle featuring a flotilla of boats, an ancient Chinese-styled city, thousands of wolves armed for battle, action featuring hundreds of characters in a single shot, stylized graphic lighting, fantastical cannon fire and explosions, and a set of effects-supported Kung Fu moves. This talk provides a unique insight into the making of a CG-animated movie that goes beyond the traditional idealized concept of the pipeline.

Tuesday, 9 August
2-3:00 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
CG in Latino Countries
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

Tuesday, 9 August
2-4:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Call for Contributions for the IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications' New Education Department
Education
West Building, Room 116

Want to contribute an article to this department? Want to give valuable input on what YOU think should be printed there? Meet with the co-editors in this Birds of a Feather session.

domik (at) uni-paderborn.de
Gitta Domik and G. Scott Owen
Tuesday, 9 August
2-5:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Beyond Programmable Shading II
Production Communities
Research
West Building, Rooms 211-214

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

Michael Houston
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Aaron Lefohn
Intel Corporation

Marco Salvi
Intel Corporation

Steven G. Parker
NVIDIA Corporation

Chris Wyman
University of Iowa

Chas Boyd
Microsoft Corporation

Henry Moreton
NVIDIA Corporation

Raja Koduri
Apple, Inc.

Jacob Munkberg
Intel Corporation

Peter-Pike Sloan
Disney Interactive

David Blythe
Intel Corporation

Tuesday, 9 August
2-5:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Advances in New Interfaces for Musical Expression
Art
Research
West Building, Rooms 118-120

Advances in digital audio technologies have led to computers playing a role in most music production and performance. Digital technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for creation and manipulation of sound, but the flexibilty of these new technologies provides an often confusing array of choices for composers and performers. A decade ago, the presenters of this course organized the first workshop on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME), to clarify this situation by exploring connections with the better-established field of human-computer interaction.

The course summarizes what has been learned at NIME. Topics include the theory and practice of new musical-interface design, mapping from human action to musical output, control intimacy, tools for creating musical interfaces, sensors and microcontrollers, audio synthesis techniques, and communication protocols such as Open Sound Control (and MIDI). The course presents several case studies focused on the major broad themes of the NIME conference, including augmented and sensor-based instruments, mobile and networked music, and NIME pedagogy.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Introduction to NIME Tools, Design, and Aesthetics
Fels & Lyons

2:10 pm
Module 1: Building a NIME
Fels

2:40 pm
Module 2: Camera-Based Interfaces
Lyons

3 pm
Module 3: Design & Aesthetics of NIME
Lyons

3:20 pm
Break

3:50 pm
Module 4: NIME After NIME: Case Studies
Fels

4:20 pm
Module 5: NIME Theory
Lyons

4:40 pm
Module 6: NIME Education
Lyons

4:50 pm
Concluding Remarks
Fels & Lyons

5 pm
Discussion

Michael Lyons
Ritsumeikan University

Sidney Fels
The University of British Columbia

Tuesday, 9 August
2-5:15 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Advanced Creation of Your Own Digital Fashion Show
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
2-3:30 pm
Talks
Full Conference
1000 Points of Light
Production Communities
East Building, Ballroom A/B
Lighting Tokyo for Pixar's "Cars 2"

An in-depth look at the techniques used to light and render Tokyo in "Cars 2".

"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.

Deferred Shading Technique Using Frostbite in Need for Speed The Run

A technical and production-oriented talk describing the tile-based lighting architecture and deferred rendering optimizations developed to achieve a visual target with hundreds of real-time lights per scene for Need for Speed: The Run at 30 frames per second on PlayStation3.

Tuesday, 9 August
2:15-3:15 pm
Exhibitor Tech Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
DigiPen Institute of Technology
Education
West Building, Hall C, Booth 801

The Academic Infrastructure of Innovative and Successful Video Games
A detailed look at the academic infrastructure of interactive media technologies and the special emphasis placed on incorporating innovative game design and gameplay mechanics to make video games highly successful and marketable.

Tuesday, 9 August
2:30-3:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
OpenColorIO Meetup
West Building, Room 102

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.

jeremys (at) imageworks.com
Jeremy Selan
Tuesday, 9 August
2:30-4:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
JogAmp: 2D/3D & Multimedia Across Devices
East Building, Room 19

JogAmp provides JOGL (OpenGL) and JOCL (OpenCL) across devices on top of Java. This session showcases resolution-independent curve, font, and UI GPU rendering on desktop and mobile (Android, etc.) devices.

sgothel (at) jogamp.org
JogAmp Community
Tuesday, 9 August
2:30-4:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
French Animation Showcase - Session 2
East Building, Room 18

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.

raynald.belay (at) consulfrance-vancouver.org
French Consulate in Vancouver, Masters of Digital Media Program, Association française du cinéma d'animation, Rencontres Audiovisuelles de Lille
Tuesday, 9 August
3-3:30 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
What’s New in Rhinoceros 5.0?
Education
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

An overview of the new functionality and improvements in the Rhinoceros 5.0 update.

Tuesday, 9 August
3-5:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Motion Graphics
Production Communities
West Building, Room 122

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

gil (at) conoa.com
Gil Irizarry
Tuesday, 9 August
3-4:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
In-Formation San Francisco ACM SIGGRAPH
Plaza A

This session is for attendees from San Francisco who are interested in the re-opening of the San Francisco ACM SIGGRAPH Chapter.

tflaxman (at) flaxanimation.com
Tereza Flaxman
Tuesday, 9 August
3:30-5:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Web3D Consortium Town Hall meeting
West Building, Room 101

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 (at) web3d.org
Anita Havele
Tuesday, 9 August
3:45-4:40 pm
Exhibitor Tech Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
The Bakery
West Building, Hall C, Booth 801

Bakery Relight: Interactive Lighting, Shading, and Rendering for Pros
Designed for the high-end feature film, television, industrial, automotive, and architectural design industries, Bakery Relight is the first interactive, all-in-one lighting, shading, and rendering solution. Born out of years of hands-on experience on top-grossing feature films, Relight supports the lighters’ and shaders’ iterative process with full-resolution feedback in seconds.

Tuesday, 9 August
3:45-4:15 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Let There Be Hair
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Fur and Feathers
Production Communities
East Building, Ballroom A/B
Quill: Birds of a Feather Tool

"Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole" features over 60 distinctive, art-directed, hyper-realistic feathered characters. Animal Logic developed a procedural feathering pipeline, Quill, that allows a procedural representation of feathers with automatic de-intersection, animation, character effects, and dynamics, and rendered with extensive level-of-detail support.

Dynamic, Penetration-Free Feathers in "Rango"

A simulation-based technique to prevent animated feather penetrations that preserves the artist's visual development as closely as possible while providing a collision-free state for subsequent animation and simulation.

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
3:45-5:00 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Digital Painting With Art Rage
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
3:45-5:35 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Call Animal Control!
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
Space-Time Planning With Parameterized Locomotion Controllers

A technique for animating characters traversing complex dynamic environments. The method uses motion capture to construct a set of controllers to traverse low-dimensional obstacles, and then employs a space-time planner to plan out the sequence in which the controllers must be used to traverse a complex dynamic environment.

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.

Locomotion Skills for Simulated Quadrupeds

This paper presents a large number of integrated locomotion skills for real-time physics-based quadrupeds. These skills include walk, trot, pace, canter, gallop, sit, lie-down, get-up, and parameterized leaps over barriers, across gaps, and onto platforms. The simulated motions are compared to known data for a dog.

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.

Character Animation in Two-Player Adversarial Games

This paper describes how game theory can be used to automatically create intelligent real-time controllers for characters engaged in a competitive game. These controllers employ long-term planning, display an intelligent use of randomness, and exhibit nuanced strategies based on unpredictability, such as feints and misdirection moves.

Tuesday, 9 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
By-Example Image Synthesis
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
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.

Image-Guided Weathering: A New Approach Applied to Flow Phenomena

With this new technique, weathering data can be extracted from photographs of real scenes and applied to generate similar weathering appearance in new environments. Stains produced by fluid flow illustrate a representative case.

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.

Discrete Element Textures

A data-driven method for synthesizing phenomena characterized by repetitive discrete elements, such as a stack of fresh produce, a plate of noodles, or a mosaic pattern. The method is general and easy to use, requiring only a small input exemplar and a coarse output domain.

