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“Enhanced Vision – Digital Video,” is an online video art show presented by the ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Committee (DAC). The show focuses on the use of digital methodologies to enhance the moving image — specifically, looking at how effects can reveal meaning and content. Each piece in the exhibition explores a socially significant issue through the combination of video and digital effects.

The artists featured in "Enhaced Vision – Digital Video" employ a variety of software, graphics and found footage to explore their subjects. According to the show's curator, Kathy Rae Huffman, there is enormous potential in the combination of video and digital effects technology. "There is a longstanding disconnection that somehow continues to exist between artists who embrace the technical effects … who understand and master computer software, and traditional video artists who use the tools but reject any connection to technology," she said. "Looking at how video aesthetics and digital technology meet to bring a new understanding to content is the priority of this show."

Selected from an open call, the exhibition consists of 30 innovative, digitally-enhanced video artworks. Individual works range in length from one minute to 15 minutes each, with a total linear viewing time of approximately 3 hours.

Selected works were required to meet at least one of the following criteria:

• reveals a normally "invisible" aspect of the visual scene
• creates a metaphoric interpretation from the natural world
• is a visual interpretation of a socially engaged or politically charged event

It is the belief of the show's creators that the ability of contemporary video to integrate visual effects and socially relevant content — thereby adding a deeper level of understanding to the literal meaning of the work — is a thing to be celebrated.

Artists and works featured in “Enhanced Vision – Digital Video" include:

Harrison Banfield & Jack Rees (Wales, UK) Water; Jason Bernagozzi (USA) Simulacrum; Joanna Bonder (Poland) Digits; Natalie Bookchin (USA) My Meds, from the series Testament; Ulu Braun (Germany) Mudland #1; Charlotte Eifler (Germany) OU TOPOS; Lynn Estomin (USA) with original score by Ritsu Katsumata, Fashion To Die For; Frederick Fisher & Don Rice (Canada) collaborating with Andrew John Milne, & Michel Germain, Arcadia; Benjamin Forster (Australia) A Written Perspective; Felice Hapetzeder (Sweden) 366; Kaisu Koski (Finland/Netherlands) Not to scale at all; Kenji Kojima (Japan/USA) Composition Fukushima 2011; Wobbe F. Koning (USA) City.Flow(); David Krippendorff (USA/Germany) A Small Fee; Chongha Lee (USA) Raw Quinoa; Talia Link (USA) Printed Clothes DIY (4 my catcaller); Michael Lyons (Japan) with Palle Dahlstedt (Sweden) Soft Pong Inari; Damon Mohl (USA) The Dust Machine Variation; Szacsva y Pal (Hungary) Horribile Pictu; Ellen Pearlman (USA/Hong Kong) Surveillance Siddhi; Mikey Peterson (USA) Slip Away; Grant Petrey (UK) Filament; Thomas Porett (USA) On China Sea; Bryne Rasmussen-Smith (USA) Don't Know Where To Point; Alexander Repp (Kazakhstan/Germany/Hungary) necrolog of robin williams or the suicide of irony; Joon Sung (Korea/USA) with Neal Williams (USA) Particle Daydreams; Myriam Thyes (Switzerland/Germany) APOTHEOSIS OF GLASGOW HIGH-RISES; UBERMORGEN (Austria/Switzerland/USA) Deephorizon; Ellen Wetmore (USA) Grotesques; Nina Yankowitz (USA) Shatter/Flood/Mud/Houses.

The 2014 film "Interstellar" follows a team of researchers and a former NASA pilot (played by Matthew McConaughey) on an odyssey into the depths of space, chronicling the group's struggle to find a new home for mankind before Earth becomes uninhabitable. The ambitious film bridges the gap between art and science by using the medium of film in a novel way: to visualize cutting-edge scientific research. Working in concert with a prominent astrophysicist (Kip Thorne), the film's visual effects team created what may be the first scientifically accurate display of a black hole on the big screen.

To fully realize director Christopher Nolan's vision for "Interstellar," visual effects studio Double Negative was tasked to "produce images of things that aren’t even in our dimension, and furthermore have them accurate to not only quantum physics and relativistic laws, but also our best understanding (guess) of quantum gravity.” (FX Guide – "Inside the Black Art"). To ensure scientific accuracy within the film, Double Negative’s team, led by VFX supervisors Paul Franklin and Andy Lockley, collaborated with theoretical astrophysicist Kip Thorne. Thorne shared his knowledge of black holes, and how he envisioned they would appear. Instead of the typical movie version of a black hole, which is depicted as a breach within space, Thorne’s research indicated black holes might be more like three-dimensional spheres. The physical appearance of Thorne's black holes is colorfully described in an interview with Paul Franklin in the Warner Brothers behind-the-scenes video "Interstellar: Building A Black Hole" (below):

“The black hole warps space so much, it just looks like you’re looking at a strange sort of funnel in the sky — with this intensely black circle at the middle of it. But the gravity of the black hole draws in all the matter from the surrounding universe, and this spins out into a giant disks around the central sphere. As it whirls in towards the center, the gas gets hotter and hotter, and this thing — the accretion disks around it — shines brilliantly … the gravity twists this glowing discs of gas into weird shapes, and you get this extraordinary sort of rainbow fire across the top of the black hole.”

