SIGGRAPH Emerging Tech to Focus on Health and Home

FairLift is an interaction system that lets users to scoop up a mid-air image with their palms by cupping water in their hands to hold the image.

CHICAGO -- SIGGRAPH 2018, the world’s leading annual interdisciplinary educational event showcasing the latest in computer graphics and interactive techniques, has announced juried selections for its Emerging Technologies and Studio programs.

The 45th SIGGRAPH conference will take place Aug. 12-16 at the Vancouver Convention Centre. To register, visit s2018.SIGGRAPH.org.

The SIGGRAPH 2018 Emerging Technologies program plans to expand the boundaries of technology’s future in three core areas of the human experience: health, home and entertainment. The internet of things, the quantitative self and immersive technologies have matured, and the new data systems that support these innovations are now making way for more interconnected technologies. The program’s tagline is “Changing the Human Experience.”

Highlights include:

SEER: Simulative Emotional Expression Robot

Creator: Takayuki Todo (independent)

​​SEER is an animatronic-humanoid robot that generates gaze and emotional facial expressions to improve ​animated expression, life-​like facial movement, and emit emotions by the integrated design of modeling, mechanism, materials and computing. The robot can simulate a user’s movement, gaze and facial expressions detected by a camera sensor.

Spherical Full-Parallax Light-Field Display Using Ball of Fly-Eye Mirror

Creators: Hiroaki Yano, Tomohiro Yendo, Kohei Matsumura, Akane Temochi, Masaki Yamauchi, and Hiroaki Matsunaga, Nagaoka University of Technology

This image display is an optical system design for a full-parallax spherical light-field based on the time-division multiplexing method. The system offers features that are distinct from existing systems that make it suitable for specific uses, such as a digital signage and art exhibitions displaying images that seem to hover in space.

FairLift: Interaction with Mid-Air Images on Water Surface​

Creators: Yu Matsuura, The University of Electro-Communications, and Naoya Koizumi, The University of Electro-Communications and JST PRESTO

FairLift is an interaction system involving mid-air images, which are visible to the naked eye under and on a water surface. The system provides an experience for users to scoop up a mid-air image with their palms by cupping water in their hands to hold the image​.

Fusion: Full Body Surrogacy for Collaborative Communication

Creators: MHD Yamen Saraiji and Kouta Minamizawa, Keio University; and, Tomoya Sasaki, Reo Matsumura, and Masahiko Inami, The University of Tokyo

An upgrade to SIGGRAPH 2017’s MetaLimbs (winner of the best in show award), Fusion is a telecollaboration system that allows two participants to share the same point of view and physical space for remote operation and collaboration. The system is designed as a backpack, and is operated in three different modes: direct collaboration, enforced body guidance, and induced body motion, enabling effective communication.

Fusion allows two participants to share the same point of view and physical space for remote operation and collaboration.

With a tagline of “If You Can Dream It, You Can Make It,” the SIGGRAPH 2018 Studio will present a variety of hands-on, interactive installations and workshops. Workshops are led by industry professionals and cover a wide variety of topics with graduated levels of difficulty. Attendees will have the chance to start with the very basics and learn a new skill, or jump in at an advanced level and polish off an existing project they’ve already been working toward.

Highlights include:

Design Engine Community Project: Generate Quick Adhoc Inventions to Explore at SIGGRAPH and in the Studio

Ultimaker

The Studio will host a brand-new, SIGGRAPH edition of "The Design Engine" card game, a constantly revolving series of design challenges hosted within the studio. Participants can join for a short startup round, or stick around to design and develop their projects using the tools available in the SIGGRAPH Studio Workshop.

Immersive Previz: VR Authoring for Film Previsualization

Inria Rennes, National Chengchi University (Taiwan), and Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systèmes Aléatoires (IRISA)

One Man Movie is a VR authoring system that enables the crafting of filmic sequences with no prior knowledge in 3D animation. The system is designed to reflect the traditional creative process in film pre-production through stages like scene layout, animation of characters, placement of cameras and editing.

One Man Movie is a VR authoring system designed to reflect the traditional creative process in film pre-production through stages like scene layout, animation, placement of cameras and editing.

Metamaterial Devices

Hasso Plattner Institute and University of Potsdam

Traditionally, metamaterials were understood as materials with deformation properties that are defined by their inner structure. SIGGRAPH’s Studio program, however, doesn’t think of them as materials, but rather as devices. Studio will present metamaterial devices, such as analog or digital machines, and software tools that assist novice users in designing and fabricating them. 

PaperPrinting: A Machine for Prototyping Paper and Its Applications for Graphic Design

Keio University and The University of Tokyo

Studio will present a system that makes paper through an additive manufacturing process by using a dispenser mounted on an XY plotter. By using this system, graphic designers can design and output paper itself, which is difficult in an existing paper production processes.

Both the Emerging Technologies and Studio programs will offer experience presentations from select project creators. Access to installations, presentations, and workshops is open to attendees with Exhibits Plus registration and above.

Source: SIGGRAPH 2018

Tom McLean has been writing for years about animation from a secret base in Los Angeles.