Tuesday, 9 August
4-5:00 pm
Art Gallery - Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Garden of Error and Decay; tele-present wind; 0h!m1gas: biomimetic stridulation environment
Art
Art Gallery, West Building, Ballroom B

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.

Tuesday, 9 August
4:30-5:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Tokyo Race Lighting For Cars 2
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

Tokyo at night is one of the world's most beautiful locations. The architecture combined with a massive quantity of illuminated signs creates a visual complexity rarely seen elsewhere. The challenge was to recreate the emotional impact and excitement of downtown Tokyo but maintain the visual style of "Cars 2".

Tuesday, 9 August
4:30-5:15 pm
Real-Time Live!
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Real-Time Live!
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

Immerse yourself in the world’s most innovative and stimulating interactive real-time animation and graphics. As part of the Computer Animation Festival, an international jury selected submissions from several areas, including games, animation, performance, and visualization. Real-Time Live! is the premiere showcase for the latest trends and techniques for pushing the boundaries of interactive visuals.

Tuesday, 9 August
5-6:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
OpenSG
East Building, Room 19

This session is for attendees interested in the OpenSG Open Source scenegraph system for interactive 3D and virtual reality applications.

mail (at) dirkreiners.com
Dirk Reiners
Tuesday, 9 August
5-6:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Global Pipelines v2
East Building, Room 18

This companion event to the panel titled is an informal gathering to discuss the complex relationships between technology and collaboration for distributed work environments. [25]

estrauss (at) imageworks.com
Erik Strauss
Tuesday, 9 August
5-5:30 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Animated Lines
Art
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

Animated Lines is an illusion of animated sequence that explores the processes and methods of illustrative and abstract forms of traditional hand-drawn animation techniques in a 3D digital process using Maya.

Tuesday, 9 August
5:30-7:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Dynamic Simulation in Production
Production Communities
Saturna Island

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.mclaughlin (at) disney.com
Mark A. McLaughlin
Tuesday, 9 August
6-8:00 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Electronic Theater
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Computer Animation Festival - Electronic Theater
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A

The year's best work in animation, visual effects, games, and visualization.

Tuesday, 9 August
6-8:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
ACM SIGGRAPH Pioneer Reception
West Building, Room 302

Open to all Pioneers.

Tuesday, 9 August
7-9:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
SIGGIG: Gays In Graphics
Education
Beluga

SIGGIG: Gays In Graphics is a social event for attendees involved in, interested in, or supportive of the GLBT community.

siggig.info (at) gmail.com
Mark Lieberman
Wednesday, 10 August
9-10:30 am
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Zbrush Life Sculpting and Portraiture
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

How to use Zbrush for life drawing and portraiture, and how to apply skills and concepts from traditional sculpting and life drawing in a digital medium.

Wednesday, 10 August
9-10:00 am
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
What Industry Needs Graduates and New Hires to Know
Art
Education
West Building, Room 116

Knowledge and skill requirements for graduates and new hires.

mjbarr (at) mtsu.edu
Marc J. Barr (SIGGRAPH Education Committee) and Ryan Kuba
Wednesday, 10 August
9am-5:30 pm
The Studio
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Studio
Art
Education
Production Communities
West Building, Ballroom A

The Studio is the place for making and creating at SIGGRAPH 2011. Roll your sleeves up and get hands on in this three-ring circus of technological wonders.

Wednesday, 10 August
9am-5:30 pm
The Sandbox
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Sandbox
Education
Production Communities
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Wednesday, 10 August
9-10:30 am
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Surfaces
Research
East Building, Ballroom A/B
Contributing Vertices-Based Minkowski Sum of a Nonconvex--Convex Pair of Polyhedra

An exact and efficient contributing-vertices-based algorithm for the Minkowski sum computation of a non-convex-convex pair of polyhedra. The algorithm handles non-manifold situations and extracts polyhedral holes of the sum. Several results [26]

MeshFlow: Interactive Visualization of Mesh Construction Sequences

MeshFlow is an interactive system for visualizing polygonal mesh construction sequences. It hierarchically clusters editing operations visualized with graphical annotations to provide levels of detail on demand. MeshFlow was tested on five mesh sequences and evaluated with a case study using modeling students.

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.

On the Velocity of an Implicit Surface

Previously, only the normal component of the surface was known. This method of deriving a formula for the velocity of a time-evolving implicit surface applies the normal component to the problem of tracking particles on the surface and the problem of motion-blurring implicit surfaces.

Wednesday, 10 August
9am-12:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Stereoscopy From XY to Z
Production Communities
West Building, Rooms 109/110

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

Samuel Gateau
NVIDIA Corporation

Robert Neuman
Walt Disney Animation Studios

Marc Salvati
OLM Digital, Inc.

Wednesday, 10 August
9am-5:30 pm
Posters
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Posters
Education
Research
East Building, Lobby Level 1
Wednesday, 10 August
9-10:30 am
Talks
Full Conference
Mixed Grill
Production Communities
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
The Power of Atomic Assets: An Automated Approach to Pipeline on "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole"

The vast, fantastical world of Ga'Hoole, which ranged from deep pine forests to rocky canyons and deserts, was populated by a multitude of creatures brought together to play out a unique adventure. This talk focuses on the pipeline concepts and production methodologies that underpin the film's visual richness.

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.

Adaptive Importance Sampling for Multi-Ray Gathering

This technique reduces ray-gathering noise with low overhead and no bias by incrementally modifying the directional distribution of future rays to be traced based on those already traced.

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
9-11:30 am
Computer Animation Festival - Screenings
Computer Animation Festival
Japan Media Arts Festival
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A
Wednesday, 10 August
9-10:00 am
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Intel Exhibitor Session: Technical Objectives of the Intel Visual Computing Centers
West Building, Room 216
Wednesday, 10 August
9-10:30 am
Computer Animation Festival - Production Sessions
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Industrial Light & Magic Presents: Getting Dirty: Bringing the Digital Feature “Rango” to Life
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
9am-5:30 pm
Emerging Technologies
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Emerging Technologies
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

Emerging Technologies presents innovative technologies and applications in several fields, from displays and input devices to collaborative environments and robotics, and technologies that apply to film and game production.

Wednesday, 10 August
9-9:30 am
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Developing a Fab Lab for 3D Data Capture, Modeling and Prototyping
Education
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A
Wednesday, 10 August
9-10:30 am
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Colorful
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
Color Compatibility From Large Datasets

This paper studies color compatibility using large online datasets, and develops new tools for choosing colors to test new and existing theories of human color preferences and learn quantitative models that score the aesthetic quality of a color combination, and demonstrate the models in color selection tasks.

Edge-Aware Color Appearance

The effect of edge smoothness on color has not been studied in color-appearance modeling. This paper examines the appearance of color under different degrees of edge smoothness, confirms that color appearance changes with increased smoothness, and demonstrates an appropriate appearance model.

Example-Based Image Color and Tone Style Enhancement

An example-based method for image color and tone-style enhancement that has been successfully applied in two scenarios: cell phone photo enhancement by transferring the style of a high-end camera and photo enhancement using styles learned from photographers.

Switchable Primaries Using Shiftable Layers of Color Filter Arrays

This paper presents a camera with switchable primaries (RGB, CMY and RGBCMY) using shiftable layers of color filter arrays. The system provides a new degree of photographic freedom in which multiple operational modes are available for optimizing the picture quality based on the nature of the scene, color, and illumination.

Wednesday, 10 August
9-10:30 am
Courses
Full Conference
Cinematography - The Visuals & the Story
Education
West Building, Rooms 211-214

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

Bruce Block
University of Southern California
Wednesday, 10 August
9-10:30 am
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Change Your Approach to Modeling With ZBrush
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

Thomas Roussel from Pixologic presents a hands-on interactive workshop showing how digital sculpting with ZBrush can change your modeling and concept pipeline.

Wednesday, 10 August
9am-5:30 pm
Art Gallery
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Art Gallery: Tracing Home
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

The SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Gallery: Tracing Home, presents exceptional digital and technologically mediated artworks that explore issues related to the concept of home in the networked age.