Typically, when Hollywood has needed to create black holes for the big screen, they've turned to ray-tracing software. Unfortunately, as Double Negative CG supervisor Eugénie von Tunzelmann pointed out in a 2014 interview with Wired, such software “makes the generally reasonable assumption that light is traveling along a straight path” — which is not what the team wanted for "Interstellar." The science behind Thorne’s black hole (Gargantua) was on a completely different level, so to execute Thorne's vision, the Double Negative team created a new renderer.

Gargatua wasn't the only visual effects marvel in "Interstellar." Director Christopher Nolan also wanted to convincingly render waves that towered more than 4,000 feet above the actors and their water-bound spacecraft. The team at Double Negative used footage of large waves off the coast of Hawaii as their base, and relied on the team’s imagination for the rest — since waves 4,000 feet tall are nonexistent on Earth. They used a system of deformers to get the shape of the waves, then ran a series of detailed surface simulations with the company’s proprietary Squirt Ocean toolset (to create the wavelets, surface foam and spray).

The dust storms were a mixture between computer graphics and practical effects. Three of the dust storms were digitally fabricated based on extensive research on real dust storms in African deserts, as well as the 1930s Dust Bowl in America. The Double Negative team relied on both propriety tools and Houdini (3D animation software) to create the massive storms in the film. The project was especially tedious for rotoscope artists, as there were no green screens, and the dust storms were in full IMAX.

In order to create authentic space sequences, the VFX team were inspired by images taken of the Apollo Lunar mission of the 1960s and 1970s, and of the astronauts on the International Space Station. Double Negative’s Paul Franklin says the team maintained authentic exposure ratios, and avoided floating cameras in space by finding vantage points on the spacecraft (with the exception of a few super-wide shots).

For the creation of the film’s robots (TARS and Case), Nolan wanted to avoid making a robot with human features. Instead, the robot designs were inspired by modern art — specifically, minimalist sculptures from the post-war era. The result resembled present-day robots with a lack of physical human characteristics. Two versions of TARS were built: one practical, one digital. After executing the live action robot performances, the majority of the final shots “were achieved in camera with minimal digital work required to remove the performers from the shot,” said Franklin in a January 2015 interview with Art of VFX.

As for the environment of the Tesseract, the team scanned Murph’s bedroom at the farmhouse set and recorded each object in that room in high resolution. With the creation of a digital model, Double Negative fabricated the additional timelines and the fine threads of light that wove through the scene. Simultaneously, the film's art department reconstructed a live version of the set to incorporate actors in the scene. To give a sense of zero gravity, actor Matthew McConaughey was suspended on a wire rig inside the set. Filming the Tesseract scene using IMAX cameras, the filming crew projected animation patterns of moving lighting onto the set. The set was the expanded into infinity by layering the digital model atop the physical set.

Though "Interstellar" has a relatively low number of visual effects shots compared to other modern effects-heavy films (700 VFX shots, compared with Marvel’s "Guardians of the Galaxy,"’ which had 2,750), it's no surprise that the film won this year's Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. The "Interstellar" visual effects team truly pushed the boundaries of reality, vividly expanding our perception of the future — and what lies beyond our planet.

This week, we were greatly saddened to find out that longtime ACM SIGGRAPH volunteer Steve Cunningham passed away. Below is a tribute to Steve from ACM SIGGRAPH Communications Chair Barb Helfer. Steve will be sorely missed.

It is an honor to write this tribute to Steve Cunningham who was a friend, colleague, professor, scholar, author, husband, father, and a longtime supporter of the ACM SIGGRAPH and Eurographics communities. In whatever role we knew him, Steve stood apart as someone who was passionate about those in his path and the discipline of computer graphics!

I first met Steve when he was ACM SIGGRAPH Chair, and as a newly chosen member of the 1997 Conference team, he invited me to the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee Meeting. Through that meeting and subsequent shepherding, he stirred my “service gene” and has made continual volunteering to the community a personal need. To Steve, computer graphics education and service to the community was not only his vocation, but his avocation as well, and this gift is reflected through dedication to the organizations he served and the many people he nurtured who are in service to the communities he supported.

Steve was chair of our organization, with Alain Chesnais as his vice chair from 1995 through 1999. Alain had the following to add, “Steve was my mentor and guide as I learned what it takes to prepare to become ACM SIGGRAPH President in 2002, then later ACM President in 2010. Steve taught me what it means to lead a uniquely diverse community in the most respectful and attentive manner — and why that is so important in a volunteer-based organization. I could never have been effective in my subsequent roles without Steve's thoughtful and insightful guidance. I learned it all while serving as his vice chair from 1995 through 1999."

