SIGGRAPH First Impressions

Trying to do this on the fly, so my apologies in advance for misspellings and typos! Just arrived at SIGGRAPH and, well, you can't help but notice that it's just as frickin' hot here as it's been in NYC. Holy smokers it's hot! It wasn't this bad the year SIGGRAPH was in New Orleans in August!

But the SIGGRAPH seems hot too! Looks like they've got a good crowd here, despite the fact that it's not on the west coast. The convention center here in Boston is laid out well and is easy to get around. SIGGRAPH looks good here and they've got lots of space to host their various areas.

The show floor looked like it had a good crowd and several of the exhibitors said that as well. One of the nice thing about the main exhibit area is the mix of large companies and small, each bringing a great deal to this graphics gathering.

Of course, our favorite place is the Emerging Technology area, where we get to see things that are not yet products. This very experimental area shows us what options might be available to us in the future. And there were some great things there! We'll be posting photos and video in the coming weeks that will show the range of technologies here. Some teasers:

3D display using laser plasma. I'll explain this in more detail later, but it basically allows you to focus a lser light in the air to create floating images. Way cool stuff that you need to see to believe!

Virtual Humanoid. This will be the Madame Tussaud's of the future. A head-mounted display and green screen robotic figure allow you to see, hear and touch the animated figure.

Freqtric Drums turns the audience into drums so the perfromer can use the audience as their instrument. This was a hoot to watch and I can certainly see some of our clients using it in their experiences.

Tablescapes Plus will be tough to explain without seeing it, but it uses objects placed on a tabletopas the display and allows them to interact together.

Multi-touch Interaction Wall. This one was a big hit on youtube and it looks even better in person. And one nice element of this experience was the social aspect of the interactivity. People seem to like to experience this one together.

So that's a quick review from my first walk through. Noah's joining me tomorrow, so I'll have him taking pictures and shooting video for us. We'll also add more detailed descriptions and links where possible.