Wednesday, 10 August
9-10:30 am
Game Papers
Full Conference
Analyzing Player Behavior and Experience
Research
West Building, Rooms 118-120
Evaluating Enjoyment Within Alternate-Reality Games

This paper on understanding enjoyment within alternate-reality games discusses the unique demands of the genre and why pre-existing enjoyment models are not applicable.

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.

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.

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
9-10:00 am
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters Business Meeting
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

The annual business meeting for the ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters.

Scott Lang
scott (at) siggraph.org

Wednesday, 10 August
9:30-10:30 am
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Explorable Microscopy Project: Enabling New Science + Exploration Through Gigapixel Imaging at the Microscopic Level
Research
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

What if you could explore the intricate detail of small subjects (such as a butterfly or embryo) much like an explorable map? Learn how new tools developed through the Explorable Microscopy collaborative project can help you do just that. This talk shows how these new tools can be used in your own work and examples of how the technology is enabling new science and research across a wide range of disciplines. In particular, it presents a range of low-cost motion-control devices, camera and lens options, open-source software, and online viewing applications that you can use in your work.

Wednesday, 10 August
9:30am-6:00 pm
Job Fair
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Job Fair
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall B
Wednesday, 10 August
9:30am-6:00 pm
Exhibition
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Exhibition
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall C

The world's leading providers of software, hardware, and services for computer graphics and interactive techniques.

Wednesday, 10 August
9:45-10:45 am
Exhibitor Tech Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
OPTIS
West Building, Hall C, Booth 801

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
10am-12:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
WebGL BOF
Education
West Building, Room 122

WebGL is a cross-platform, royalty-free web standard based on OpenGL ES 2.0. It is shader-based, using GLSL, and it brings plugin-free 3D to the web, directly into the browser.

marketing (at) goldstandardgroup.com
Khronos Group
Wednesday, 10 August
10-11:30 am
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Practical integration of Alembic
Tweedsmuir

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.

estrauss (at) imageworks.com
Erik Strauss
Wednesday, 10 August
10-11:00 am
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
OpenSceneGraph BOF
Art
West Building, Room 102

This discussion of the OpenSceneGraph open-source system includes new developments, how to use the software, and how people are using it.

richards (at) spawar.navy.mil
John Richardson
Wednesday, 10 August
10am-12:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Motion Capture Society
Production Communities
East Building, Room 19

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 (at) gmail.com
Troy McFarland
Wednesday, 10 August
10-11:30 am
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Leonardo Community Meeting
West Building, Room 101

Leonardo community members and all SIGGRAPH attendees are invited to hear presentations from selected Leonardo Affiliate Member organizations on cutting-edge research and educational programs in ArtScience around the world.

pgr (at) leonardo.info
Pamela Grant-Ryan
Wednesday, 10 August
10-10:45 am
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Animation by Young Asian Artists
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

Wednesday, 10 August
10:30-11:00 am
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
DIYLILCNC
Production Communities
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

The DIYLILCNC is an inexpensive, 3-axis, tabletop mill that can be built by an individual with basic shop skills and tool access. The open-source plans are free to download from diylilcnc.org, where makers can collaborate with a global community of DIY CAD/CAM enthusiasts.

Wednesday, 10 August
10:40am-12:10 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
World Creation in CryENGINE
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Production Volume Rendering 1
Production Communities
Research
West Building, Rooms 211-214

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

Magnus Wrenninge
Sony Pictures Imageworks

Nafees Bin Zafar
DreamWorks Animation

Wednesday, 10 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Game Papers
Full Conference
Players and Game Worlds
Research
West Building, Rooms 118-120
All in a Day's Work: A Study of World of Warcraft NPCs Comparing Gender to Professions

This study explores whether non-player characters within World of Warcraft reinforce stereotypical assumptions surrounding gender and work. Even though all professions are represented (albeit not equally) by male and female NPCs, there seem to be subtle hierarchies within the distribution of "work" in this gameworld.

Designing Stories: Narrative Practices in 3D Computer Games

Drawing on theories from game, film, and theater studies, this paper explores two primary ways in which 3D computer games deal with stories.

Beyond Player Types: Gaming Achievement Goals

Educational psychology studies use motivational constructs called achievement goals to predict learning success. This paper examines whether gaming achievement goals influence game play in similar ways. Gaming achievement goals could help determine whether people will play and which players are more likely to learn from educational games.

Modeling Play: Re-Casting Expertise in MMOGs

Studies of expertise in massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) involve either small-scale ethnographic accounts of elite players or large-scale accounts relying on one-dimensional measures of expert play. This paper presents a quantifiable model of expertise in MMOGs that is generated through qualitative analyses of both novices and experts.

Wednesday, 10 August
10:45-11:45 am
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Intel Exhibitor Session: Embree - High Performance Ray Tracing Kernels
West Building, Room 216
Wednesday, 10 August
10:45-11:30 am
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Industrial Application of CG in Japan
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

Wednesday, 10 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Image Processing
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
Antialiasing Recovery

This method for restoring antialiased edges that are damaged by certain types of nonlinear image processing operations selectively adjusts the local gradients in affected regions of the filtered image so that they are consistent with those in the original image.

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.

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.

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
From the Ground Up
Production Communities
East Building, Ballroom A/B
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.

The Visual Style of "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole"

“Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga'Hoole” evokes an epic nocturnal owl world, eschewing a cartoon aesthetic in favour of a dark, operatic style. The emotional drama of the story was more important than maintaining a sense of realism or naturalism.

Clouds in the Skies of Rio

Blue Sky Studios produced a large number of art-directed cloud environments for "Rio", using optimized creation, management, compositing, and ray-tracing technologies and techniques.

Wednesday, 10 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Example-Based Simulation
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
Data-Driven Elastic Models for Cloth: Modeling and Measurement

This data-driven technique to construct elastic models for cloth creates a database of 10 different cloth materials, each of which exhibits distinctive elastic behaviors. These measurements can be used in simulation systems to create natural and realistic clothing wrinkles and shapes.

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.

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.

Sparse Meshless Models of Complex Deformable Solids

A new method to physically simulate the deformation of objects with heterogeneous material properties and complex geometries using a small number of moving frames.

Wednesday, 10 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Dynamic 3D & Photoshop Integration
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
11am-12:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
ZBrush New Features - From Concept to Final Render
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

Thomas Roussel from Pixologic presents the latest features of ZBrush and explains how to go from concept to final render.

Wednesday, 10 August
11am-12:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Starting a New, Remote Studio
Production Communities
East Building, Room 18

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.

smcnair (at) pixarcanada.com
Sarah McNair
Wednesday, 10 August
11:15am-12:15 pm
Exhibitor Tech Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
West Building, Hall C, Booth 801

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
11:30am-12:30 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
CG in Europe
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

An overview of the state of CG in European countries, including Eurographics 2012, scheduled for May in Italy. Speakers include:

Michael Bielicky
HFG/ZKM Karlsruhe, Data Driven Narratives

Jorge Jimenez and Diego Gutierrez
University of Zaragoza, New Advances in Real-Time Graphics for Video Games

Mashhuda Glencross and Francho Melendez
University of Loughborough, 3D Recontruction From Images

Francho Melendez
franchomelendez (at) gmail.com

Wednesday, 10 August
12-1:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Rhinoceros 5.0: Workflow Improvements
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A
Wednesday, 10 August
12-2:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
rest3d BOF
West Building, Room 102

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

remi (at) acm.org
Remi Arnaud
Wednesday, 10 August
12:15-1:15 pm
Poster Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Poster Session
Research
East Building, Lobby Level 1
Wednesday, 10 August
12:15-1:45 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
GigaPan Time Machine: Authoring and Exploring Gigapixel-Scale, Time-Lapse Imagery
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

This system captures and stitches gigapixel-scale time-lapse imagery and explores the resulting gigapixel-scale video in four dimensions: 2D translation, zoom, and time. Workshop topics include: how to author content, how to explore, and how to define “warps” through gigapixel video and render them into standard, linear video.

Wednesday, 10 August
12:30-1:45 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Real World Camera-Rig Creation
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

How to build, evaluate, and rig to create truly believable camera animation without tracking data. Imagine having a steady camera movement in 3D, or a 3D crane whose rig moves like a crane does in film. This session explains rigging and automation for real-world camera control in 3D.

