Press Releases Archives | SIGGRAPH 2023

50 Years of Innovation and Creativity in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Celebrated at SIGGRAPH 2023

Jason — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
22 August 2023

Media Contact:
Marketing & Media Office
media@siggraph.org

50 Years of Innovation and Creativity in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Celebrated at SIGGRAPH 2023

An Overview of Milestones and Highlights of the Past 50 Years Were Showcased With Several History Installations and Retrospective Talks During the Conference

CHICAGO—SIGGRAPH 2023, the premier conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, marked its 50th year of breakthroughs and innovation with a week-long celebration in Los Angeles, from 6–10 August 2023. The industry has grown in the last 50 years, and SIGGRAPH marked this special occasion by celebrating the milestones and pioneers of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

What originally started as an ACM SIGGRAPH History archive evolved into a remarkable project that had more than 225 people collaborating from around the world. The industry, from original pioneers and students to artists and technicians, came together sharing time, expertise, and ideas. The historical offerings ranged from Retrospective Talks and a walk through the early hardware developments to the amazing, interactive Time Tunnel, sponsored by Autodesk, that was created to feature the world’s most comprehensive timeline of computer graphics achievements over the past 50 years.

“SIGGRAPH is about people, and I believe the reason SIGGRAPH is successful as a community and conference is the diversity of the offerings and the convergence of cultures,” said Bonnie Mitchell, SIGGRAPH 2023 History Chair. “In order to fully represent and celebrate the past 50 years, I wanted to ensure the programs and displays reflected this. I love the generosity of and synergy between people in this community. When true collaboration occurs, it’s about giving, it’s about listening, and it’s about learning and changing, supporting each other, and making great things happen.”

The SIGGRAPH community focuses on computer graphics, which includes innovation and technological developments in the fields of animation, visualization, imaging, and art, among others. For example, digital art, an art form that uses digital technology as an essential part of its creative process, has evolved dramatically since the 1970s. Because of the innovations of pioneers in the SIGGRAPH community, artists are now able to use computer graphics to creatively express their ideas. In the 1970s, people used text to represent images (ASCII art) until computer graphics algorithms enabled artists to create art using computer programming. Today, artists express their ideas using digital painting, data visualization, digital photography, 3D rendering, and imaging tools because of developments that originated from the SIGGRAPH community.

Computer scientists, researchers, mathematicians, engineers, technologists, and artists in the SIGGRAPH community are interested in how computer-generated images inform, inspire, and shape the world we live in. From artificial intelligence and robotics to augmented reality and 3D rendering breakthroughs, the historical offerings at SIGGRAPH’s 50th conference celebration reflected a unique intersection of technological innovation and artistic thinking. The programs encouraged the attendees to reflect on the past and speculate what the future would be.

The historical and retrospective highlights included:

The Time Tunnel, an approximately 130 feet long x 25 feet wide x 14 feet tall immersive, interactive space with floor and wall projections.
Connections, where a robot used artificial intelligence and facial detection to match attendees to others in the SIGGRAPH community.
Postcards From the Future, where artificial intelligence was asked to illustrate what the future will look like in 50 years. One of the postcards was illustrated by a human. Could attendees guess which one it was?
Tea Time was an interactive exhibit that displayed historical SIGGRAPH content on a monitor, controlled via natural gestures with a teapot.
The Historical SIGGRAPH Conference Posters 1979-2023 display visually depicted the aesthetic branding of the time and showed a progression in style over the years.
SIGGRAPH Pioneers: Rare Gems From CGI History presented a reel of rarely seen videos from the early years of CGI, contributed by the SIGGRAPH Pioneers community.
The First 3D Renderings illustrated, using original polaroid photographs, how the first 3D, shaded, colored, computer-generated, raster-scan images were produced.
Retrospective Talks were hosted by the pioneers who developed technologies commonly used today as well as key volunteers who devoted years of their life to bring people together from around the world to share their knowledge of computer graphics.
Cabinets of Computer Graphics Curiosities and Vulture Culture – A Visual History of SIGGRAPH Swag where artifacts from the past were on display showcasing how far we have come in 50 years.
Blasts From the Past showcased historic emerging technology exhibits that changed the world.

