Last Summer at SIGGRAPH

    Last summer I heard from my computer animation instructor that SIGGRAPH was coming to Vancouver. SIGGRAPH is the largest computer graphics conference in north America and this is the first time that it was being held outside of the US.

    Since I am really interested in computer graphics I thought it would be interesting to go. However, tickets to the conference are very expensive. Luckily, through my connections with the Game Developers Club I was able to get a ticket to the exhibition part of the conference.

    So that morning I took the train downtown to the convention center, not knowing what to expect since I had never been to anything like this before. At the exhibition all of the well known companies that had anything to do with computer graphics were there. There were large booths with people giving demos of their products and computer monitors everywhere playing videos. Its hard to put into words just how exciting it was for me. Basically, everything that I am interested in under one roof.

There were a few technologies that seemed to be a focal point. 3D printing was a big one, and there were several different companies showing off things they had printed in their 3D printers. Motion capture was also big, there were several booths with break dancers and ballet dancers controlling characters on a screen simply by dancing.

The biggest booths were those of the big name 3D modeling programs and pretty much all day they had guys giving demos where they would making some really cool 3D model using their program. They made it look so easy, and I spent hours mezmerized by their skills,  its a shame the software is more then I will ever be able to afford. Speaking of which, Blender also had a booth there, it was more modest though and there was not much to see.

    My favourite thing I got to try at SIGGRAPH though was a virtual reality demo. I got to put on this head set that had screens for each eye, so the image that you were looking at was in stereoscopic 3D. It also had four cameras mounted on poles in a square that you stood inside and when you moved the cameras tracked your movement and you would appear to move in the simulation you were viewing. The scene I got to try looked like the interior of an apartment. It was the most realistic simulation I have ever experienced, because of the 3D effect everything looked so real, and when I moved or turned my head the same thing happened in the simulation, and there was no noticeable delay.

    SIGGRAPH was really interesting and I am glad I was able to go. Part of the reason I am writing this blog entry now is that I recently heard SIGGRAPH will be coming back to Vancouver in 2014.