Wednesday, 10 August
12:30-1:30 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Professional and Student ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters Start-Up Meeting
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

Wednesday, 10 August
12:45-1:30 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Screenings
Computer Animation Festival
Computer Animation Festival Award Winners
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A
Wednesday, 10 August
12:45-1:45 pm
Exhibitor Tech Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Autodesk
West Building, Hall C, Booth 801

Multi-Threaded 2D Renderer Design
Rendering real-time high-quality 2D vector graphics through a 3D pipeline is a challenging task that requires custom algorithms for shape tessellation, edge anti-aliasing, and text rendering. For best performance, Scaleform 2D renderer includes optimizations such as multi-threaded rendering, mesh caching, and draw-primitive batching. Following a high-level design description, this talk dives into multi-threaded rendering, introducing a novel render-tree design that allows the both threads to access scene graph nodes simultaneously, greatly reducing copy overhead. This strategy is particularly effective when only a subset of nodes is modified every frame and can be applied to any real-time rendering engine.

Wednesday, 10 August
1-1:30 pm
Art Gallery - Tours
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Daily Art Tours
Art
Art Gallery, West Building, Ballroom B

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
1:15-1:45 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Map Design + Social and Environmental issues: Graphic Design Education at Its Best
Education
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

How to foster engagement in social and environmental issues through a graphic design assignment focused on creation of visually interesting folded, printed maps and instruction on aspects of sustainable print production and design techniques and processes.

Wednesday, 10 August
1:30-3:00 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The New Media and the Industry in China
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

Richard Smith
Centre For Digital Media, Vancouver

Bai Xuezhu
Communication University of China

You Xiang
Vice President of Crystal CG, Nanjing

Chang Ming
37 Entertainment

Gerri Sinclair
Strategic Innovation Consultant and Principal, The Gerri Sinclair Group

Wednesday, 10 August
1:30-3:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
The New Media and the Industry in China
Education
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

mjbarr (at) mtsu.edu
SIGGRAPH Education Committee, Marc J. Barr
Wednesday, 10 August
1:30-2:45 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Screenings
Computer Animation Festival
Student Projects
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A
Wednesday, 10 August
1:30-3:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
OpenCL BOF
Education
Crystal Ballroom B & C

Meet designers and implementers of this significant new standard for heterogeneous parallel programming on GPUs and CPUs. Learn how OpenCL inter-operates with OpenGL to enable advanced, cross-platform, visual-computing applications.

marketing (at) goldstandardgroup.com
Khronos Group
Wednesday, 10 August
1:30-2:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Games at SIGGRAPH Meetup
West Building, Room 102

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.

dma35 (at) sfu.ca
David Milam
Wednesday, 10 August
2-2:30 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
"T-Splines 3 for Rhino: What's New"
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A
Wednesday, 10 August
2-5:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Production Volume Rendering 2
Production Communities
West Building, Rooms 211-214

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

Magnus Wrenninge
Sony Pictures Imageworks

Nafees Bin Zafar
DreamWorks Animation

Andrew Clinton
Side Effects Software Inc.

Ollie Harding
Double Negative Visual Effects

Gavin Graham
Double Negative Visual Effects

Jerry Tessendorf
Clemson University

Victor Grant
Rhythm & Hues Studios

Antoine Bouthors
Weta Digital Ltd

Wednesday, 10 August
2-3:30 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Mapping & Warping Shapes
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
Bounded Biharmonic Weights for Real-Time Deformation

Deformation by linear blending dominates practical use as the fastest approach for transforming 2D and 3D shapes. This paper develops "bounded biharmonic weights" that produce smooth and intuitive deformations for any combination of points, bones, and cages of arbitrary topology, making control of deformations simple and flexible.

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.

Biharmonic Distance

A new distance measure on manifolds based on the biharmonic differential operator that provides a nice trade-off between nearly geodesic distances for small distances and global shape-awareness for large distances.

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
2-3:00 pm
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Intel Exhibitor Session: Increase your FPS with CPU Onload
West Building, Room 216
Wednesday, 10 August
2-3:30 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Production Sessions
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Imageworks: The Smurf-alution: A Half-Century of Character Development
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

Sony Pictures Imageworks animation supervisor Troy Saliba and leading members of their Vancouver animation team take the Smurfs from the most primitive pencil sketch to a contemporary 3D stereo rendering.

Wednesday, 10 August
2-3:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
GPU Ray Tracing
Waterfront Ballroom B

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.

davemc (at) nvidia.com
NVIDIA Advanced Rendering Center
Wednesday, 10 August
2-3:30 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Facial Animation
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
Leveraging Motion Capture and 3D Scanning for High-Fidelity Facial Performance Acquisition

This new approach for acquiring high-fidelity 3D facial performances with realistic dynamic wrinkles and fine facial details leverages state-of-the-art motion capture technology and advanced 3D scanning technology of facial-performance acquisition.

High-Quality Passive Facial Performance Capture Using Anchor Frames

A new technique for high-quality facial performance capture that leverages the repetitive structure of face motions to automatically locate frames with similar expressions, called anchor frames. High-resolution geometry is reconstructed and temporal motion is propagated in parallel using robust image-space matching between the anchor frames.

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.

Real-Time Performance-Based Facial Animation

This paper presents a system for performance-based character animation that enables any user to control the facial expressions of a digital avatar in real-time using a non-intrusive, commercially available 3D sensor.

Wednesday, 10 August
2-3:30 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Directing Destruction
Art
Research
East Building, Ballroom A/B
End of Line: Character Destruction in "Tron: Legacy"

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

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".

Directing Hair Motion on "Tangled"

This hybrid approach to combining the power of custom hair dynamics with the artistic control of key-framed animation was key to the success of directing hair motion on "Tangled".

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
2-3:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Computer Graphics for Simulation
Research
West Building, Room 102

This session reviews recent advances in simulation theory and computer graphics. Topics include specifications (Web3D,WebGL,DEVS), visualization requirements for simulation, graphical tools, and general CG simulation technologies.

richards (at) spawar.navy.mil
John Richardson
Wednesday, 10 August
2-5:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Character Rigging, Deformations, and Simulations in Film and Game Production
Production Communities
West Building, Rooms 109/110

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

Tim McLaughlin
Texas A&M University

Larry Cutler
DreamWorks Animation

David Coleman
Electronic Arts Inc.

Wednesday, 10 August
2-3:30 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Applying Color Theory to Digital Media and Visualization
Research
West Building, Rooms 118-120

This course highlights the visual impact of specific color combinations, provides practical suggestions on color mixing, and includes a hands-on session that teaches how to build and evaluate color schemes for digital media visualization.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Introduction

2:05 pm
Review of Additive and Subtractive Color Models

2:10 pm
Defining Color Gamut, Colors Spaces, and Color Systems

2:25 pm
Overview of Selected Artistic Movements Pertaining to Color Theory

2:35 pm
Visualization Case Studies

2:50 pm
Hands on Workshop Using Online Color Tools

3:20 pm
Wrap-Up, Other Resources, and Concluding Remarks

Theresa-Marie Rhyne
Consultant
Wednesday, 10 August
2-5:15 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
An introduction Into After Effects for Motion Graphics
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
2-3:30 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Anatomy of a Dragon - 2D to 3D
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

This student-focused, interactive presentation delivers insights from a traditional and 3D animation artist to guide attendees on a path of discovery, knowledge, and sometimes frustration to a sense of completion when drawing and animating a dragon.

Wednesday, 10 August
2:15-3:15 pm
Exhibitor Tech Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Xsens
Education
West Building, Hall C, Booth 801

How Much Animation Can You Do in a Day?
This talk shows how to speed up your pipeline with the Xsens MVN animation tool. It also explains how to record a motion, edit the motion, and insert it into a scene in no time, or even real time, using the Xsens MVN system.