The SIGGRAPH 50th celebration brought together innovators, researchers, and creators of digital art, visual effects, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and much more. The contributions came from a variety of fields — including arts, science and electronics, academia and research, film, and television, among others. The work shown at the SIGGRAPH conference comes from diverse industries and government agencies, from medical, scientific visualization, artificial life, and robotics to games and animation in the entertainment field.

“SIGGRAPH looks forward to daring and bold ideas, research, and advancements coming from the community, but we also benefit from looking back at the contributions made by the community that got us to where we are today,” said Erik Brunvand, SIGGRAPH 2023 Conference Chair. “It’s young enough of a discipline that many of the pioneers are still able to celebrate with us. We have a rich history where our early innovators created incredibly creative concepts that are still making an impact today.”

Jim Foley, author, computer scientist, and computer graphics researcher from the Georgia Institute of Technology (retired), is an early SIGGRAPH pioneer. When asked about the conference, he said “I’ve been to all but one SIGGRAPH conference, and this, the 50th, will be my last. SIGGRAPH is my family, a tradition, and much of my professional identity. Words of advice … the only constant is change. Keep on learning, don’t be afraid to try new ideas and approaches. Be bold.”

SIGGRAPH contributors shared stories of research, papers, and books that they wrote that inspired others to make their start in computer graphics and related industries. Foley stated, “It is very satisfying to have someone at the conference come up to me and say, ‘It was your book that got me started in computer graphics!’ My motto is: ‘Your success is my success.’ I thrive on helping others succeed, and one way that has played out is via the books I co-authored.”

Mitchell added, “I wanted to honor and thank the original pioneers of the industry, and also give back to the community that gave so much to me. The contributions and generosity of the many people who took the time to help so that we could celebrate this significant year was a magical experience for me.”

For more information about the celebratory programming from the conference and other programs from SIGGRAPH 2023, visit the full program. The companion Virtual Access component will be available for on-demand viewing through 9 September 2023. Bookmark the ACM SIGGRAPH Blog for interviews and deep dives from different contributors.

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About ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH, and SIGGRAPH 2023

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, uniting educators, researchers, and professionals to inspire dialogue, share resources, and address the field’s challenges. ACM SIGGRAPH is a special interest group within ACM that serves as an interdisciplinary community for members in research, technology, and applications in computer graphics and interactive techniques. The SIGGRAPH conference is the world’s leading annual interdisciplinary educational experience showcasing the latest in computer graphics and interactive techniques. SIGGRAPH 2023, the 50th annual conference hosted by ACM SIGGRAPH, will take place live 6–10 August at the Los Angeles Convention Center, along with a virtual access option.

The post 50 Years of Innovation and Creativity in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Celebrated at SIGGRAPH 2023 appeared first on SIGGRAPH 2023.

SIGGRAPH 2023 Conference Commemorates 50 Years of Innovations With Growth in Contributed Works and In-person Attendees

Jason — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
10 August 2023

Media Contact:
Marketing & Media Office
media@siggraph.org

SIGGRAPH 2023 Conference Commemorates 50 Years of Innovations With Growth in Contributed Works and In-person Attendees

CHICAGO—SIGGRAPH 2023, the premier conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, marks its 50th year of breakthroughs and innovation. The conference provided a platform for innovators to share their exceptional contributions in digital art, technology, computer science, and other related content. An international audience of more than 14,275 attendees from 78 countries enjoyed the conference and its Mobile and Virtual Access component.

“One of SIGGRAPH’s most powerful strengths is that it’s a gathering of a wide variety of people in the computer graphics and interactive techniques community,” said Erik Brunvand, SIGGRAPH 2023 Conference Chair. “We’ve been a driving force for the expansion and growth in computer graphics for the last 50 years. SIGGRAPH is successful because it’s a place to appreciate and make connections across a variety of disciplines. From film and visual effects to academia and art to hardware and software, SIGGRAPH is a place for everyone. We have a unique community that has continued to grow over the last 50 years. And, as we celebrate 50 years, pioneers and the next generation of pioneers have a place to make their marks in the industry.”

