Siggraph 2003: San Diego

Article by Michael Tran and Harry Lam
July 27-31, 2003

HP:

At Siggraph 2003, HP was showcasing the power of their machines via real world applications.  One of the HP sponsored partner companies is a innovative engine company called Powerski Corp..  The workers of Powerski Corp. invented and built the very first jetboard which can be described as a mixture between jetskiing and surfing.  The CEO of Powerski Corp. informed us that he was extremely thankful for HP workstations because they allowed the engineers to digitally fix, render, and test their engines, decreasing the number of necessary physical prototypes (which was how they started off in the beginning).  In this application, the donated workstations had the power to digitally display the model so the workers can constantly calculate the center of gravity and aerodynamics as well as visualize the parts of the engine.

Another project powered by HP can be seen in the newly released movie, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas.  The first project was based on the graphics for the ocean surfaces throughout the movie, called Calypso.  All of the surroundings in the ocean scenes were entirely 3D except for the characters.  The Real Time Ocean Surface Simulation allowed the artists to constantly control the feedback and the movement of the water surface as well as create any sudden effects in the waves.  The other project allowed the artists to edit and play the animated movie at a constant 24 fps.  This feature allowed a lot of freedom for the artists to change and manipulate the aesthetic elements of the movie.

Immersion Corporation:

Immersion is most popularly known for their force feedback function in the Logitech iFeel mice.  The display Immersion had to show during SigGraph was an interactive full force feedback demo that allowed the user to feel exactly what they were touching, holding, and interacting with.  It was a tremendous surprise to see how much Immersion evolved from iFeel mice into full feedback sensation.

Bitboys:

Bitboys made a surprising appearance at Siggraph 2003, with the announcement of their Acceleon graphics processors.  Once fabled for their astonishing vaporware that was supposed to shake up the computer graphics market, Bitboys has turned their eye towards the creation of graphic accelerators for mobile products.

The Acceleon line promises full support for OpenGL ES 1.0, which is a slimmed down version of OpenGL specifically designed for mobile devices.  Whether or not such a chip will come to market from Bitboys is somewhat questionable, but it potentially could be part of the initial push towards 3D on embedded devices.

Ascension:

Ascension offered one of the more "interesting" sights at Siggraph by setting up a large motion capture ring setup in middle of the exhibition.  This was somewhat more striking than most motion capture setups that we've seen before, with the movement of the dancers captured and relayed to a real-time animation on a nearby monitor.