Wednesday, 10 August
2:45-4:15 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Using Processing and G-Speak as Tools Within a Foundations Program at a School of Art and Design
Education
East Building, Room 18

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.

mmilloff (at) risd.edu
Mark Milloff and Clement Valla
Wednesday, 10 August
2:45-4:00 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Screenings
Computer Animation Festival
Demoscene
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A
Wednesday, 10 August
3-3:30 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Rhinoceros 5.0: A Look at the UDT Commands
Education
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Wednesday, 10 August
3-5:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Managing Creative Projects
Production Communities
West Building, Room 116

This session is for attendees interested in discussing creative projects and how to manage them, with a particular emphasis on Agile methodologies.

gil (at) conoa.com
Gil Irizarry
Wednesday, 10 August
3-4:00 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Join the International Resources Committee in 2012!
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
3:15-4:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
X3D and HTML5/X3DOM
Education
Research
West Building, Room 122

Learn more about X3DOM, fully integrated X3D with HTML with no plug-ins. currently supported in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari browsers.

Johannes.Behr (at) igd.fraunhofer.de
Johannes Behr
Wednesday, 10 August
3:15-4:15 pm
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Intel Exhibitor Session: MAXIS-mizing Darkspore Game Performance with Intel GPA 4.0!
West Building, Room 216
Wednesday, 10 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Show Me The Pixels
Art
Research
West Building, Rooms 118-120
Slow Art With a Trillion Frames Per Second Camera

Movies captured at the equivalent of a trillion frames per second show the motion of light pulses through scenes, bouncing off walls and getting trapped inside fruits due to sub-surface scattering.

Display Pixel Caching

Display pixel caching fills empty borders that occur when videos are displayed on a screen with mismatching aspect ratios and/or resolutions with spatially and temporally consistent information while preserving the original video format. It merges the motion information from subsequent frames to generate high-resolution panoramas in a consistent manner.

Device-Independent Imaging System for High-Fidelity Colors

A device-independent imaging system for accurately capturing and faithfully reproducing colors.

Who Do You Think You Really Are?

Presented by David Attenborough, "Who do you think you really are?" is an interactive film that uses cutting-edge technology, including location-based augmented reality and real-time audience participation, to take audiences on an immersive, interactive journey into their evolutionary past.

Wednesday, 10 August
3:45-5:00 pm
The Studio–Digital Artistry
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Sensor Calibration
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
3:45-5:35 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Procedural & Interactive Modeling
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
Converting 3D Furniture Models to Fabricatable Parts and Connectors

A grammar-based framework for converting 3D furniture models to separate parts and connectors that can be physically built, which allows nonprofessional users to create products that they can use themselves by "printing" 3D furniture models.

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.

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.

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.

Metropolis Procedural Modeling

This paper brings artistic control to grammar-based procedural models via Markov-chain Monte Carlo inference. Given a grammar and a high-level specification, the algorithm computes a production from the grammar that conforms to the specification. The method is demonstrated on models of trees, cities, buildings, and Mondrian paintings.

Wednesday, 10 August
3:45-4:40 pm
Exhibitor Tech Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Organic Motion
West Building, Hall C, Booth 801

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

Wednesday, 10 August
3:45-5:35 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Fluid Simulation
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
Real-Time Eulerian Water Simulation Using a Restricted Tall Cell Grid

A new real-time Eulerian fluid simulation that uses a hybrid grid of regular cubic cells on top of a layer of tall cells above an arbitrary terrain. The method includes a novel multigrid method and several fluid solver modifications, and achieves 30fps in real-world scenarios on a modern GPU.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Crowds
Production Communities
East Building, Ballroom A/B
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.

Synthesizing Complexity for Characters and Landscapes in "Rio"

A new modular architecture for the film "Rio" enabled artists to procedurally generate and animate vast quantities and varieties of detail, from flocks of birds in windswept jungles to thousands of costumed characters at Carnaval, while improvements to voxel rendering and sparse octree geometry caches facilitated ray-tracing this complexity.

Staging Carnival: Ray Tracing Crowds in "Rio"

Blue Sky Studios developed an efficient workflow for staging the carnival scenes in the "Rio" and created a way of rendering them in a ray tracer such that a scenes with more than 30,000 characters fit in the memory of a single computer.

Wednesday, 10 August
3:45-4:15 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Bridging Synthetic and Organic Materiality: Graded Transitions in Material Connections
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

Material connections are everywhere: from architectural environments to machines and electronics. These connections manifest as seams, joints, and corners, usually with visually apparent orthogonal lines. Graded material transition is an alternative material-connection method that challenges the dominance of pronounced orthogonal seams in today’s built environment.

Wednesday, 10 August
4-5:00 pm
Art Gallery - Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Open House; Wait; Third Skin
Art
Art Gallery, West Building, Ballroom B

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
4-6:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
OpenGL BOF
Education
Crystal Ballroom B & C

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

marketing (at) goldstandardgroup.com
Khronos Group
Wednesday, 10 August
4-5:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Educators Meet and Greet
Education
SIGGRAPH Village, West Building, Ballroom Foyer

An informal reception at the SIGGRAPH Village for all educators attending SIGGRAPH 2011.

mjbarr (at) mtsu.edu
Marc J. Barr (SIGGRAPH Education Committee)
Wednesday, 10 August
4-5:00 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Screenings
Computer Animation Festival
Commercials, Games, and Music
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A
Wednesday, 10 August
4:30-5:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Visual Style of “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole”
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

“Legend of the Guardians: the Owls of Ga'Hoole‚” evokes an epic nocturnal owl world, eschewing a cartoon aesthetic in favor of a dark, operatic style. The visuals were created on the assumption that the emotional drama of the story was more important than maintaining a sense of realism or naturalism.

Wednesday, 10 August
4:30-5:15 pm
Real-Time Live!
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Real-Time Live!
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

Immerse yourself in the world’s most innovative and stimulating interactive real-time animation and graphics. As part of the Computer Animation Festival, an international jury selected submissions from several areas, including games, animation, performance, and visualization. Real-Time Live! is the premiere showcase for the latest trends and techniques for pushing the boundaries of interactive visuals.

Wednesday, 10 August
4:30-5:30 pm
Exhibitors Sessions
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Intel Exhibitor Session: Unleash Visual Computing Performance - Intel Performance Optimization Tools and Strategies
West Building, Room 216
Wednesday, 10 August
5-6:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Undergraduate Research Alliance
Education
West Building, Room 102

The Undergraduate Research Alliance [27] was created to foster and support computer graphics research by undergraduates. Faculty and students are encouraged to attend.

joelw (at) wcsu.edu
Undergraduate Research Alliance
Wednesday, 10 August
5-7:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Ringling College Alumni Reception
Ambleside

A gathering for alumni and friends of the Ringling College of Art and Design.

lfoss (at) ringling.edu
Lucy Foss
Wednesday, 10 August
5:05-6:00 pm
Exhibitor Tech Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Web3D Consortium
West Building, Hall C, Booth 801

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.

Wednesday, 10 August
6-7:30 pm
SIGGRAPH Dailies!
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
SIGGRAPH Dailies!
Education
West Building, Rooms 211-214

This celebration of excellence in computer graphics showcases images and short animations of extraordinary power and beauty. Each presenter has one minute to present an animation and describe the work. The format is very similar to Technical Papers Fast Forward, except there is no talk later in the week.

Wednesday, 10 August
6-8:00 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Electronic Theater
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Computer Animation Festival - Electronic Theater
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A

The year's best work in animation, visual effects, games, and visualization.

Wednesday, 10 August
6:30-8:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Purdue University Alumni Reception
Terrace Room

Come Boiler Up with the Purdue crew! Purdue alumni, students, professors, and friendlies welcome.

rhassan (at) purdue.edu
Raymond P. Hassan
Wednesday, 10 August
6:30-8:30 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Blacks in Animation & VFX
Art
Gabriola Island

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

blackanimation (at) gmail.com
Krystal Cooper
Thursday, 11 August
9-10:30 am
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Vignette Correction in GigaPan Stitch
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Thursday, 11 August
9-10:30 am
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Video Resizing & Stabilization
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
Image and Video Upscaling From Local Self-Examples

A new, high-quality, and efficient single-image upscaling method that exploits local self-similarities in the data and reduces search time. The method is implemented using novel non-dyadic filter banks that allow real-time processing when converting low-resolution video formats into HD standards.

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.

Subspace Video Stabilization

A robust and efficient approach to video stabilization that achieves high-quality camera motion for a wide range of videos and is sufficiently practical for consumer applications.

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.