Highlights from the conference included:

SIGGRAPH 2023 Keynote Speakers: Dr. Darío Gil, IBM Senior Vice President and Director of Research, and Kathryn Kleiman, Founder of the ENIAC Programmers Project, Author, Lawyer, and Professor at American University Washington College of Law.
The History Time Tunnel, sponsored by Autodesk, was an immersive and interactive experience that showcased the history of SIGGRAPH conferences and computer graphics.
The Technical Papers program continues to be the premier venue for showcasing the most cutting-edge research results from computer graphics and interactive techniques.
Papers Fast Forward allowed participants to get a glimpse of all the research papers from the Technical Papers and Art Papers programs.
Installations from previous conferences, playable retro video games, and a display of all Pixar Renderman walking teapots were showcased in the Blasts From the Past exhibit.
The Experience Hall is where the Art Gallery featured a Retrospective of Female Digital Art Pioneers, while Emerging Technologies and the Immersive Pavilion showcased the latest in technological innovations. With Labs, participants got hands-on experiences with new techniques.
Real-Time Live! was livestreamed for the first time on Twitch, along with the in-person experience. The live audience and Twitch viewers were amazed by the latest technologies with interactive visuals in real time.
As storytelling and the growth of virtual reality content expands, the VR Theater presented the latest in immersive narratives.
The Electronic Theater presented animation excellence across 22 featured films.
In Production Sessions, the teams from recent productions highlighted behind-the-scenes creativity, innovation, and collaboration.
Mobile and Virtual Access showed strong engagement, with an average of 100 users per minute logging on to explore SIGGRAPH 2023 content.
The top three most popular sessions interacted with on Mobile and Virtual Access included “Stylized Rendering Techniques,” “Practical Proceduralism in Production,” and “Neural Fields for Visual Computing.”

SIGGRAPH 2023 also celebrated this year’s contributors by honoring some “Best of” from various programs, including:

Art Gallery
Best in Show — “Reinventing the Spindle”
Ebru Kurbak, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Art Papers
Best Art Paper — “Movement Quality Visualization for Wheelchair Dance”
Yurui Xie, Giulia Barbareschi, Ayesha Nabila, Kai Kunze, Masa Inakage, Keio University Graduate School of Media Design
Electronic Theater
Best in Show — “La Diplomatie de L’éclipse”
[qualifier for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences]
César Luton, Ecole MoPA

Jury’s Choice [tie] — “The Voice in the Hollow”
Miguel Ortega, half MT studios

Jury’s Choice [tie] — “Overwatch: Kiriko”
Jeremiah Johnson and Dave Stephens, Blizzard Entertainment

Best Student Project — “Swing to the Moon”
Marie Bordessoule, Elisa Drique, Solenne Moreau, Adriana Bouissié, Vincent Levrero, Nadine de Boer, Chloé Lauzu, ESMA

Audience Choice* — “Boom”
Gabriel Augerai, Romain Augier, Laurie Pereira De Figueiredo, Charles Di Cicco, Yannick Jacquin, Miyu Distribution
Emerging Technologies
Best in Show — “Reprojection-free VR Passthrough”
Grace Kuo, Eric Penner, Seth Moczydlowski, Alex Ching, Douglas Lanman, Nathan Matsuda, Reality Labs Research, Meta