Steve’s involvement in computer graphics began in 1976, when he received National Science Foundation funding to develop a graphics capability for teaching mathematics and statistics. Cunningham was a former chair of SIGGRAPH's Education Committee, 1983-90, where he was a significant contributor to development of the computer graphics curricula in computer science, and led and developed computer graphics education workshops for both the ACM SIGGRAPH and Eurographics communities. He was instrumental in creating an education directory and career handbook for computer graphics professionals. He was also a major contributor to SIGGRAPH's publications, where he created SIGGRAPH's first electronic publications and implemented other new publication technologies. He pioneered new publications, including the conference Visual Proceedings, and elevated smaller conference proceedings as mainstream publications. In 2004 he and soon to be wife, Judy Brown, were award the ACM SIGGRAPH Outstanding Service Award for their outstanding achievement in computer graphics and interactive techniques. For those of us who knew both Judy and Steve, it was fitting that they received the award together because so much of their dedication to the organization and the community was jointly shared and supported.

He served on the Eurographics Executive Committee and on the Eurographics Executive Board as Chair of the Education Board. In 1998 he was elected a Eurographics Fellow. He also served on the Board of ACM SIGCSE, the Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education and on the Board of Governors of the Mathematical Association of America. His interests were primarily in computer graphics education and computational science, and he wrote and spoke widely on education and other subjects. He co-authored or co-edited six books on graphics-related subjects. His latest book, co-authored in 2011 with Mike Bailey, was Graphic Shaders: Theory and Practice published by A K Peters, Ltd.

A graduate of Drury College with a BS in mathematics, Cunningham received an MS and PhD in mathematics from the University of Oregon and MS in computer science from Oregon State University. Steve served on the faculty of the University of Kansas, Birmingham-Southern College, and California State University Stanislaus where he was named the Gemperle Distinguished Professor of Computer Science. He was a Visiting Scientist at the San Diego Supercomputing Center and was a program director at the National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education from 2003-2005. His most recent academic position was as Noyce Visiting Professor at Grinnell College.

In addition to his devotion to his work and to the improvement of computer graphics education locally and globally, Steve always found time for his colleagues, his friends, and his family. Steve was a caring and beloved man, cherished by his friends and family. He will be missed by many, but never forgotten by those whom he mentored and were blessed to have known him.

The 14th International Conference on Computer-Aided Design and Computer Graphics (CAD/Graphics 2015) is currently accepting paper submissions, and will continue to do so until April 12, 2015 at 23:59 UTC/GMT.

CAD/Graphics 2015 is co-organized by the Northwestern Polytechnical University and Xi'an University of Posts and Telecommunications. The conference is affiliated with the Chinese Computer Federation (CCF), and is a biennial international that provides a worldwide forum for international researchers and developers to exchange new ideas on computer-aided design, computer graphics, electronic design automation and visualization.

CAD/Graphics 2015 will be held in Xi'an, China from August 26-28, 2015.

All regular full papers accepted to the conference will be published in a special section of the Elsevier journal Computers and Graphics (both SCI and EI indexed), before the conference. Other papers accepted will be published by Conference Publishing Services (CPS), included in the IEEE Digital Library, submitted for inclusion in IEEE Xplore and the CSDL, and submitted for indexing by EI. After the conference is complete, a number of accepted papers in the area of electronic design automation will be invited to submit to a special issue of the VLSI Journal Integration, published by Elsevier (both SCI and EI indexed).

CAD/Graphics 2015 solicits original submissions on theory and applications of computer aided design, computer graphics, electronic design automation and related disciplines. The topics include, but are not limited to:

• Geometric, Solid and Heterogeneous Modeling
• Rendering Techniques
• Computer Animation
• Image and Video Processing
• Computer Graphics Systems and Hardware
• Computer Graphics in Arts and Education
• Computer Theory and Engineering
• Scientific Computing and Visualization
• Information Visualization
• Image based Modeling and Rendering
• Computer Vision
• CAD Database, Data Exchange and Standards
• Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
• Computer Human Interface
• Applications of Computational Geometry
• Integration of CAD/CAE/CAM
• 3D Printing
• Design Computing and AI in Design
• Computer Aided IC Design
• Reverse Engineering Process Planning and Assembly Design
• Computational Photography
• EDA: System-level Design
• EDA: Synthesis, Verification and Physical Design
• EDA: CAD for Manufacturability, Reliability and Test
• EDA: CAD for Circuits, Devices and Interconnect
• EDA: Bio-CAD and Nano-CAD.

For more information, or to submit your work, visit the CAD/Graphics 2015 website.

The ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Art Community (DAC) is now accepting submissions for their upcoming online exhibition, "Altered Books: Digital Interventions."

The exhibition is a celebration of the book as an object. An object that can carry experience, represent language, tell a story, convey culture and archive memory. The exhibition judges consider an "altered" book to be an artistic production made through the process of de-construction and re-construction of the book form. They are interested in "digital interventions" that result in still images of altered books which reference the legacy and symbolism of books, scrolls, manuscripts, and/or clay tablets.

Artists are encouraged to explore the merging of digital and analog, narrative and abstraction, 2D and 3D, or other creative digital interventions based on books. The is no fee to submit to the exhibition or participate (if selected), though each artist is limited to six submissions. All submissions are due by March 15.

For more information or to submit a work of art for consideration, visit the Altered Books: Digital Interventions call for submissions.