Thursday, 11 August
9am-1:00 pm
The Studio
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Studio
Art
Education
Production Communities
West Building, Ballroom A

The Studio is the place for making and creating at SIGGRAPH 2011. Roll your sleeves up and get hands on in this three-ring circus of technological wonders.

Thursday, 11 August
9am-1:00 pm
The Sandbox
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The Sandbox
Education
Production Communities
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Thursday, 11 August
9am-12:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
The New Media and the Academy in China
Education
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

mjbarr (at) mtsu.edu
SIGGRAPH Education Committee, Marc J. Barr
Thursday, 11 August
9am-12:00 pm
International Resources Events
Full Conference
Basic Conference
The New Media and the Academy in China
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

Thursday, 11 August
9am-12:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
The New Media and the Academy in China
Education
International Center, Harbour Concourse (Southeast corner of West Building)

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

mjbarr (at) mtsu.edu
SIGGRAPH Education Committee, Marc J. Barr
Thursday, 11 August
9am-5:30 pm
Posters
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Posters
Education
Research
East Building, Lobby Level 1
Thursday, 11 August
9-9:30 am
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Photochromic SculptureÔºö Volumetric Color-Forming Pixels
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Thursday, 11 August
9-10:30 am
Talks
Full Conference
Hiding Complexity
Production Communities
Research
West Building, Rooms 211-214
Occlusion Culling in Alan Wake

This talk discusses implementation of the occlusion culling system used in Alan Wake and presents details on how the system efficiently supports shadow-caster culling for dynamic light sources in large environments.

Increasing Scene Complexity: Distributed Vectorized View Culling

A new solution and approach to culling complex game scenes on parallel architectures at high performance.

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.

High-Quality Previewing of Shading and Lighting for Killzone 3

This novel content creation framework, consisting of Guerrilla's own game-rendering engine embedded inside Autodesk Maya, achieves high-fidelity previews of assets while preserving flexibility, so work can continue during the preview.

Thursday, 11 August
9-10:30 am
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Fast Simulation
Research
East Building, Ballroom A/B
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.

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.

Solid Simulation With Oriented Particles

Using particles with orientation enables simulation of rigid, plastic, and soft bodies as well as one-, two-, and three-dimensional structures with only a few simulation nodes. In addition, the system uses orientation information to robustly skin visual meshes and increase the accuracy of the particle-based collision volume.

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.

Thursday, 11 August
9am-1:00 pm
Emerging Technologies
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Emerging Technologies
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

Emerging Technologies presents innovative technologies and applications in several fields, from displays and input devices to collaborative environments and robotics, and technologies that apply to film and game production.

Thursday, 11 August
9am-12:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Compiler Techniques for Rendering
Production Communities
Research
East Building, Ballroom C

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

Larry Gritz
Sony Pictures Imageworks

Mark Leone
Weta Digital Ltd

Steven Parker
NVIDIA Corporation

Philipp Slusallek
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)

Bruce Walter
Cornell University

Thursday, 11 August
9am-1:00 pm
Art Gallery
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Art Gallery: Tracing Home
Art
Education
West Building, Ballroom B

The SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Gallery: Tracing Home, presents exceptional digital and technologically mediated artworks that explore issues related to the concept of home in the networked age.

Thursday, 11 August
9:15-10:00 am
Computer Animation Festival - Screenings
Computer Animation Festival
Computer Animation Festival Award Winners
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A
Thursday, 11 August
9:30-10:30 am
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Rhinoceros 5.0: Rendering and Texture Mapping Improvements
Education
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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

Thursday, 11 August
9:30am-3:30 pm
Job Fair
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Job Fair
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall B
Thursday, 11 August
9:30am-3:30 pm
Exhibition
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Exhibition
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall C

The world's leading providers of software, hardware, and services for computer graphics and interactive techniques.

Thursday, 11 August
10am-12:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Mobile APIs BOF
Education
West Building, Room 122

Get the inside track on OpenGL ES, OpenVG, OpenMAX, and all the new-media APIs being used to develop the billion-dollar, billion-user gaming and mobile multimedia markets!

marketing (at) goldstandardgroup.com
Khronos Group
Thursday, 11 August
10am-12:00 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Electronic Theater
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Computer Animation Festival - Electronic Theater
Education
West Building, Exhibit Hall A

The year's best work in animation, visual effects, games, and visualization.

Thursday, 11 August
10:30am-12:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Virtual Construction Toys
West Building, Room 101

Using 3D graphics for LEGO, Zoob, an Erector set, etc. in a touch-based environment. What would apps do to enable virtual play? What kinds of interaction make sense?

jeg (at) polished-pixels.com
Julian Gomez
Thursday, 11 August
10:30am-12:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Lighting Worlds in Unity
Education
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

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.

Thursday, 11 August
10:40am-12:10 pm
The Studio–Workshops
Full Conference
Basic Conference
KeyShot: Amazing Rendering and Animation in Real Tiem
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A

KeyShot breaks down the complexity of creating photographic images from 3D models, so anybody involved with 3D data can create photographic images in a matter of seconds, independent of the size of the digital model. This exclusive, in-depth preview of the next version of KeyShot demonstrates how it can be applied to animation. With KeyShot 3, users can animate designs with a simple, interactive setup and easy manipulaion of components in a 3D, interactive, ray-traced environment. No complex key framing required. The finished 3D product can be played back in real time with ray-traced quality.

Thursday, 11 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Volumes and Rendering
Production Communities
Research
West Building, Rooms 211-214
Gaussian Quadrature for Photon Beams in "Tangled"

A robust solution for integrating photon beams into PhotoRealistic RenderMan for the animated feature "Tangled".

Importance Sampling of Area Lights in Participating Media

A method to effectively importance sample the single scattering integral in homogeneous participating media from point lights and area lights of arbitrary shapes.

Decoupled Ray Marching of Heterogeneous Participating Media

A method for efficient ray tracing of heterogeneous participating media using ray marching by decoupling the lighting calculations from the sampling of volume properties.

Demand-Driven Volume Rendering of Terascale EM Data

A new demand-driven volume rendering approach for extremely large electron microscopy (EM) volume data that for the first time allows neurobiologists to view terabyte-sized EM volumes interactively, without pre-computing a 3D multi-resolution representation beforehand.

Thursday, 11 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Stereo & Disparity
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
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.

Highlighted Depth-of-Field Photography: Shining Light on Focus

A camera-projector system casts distinct grid patterns onto a scene to generate a spatial distribution of point reflections. These point reflections relay a relative measure of defocus that is utilized in post-processing to generate a highlighted depth-of-field photograph.

Layered 3D: Tomographic Image Synthesis for Attenuation-Based Light Field and High Dynamic Range Displays

This method optimizes auto-multiscopic displays composed of compact volumes of light-attenuating material. Inexpensively fabricated by stacking transparencies, the attenuators recreate a light field when illuminated by a backlight. Tomographic optimization resolves inconsistencies between views, leading to brighter, higher-resolution 3D displays with extended depth of field and improved dynamic range.

A Perceptual Model for Disparity

This paper summarizes a psychophysical experiment to determine human sensitivity to binocular disparity on modern 3D stereo equipment. The obtained data were used to formulate a model of perceived disparity that lays the foundations for effective disparity compression, retargeting, personalized stereo, hybrid stereo images, and a perceived disparity-difference metric.

Thursday, 11 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Smokin' Fluids
Production Communities
Research
West Building, Rooms 109/110
DB+Grid: A Novel Dynamic Blocked Grid For Sparse High-Resolution Volumes and Level Sets

A new data structure for efficient representation of sparse, time-varying volumetric data discretized on a 3D grid.

Capturing Thin Features in Smoke Simulations

A system for smoke simulation that allows thin features to be captured even in simulations with low fluid-field resolution.

Implicit FEM and Fluid Coupling on GPU for Interactive Multiphysics Simulation

Combining GPU methods for detailed deformable objects, image-based collisions, and SPH fluids to simulate a two-way, fluid-deformable coupling at interactive rates.

Correcting Low-Frequency Impulses in Distributed Simulations

A method to couple distributed level-set fluid simulations by performing a shared low-resolution pressure projection.