Audience Choice — “Retinal-resolution Varifocal VR”
Yang Zhao, Dave Lindberg, Bruce Cleary, Olivier Mercier, Ryan McClelland, Eric Penner, Yu-Jen Lin, Julia Majors, Douglas Lanman, Reality Labs Research, Meta
Immersive Pavilion
Best in Show — “Actualities: Seamless Live Performance With the Physical and Virtual Audiences in Multiverse”
Ke-Fan Lin, Yu-Chih Chou, Yu-Hsiang Weng, Yvone Tsai Chen, Zin-Yin Lim, Ping-Hsuan Han, National Taipei University of Technology; Chi-Po Lin, HcMusic Co., Ltd.; Tse-Yu Pan, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
Real-Time Live!
Best in Show — “Interactive AI Material Generation and Editing in NVIDIA Omniverse”
Hassan Abu Alhaija, James Lucas, Alexander Zook, Michael Babcock, David Tyner, Rajeev, Rao, Maria Shugrina, NVIDIA

Audience Choice* — “Real-time Stage Modelling and Visual Effects for Live Performances”
Taehyun Rhee, Andrew Chalmers, Faisal Zama, Anna Stangnes, Vic Roberts, Computational Media Innovation Centre, Victoria University of Wellington
Technical Papers
Best Paper Awards
“Split-Lohmann Multifocal Displays”
Yingsi Qin, Wei-Yu Chen, Matthew O’Toole, Aswin C. Sankaranarayanan, Carnegie Mellon University

“Differentiable Stripe Patterns for Inverse Design of Structured Surfaces”
Juan Sebastian Montes Maestre, Yinwei Du, Ronan Hinchet, Stelian Coros, Bernhard Thomaszewski, ETH Zürich

“Globally Consistent Normal Orientation for Point Clouds by Regularizing the Winding-number Field”
Rui Xu, Shandong University; Zhiyang Dou, The University of Hong Kong; Ningna Wang, The University of Texas at Dallas; Shiqing Xin, Shandong University; Shuangmin Chen, Qingdao University of Science and Technology; Mingyan Jiang, Shandong University; Xiaohu Guo, The University of Texas at Dallas; Wenping Wang, Texas A&M University; Changhe Tu, Shandong University

“3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-time Radiance Field Rendering”
Bernhard Kerbl, Inria, Université Côte d’Azur; Georgios Kopanas, Inria, Université Côte d’Azur; Thomas Leimkuehler, Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik; George Drettakis, Inria, Université Côte d’Azur

“DOC: Differentiable Optimal Control for Retargeting Motions Onto Legged Robots”
Ruben Grandia, Disney Research Imagineering; Farbod Farshidian, ETH Zürich; Espen Knoop, Disney Research Imagineering; Christian Schumacher, Disney Research Imagineering; Marco Hutter, ETH Zürich; Moritz Bächer, Disney Research Imagineering

2023 saw the launch of the annual Test-of-Time Awards to papers that have had a significant and lasting impact on computer graphics and interactive techniques over at least a decade.

Test-of-Time Awards
“Functional Maps: A Flexible Represenation of Maps Between Shapes” (2012)
Maks Ovsjanikov, Mirela Ben-Chen, Justin Solomon, Adrian Butscher, Leonidas Guibas

“Eulerian Video Magnification for Revealing Subtle Changes in the World” (2012)
Hao-Yu Wu, Michael Rubinstein, Eugene Shih, John Guttag, Frédo Durand, William Freeman

“HDR-VDP-2: A Calibrated Visual Metric for Visibility and Quality Predictions in All Luminance Conditions” (2011)
Rafal Mantiuk, Kil Joong Kim, Allan G. Rempel, Wolfgang Heidrich

“Optimizing Locomotion Controllers Using Biologically-based Actuators and Objectives” (2012)
Jack M. Wang, Samuel R. Hamner, Scott L. Delp, Vladlen Koltun
VR Theater
Best in Show — “Missing 10 Hours VR”
Fanni Fazakas, RUMEXR, Victoria University of Wellington; Noemi Szakonyi, Mate Vincze, Match-Frame Productions

*Vote tallied on-site via survey poll.
Best in Show awards determined by a jury; Audience Choice awards determined by the live audience.