Thursday, 11 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Production Sessions
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Industrial Light & Magic: New Solutions for New Challenges
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

The Industrial Light & Magic team delves into the effects created for three of 2011’s largest summer films, dissecting the challenges and revealing their solutions. The panel breaks down the visual effects challenges presented on this year’s slate of films including: “Cowboys & Aliens”, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”, and “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”.

Thursday, 11 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Fun With Shapes
Research
East Building, Ballroom A/B
Making Burr Puzzles From 3D Models

A computational approach to creating burr puzzles from 3D models while enforcing a single-key property in the 3D puzzle-construction process. When the puzzle is assembled, all the pieces are notched except the key piece, which remains mobile.

A Geometric Study of V-Style Pop-Ups: Theories and Algorithms

We study a simple but common class of pop-ups: the v-style pop-ups. Conditions are given for a v-style paper structure to be pop-uppable. Based on these conditions, we developed an interactive tool for designing v-style pop-ups and an automated construction algorithm.

Depixelizing Pixel Art

A novel algorithm for extracting a resolution-independent vector representation from small pixel art images, which enables magnifying the results by an arbitrary amount without image degradation. Pixel-scale features are resolved and converted into regions with smoothly varying shading that are crisply separated by piecewise-smooth contour curves.

Digital Micrography

An algorithm for creating micrography images, or micrograms, a special type of calligram that utilizes miniscule text. Traditional micrograms represent images using readable meaningful text and require both artistic skills and a lot of manual work. This computerized digital micrography design tool simplifies the process.

Thursday, 11 August
10:45am-12:15 pm
Panels
Full Conference
Designing Curriculum for 3D Computer Animation: Innovation and Experimentation for an Evolving Discipline
Education
West Building, Rooms 118-120

Visual effects and 3D animation are ever-evolving disciplines, and the fluidity and constant innovation that are at the core of these fields present very specific challenges to educators. In the past 20 years, the volume of computer-animation programs offered by educational institutions has expanded dramatically. Schools around the world are constantly experimenting with new curriculum ideas and educational strategies, trying to provide students with the best opportunities to develop their potential as computer artists and as future players in the computer animation industry.

What makes an undergraduate or graduate program in 3D computer animation successful? Why do some schools seem to be so much better than others? How are they different, in philosophy, educational strategies, proposed projects, curriculum grid, industry relationships, and resources?

This panel brings together leaders and thinkers from some of the top animation schools in the world to present, discuss, and share their specific approaches and educational philosophies. An outreach expert from DreamWorks Animation, and a talent-development director from Walt Disney Animation Studios present the industry point of view.

Thursday, 11 August
12-1:00 pm
The Studio–Talks
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Keyshot
The Studio/West Building, Ballroom A
Thursday, 11 August
1-2:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Augmented and Mixed Reality
Research
West Building, Room 102

Learn more on how to extend X3D capabilities to support augmented reality and mixed reality applications.

Johannes.Behr (at) igd.fraunhofer.de
Johannes Behr
Thursday, 11 August
2-5:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Web3D Korea Chapter Meeting
Research
West Building, Room 102

Meet The Web3D Korea Chapter members and discuss their current initiatives on the X3D specification: augmented reality, E-learning, mobile function, and other X3D implementations.

anita.havele (at) web3d.org
Anita Havele
Thursday, 11 August
2-3:30 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Speed of Light
Research
West Building, Rooms 211-214
Run-Time Implementation of Modular Radiance Transfer

Modular Radiance Transfer is a recent technique that computes approximate direct-to-indirect transfer by warping and combining transport from a small library of simple shapes. This talk discusses implementation issues that arose when scaling the algorithm from mobile devices to high-end GPUs.

Next-Generation Image-Based Lighting Using HDR Video

An overview of a systems pipeline for high-dynamic-range video capture, reconstruction, and modeling of real-world scenes with strong spatial variations in the lighting environment, which enables photo-realistic rendering of synthetic objects placed in the scene.

Triple Depth Culling

A simple and efficient method for pixel-scale occlusion culling in arbitrarily complex scenes.

Non-Uniform Motion Deblurring for Camera Shakes Using Image Registration

This solution to the ill-posed, non-uniform point-spread-function (PSF) estimation problem transforms it into a well-posed image-registration problem that estimates homographies representing the motions of camera shakes in 3D.

Thursday, 11 August
2-3:30 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Interactive Image Editing
Research
East Building, Ballroom C
Interactive Editing of Massive Imagery Made Simple: Turning Atlanta Into Atlantis

This simple framework for progressive processing of high-resolution images with minimal resources implements an adaptive, multi-resolution solver for gradient-based image processing that is capable of real-time seamless cloning for images that are hundreds of gigapixels in size.

Geodesic Image and Video Editing

A new, unified technique to perform general edge-sensitive editing operations on n-dimensional images and videos efficiently. Introduction of a generalized geodesic distance transform provides the unifying framework to efficiently address several editing operations such as de-noising, segmentation, and non-photorealistic rendering.

Matting and Compositing of Transparent and Refractive Objects

This image-based model for matting and compositing transparent and refractive objects from single images encodes plausible refractive properties of a transparent object and its observed specularities and transmissive properties. The method simulates compound compositing, Fresnel effect, scene depth, and caustic shadows from the extracted model.

Nonlinear Revision Control for Images

A nonlinear revision-control system for images that supports review, diff, addition, branching, merging, and conflict resolving, and facilitates artistic creation in common image editing and digital sketching tasks. The core idea is a DAG structure that represents the spatial, temporal, and semantic relationships between operations.

Thursday, 11 August
2-3:30 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Heads or Tails
Art
Production Communities
Research
East Building, Ballroom A/B
Building the Birds of "Rio"

An examination of the process and technology used to build control systems for birds in Blue Sky Studio's "Rio" using the main character Blu as a case study.

"Kung Fu Panda 2": Rigging a Peacock Tail

Creation of the "Kung Fu Panda 2" peacock tail rig and an approach that streamlines the animation process while adhering to a broad and complex specification.

Optimized Local Blendshape Mapping for Facial-Motion Retargeting

This facial-motion retargeting method for blendshapes without any prior knowledge of facial segmentation delivers better visual quality than traditional local blendshape mapping methods.

Thursday, 11 August
2-3:30 pm
Computer Animation Festival - Production Sessions
Full Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Guerilla: The Creation of Killzone 3 - Game Production Session
Education
West Building, Ballroom C/D

This talk details various aspects of designing and developing videogames at Guerrilla. It highlights methods that are very similar to methods used in the CGI industry, and it illuminates some of the most important differences. And it covers the complete breadth of videogame development from artistic design to production pipelines and tool and engine development.

Thursday, 11 August
2-5:15 pm
Courses
Full Conference
Filtering Approaches for Real-Time Anti-Aliasing
Production Communities
West Building, Rooms 109/110

For more than a decade, supersample anti-aliasing (SSAA) and multisample anti-aliasing (MSAA) have been the gold-standard anti-aliasing solutions in games. However, these techniques are not well suited for deferred shading or fixed environments like the current generation of consoles. In recent years, industry and academia have been exploring alternative approaches, where anti-aliasing is performed as a post-processing step. The original, CPU-based morphological anti-aliasing (MLAA) method gave birth to an explosion of real-time anti-aliasing techniques that rival MSAA.

Most of these techniques share concepts and ideas, so the main goal of this course is to establish a conceptual link between them, identifying novelties and differences. The presenters explain how sub-pixel data can be used to improve quality and performance tradeoffs at post-processing steps, which is a cutting-edge research area today. The course includes an overview of both research and industry filter-based anti-aliasing techniques in games for all modern platforms (AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360), low-level insight to ease adoption of these techniques and give attendees a complete concept-to-implementation roadmap, and deep quality, performance, and ease-of-integration comparisons of each technique.

COURSE SCHEDULE

2 pm
Introduction
Gutierrez & Jimenez

2:05 pm
A Directionally Adaptive Edge Anti-Aliasing Filter
Yang

2:20 pm
Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA)
Reshetov

2:35 pm
Jimenez's MLAA
Jimenez

2:50 pm
Hybrid CPU/GPU MLAA on the Xbox-360
Demoreuille

3:05 pm
Low-Latency MLAA in God of War III
Perthuis

3:20 pm
PlayStation Edge MLAA
Berghoff

3:35 pm
The Saboteur Anti-Aliasing (SPUAA)
Yu

3:50 pm
Break

4 pm
Subpixel Reconstruction Antialiasing (SRAA)
McGuire

4:15 pm
Fast approXimate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA)
Lottes

4:30 pm
Distance-to-Edge Anti-Aliasing (DEAA)
Malan

4:45 pm
Geometry Buffer Antialiasing (GBAA)
Persson

4:55 pm
Directionally Localized Anti-Aliasing (DLAA)
Andreev

5:10 pm
Crysis 2 Anti-Aliasing
Sousa

5:25 pm
Wrap-up and Discussion: Questions and Answers

Jorge Jimenez
Universidad de Zaragoza

Diego Gutierrez
Universidad de Zaragoza

Jason Yang
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

Alexander Reshetov
Intel Labs

Pete Demoreuille
Double Fine Productions, Inc.

Tobias Berghoff
Sony Computer Entertainment

Cedric Perthuis
Sony Computer Entertainment

Henry Yu
Kalloc Studios

Morgan McGuire
NVIDIA Corporation and Williams College

Timothy Lottes
NVIDIA Corporation

Hugh Malan
CCP hf.

Emil Persson
Avalanche Studios

Dmitry Andreev
Lucas Arts

Tiago Sousa
Crytek

Thursday, 11 August
2-3:30 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Discrete Differential Geometry
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
Circular Arc Structures

As a means of rationalization of freeform architectural designs, "circular arc structures" combine faithful consistency with the design intent and simple edge elements and congruent nodes. This paper summarizes the method's easily manufactured support elements, repetition, the first global approximation method for principal patches, and volumetric designs.

Discrete Laplacians on General Polygonal Meshes

A principled approach for constructing geometric discrete Laplacians on surfaces with arbitrary polygonal faces, encompassing non-planar and non-convex polygons.

HOT: Hodge-Optimized Triangulations

Introducing Hodge-optimized triangulations (HOT), a family of well-shaped primal-dual pairs of complexes designed for fast and accurate computations in computer graphics.

Spin Transformations of Discrete Surfaces

This paper introduces a new method for computing conformal maps directly between triangle meshes in R^3. Conformal maps are desirable because they preserve texture fidelity and the quality of the mesh itself. The method is simple and can be used to efficiently edit surfaces by manipulating curvature and boundary data.

Thursday, 11 August
2-4:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
COLLADA BOF
Education
West Building, Room 122

See cutting-edge DCC tools and applications for gaming, 3D web, and visualization, and artworks generated from COLLADA content-creation-supporting media.

marketing (at) goldstandardgroup.com
Khronos Group
Thursday, 11 August
2-3:30 pm
ACM Student Research Competition
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
ACM Student Research Competition
Education
West Building, Rooms 118-120
Thursday, 11 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Technical Papers
Full Conference
Real-Time Rendering Hardware
Research
East Building, Exhibit Hall A
Clipless Dual-Space Bounds for Faster Stochastic Rasterization

A novel method for increasing the efficiency of stochastic rasterization of motion and defocus blur. Contrary to earlier approaches, the method is efficient even with the low sampling densities commonly encountered in real-time rendering, while allowing the use of arbitrary sampling patterns for optimum image quality.

Decoupled Sampling for Graphics Pipelines

A generalized approach to decoupling shading from both visibility and geometry sampling in graphics pipelines. The technique enables stochastic supersampling of motion and defocus blur and other effects at reduced shading cost, without requiring micropolygon rendering. It can be thought of as a generalization of GPU-style multi-sample anti-aliasing (MSAA).

Spark: Modular, Composable Shaders for Graphics Hardware

Spark improves on current real-time shading languages by supporting better software development practices. It allows the logical features of a real-time shader to be expressed as independent, composable modules, even where a feature cross-cuts multiple stages of the rendering pipeline.

Physically Based Real-Time Lens Flare Rendering

An efficient method to render lens flare of complex optical systems. Based on a combination of traditional ray tracing and rasterization, our technique captures the intricate dynamics of real flare phenomena, while spanning a continuum between accuracy and performance, physical realism and artistic expression.

Thursday, 11 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Light My Fire
Production Communities
East Building, Ballroom A/B
Simulating Massive Dust in "Megamind"

This talk summarizes the components of an extremely fast fluid-simulation framework for animated special effects, including the specific numerical methods used to achieve high performance and good visual quality, and the setup and control framework that allowed artists to work efficiently at high resolution.

“Megamind”: Fire, Smoke, and Data

Exploding a super hero in DreamWorks Animation's “Megamind” was a large-scale task. This talk presents solutions to some of the technical hurdles and the collaborative work flow to that facilitated them.

Volumetric Effects in a Snap

How and why Animal Logic created Snap,a grid-based simulation and volumetric rendering framework used in "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole" and "Sucker Punch".

Fluid Dynamics and Lighting Implementation in PixelJunk Shooter 2

Practical techniques for simulating fluid dynamics and occlusion in a dynamic 2D environment, utilizing PlayStation 3 SPUs to achieve 60fps at 1080p in PixelJunk Shooter 2.

Thursday, 11 August
3:45-5:15 pm
Talks
Full Conference
Capture and Construction
Education
Research
West Building, Rooms 118-120
Data-Driven Bird Simulation

This novel method to physically simulate flying motions that imitate real bird flight generates physically plausible and apparently realistic bird behaviors based on real wingbeat data.

Designing With Constraints: Parametric BIM

This talk discusses building information modeling (BIM) tools as an opportunity for design generation, validation, and implementation. It specifically focuses on parametric modeling and constraint-based design explorations and construction assemblies.

Form-Making With Special Effect Tools

This talk focuses on strategies for generative-design validation with the use of digital simulations, particularly dynamics-based modeling tools. It focuses on tools that employ rigid-body or soft-body dynamics, such as cloth simulations, forward and inverse kinematics (FK/IK), and particle interactions.

Building and Animating Cobwebs for Antique Sets

This work flow for modeling and animating cobwebs on antique sets includes a tool set for artists to model cobwebs, a physics-based solver, and a procedural-modeling engine.

Thursday, 11 August
4-5:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Concept Artists, The Road to the Emmy Award
East Building, Room 19

This session is for attendees interested in concept art. Christophe Vacher has 20 years of experience in the field, and he recently won an Emmy for individual achievement.

info (at) vanas.ca
Mario Pochat
Vancouver Animation School
Thursday, 11 August
5-6:00 pm
Birds of a Feather
Full Conference
Basic Conference
Computer Animation Festival
Vancouver Studios & Artists Panel
East Building, Room 19

This session is for attendees who want to know more about Vancouver and its animation, film, VFX, and games industries. Come and join us!

info (at) vanas.ca
Mario Pochat
Vancouver Animation School

Links:
[1] http://www.siggraph.org/s2011/for_attendees/schedule/printable?vdt=scheduler%7Cpage_1
[2] http://www.siggraph.org/s2011/for_attendees/schedule/printable?vdt=scheduler%7Cpage_2
[3] http://www.piripi.de
[4] http://www.petertraub.net
[5] http://kuaishen.tv/0hm1gas
[6] http://no-place.org/open_house
[7] http://everyware.kr/portfolio/contents/10_memoirs/index.htm
[8] http://www.anyabelkina.com
[9] http://www.georgiawall.com
[10] http://www.nickbastis.com
[11] http://designincubationcentre.com
[12] http://www.dwbowen.com/
[13] http://www.gardenoferroranddecay.net
[14] http://www.arthurliou.com
[15] http://www.andreazapp.com
[16] http://www.mjcox.com
[17] http://www.heidikumao.net
[18] http://www.jacquelynmartino.com
[19] http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23travelstones
[20] http://www.animallover.ca
[21] https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23siggraph%20%23techpapers
[22] http://www.siggraph.org/s2011/for_attendees/technical-papers
[23] http://web.media.mit.edu/~mhirsch/byo3d/
[24] http://jonathanworth.com
[25] http://www.siggraph.org/s2011/for_attendees/panels
[26] http://liris.cnrs.fr/hichem.barki/mksum/NCC-CVMS
[27] http://education.siggraph.org/community/ug-research/