The innovation and creativity of the computer graphics and interactive techniques industry was on full display at SIGGRAPH 2023. The conference showcased why the legacy of the community has continued for 50 years, and the excitement is building for SIGGRAPH 2024 in Denver, Colorado, from 28 July–1 August 2024.

For more information about the conference and the various programs, visit the SIGGRAPH 2023 website. Select content from the companion Virtual Access component will be available on-demand through 9 September 2023. Bookmark the ACM SIGGRAPH Blog for interviews and deep dives from different contributors.

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About ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH, and SIGGRAPH 2023

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Dr. Darío Gil and Kathryn Kleiman Headline the SIGGRAPH 2023 Keynote Presentations

Jason — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 10:00:00 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
28 July 2023

Media Contact:
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media@siggraph.org

Photos courtesy of Dr. Darío Gil and Ms. Kathryn Kleiman

Dr. Darío Gil and Kathryn Kleiman Headline the SIGGRAPH 2023 Keynote Presentations

SIGGRAPH Celebrates Key Historical Developments in Computing and What’s Next With Quantum Computing

CHICAGO—SIGGRAPH 2023, the premier conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, announces that Dr. Darío Gil and Kathryn Kleiman will headline the Keynote Presentations. As SIGGRAPH 2023 celebrates its 50th year of breakthroughs and innovation, Dr. Gil and Ms. Kleiman will address the vision of the future of computing and pioneering women in programming, respectively. The 50th annual conference runs 6–10 August 2023 in person in Los Angeles, with a companion Virtual Access component.

“We’re excited and honored to have Dr. Darío Gil and Ms. Kathryn Kleiman be our Keynote Speakers at SIGGRAPH 2023,” said Erik Brunvand, SIGGRAPH 2023 Conference Chair. “SIGGRAPH is a global community of innovators. Every year, we showcase the latest, most inventive technologies. But, seeing as it’s our 50th conference, we also wanted to look back at the amazing and impressive technological history. By having Dario address the future of quantum computing, while Kathryn looks back to the women pioneers of computing, it’s a great way to look forward while appreciating our past.”

What’s Next in Quantum Computing
Presented by: Dr. Darío Gil
Monday, 7 August 2023
9–10:30 am PDT

In his keynote address, Dr. Darío Gil will discuss the vision for the future of computing in which we seamlessly orchestrate classical and quantum resources. He will discuss recent progress indicating the utility of quantum computers and outline the path to achieving quantum advantage.

The history of computing has been defined by advances enabling ever more sophisticated calculations. These advances share the same model of computation, based on binary bits representing the intersection of information and mathematics. With innovations in semiconductors reducing energy or increasing performance to enable more sophisticated calculations, and advances in AI extracting powerful insights from data and providing unprecedented capabilities, the boundaries of this paradigm are constantly pushed. Now for the first time, there is a branching of computing paradigms with the emergence of quantum computing combining physics and information. It has the potential to solve problems out of reach for even the most powerful supercomputers. The intersection of both models — classical and quantum computation — will bring extraordinary computing power and efficiency.

Bio:
Dr. Darío Gil is the Senior Vice President and Director of IBM Research. He directs innovation strategies in hybrid cloud, AI, semiconductors, quantum computing, and exploratory science. He also leads the technical community of IBM and is responsible for the company’s intellectual property strategy and business. An advocate of collaborative research models, Dr. Gil co-chairs the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, which advances fundamental AI research for the benefit of industry and society. He also co-chairs the Executive Board of the International Science Reserve, a global network of open scientific communities that provides specialized resources to prepare for and help mitigate urgent, complex global challenges. Dr. Gil received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.

Computer Programming Pioneers Revealed
Presented by: Kathryn Kleiman
Tuesday, 8 August 2023
9:15–10:45 am PDT

“We live in a computing world that grew from the minds and hearts of these remarkable programming pioneers,” Kleiman says. “For the 50th SIGGRAPH conference, I will share incredible stories of innovation from women very much like us.”

After the end of World War II, the race for technological supremacy sped on. Top-secret research into ballistics and computing — begun during the war to aid soldiers on the front lines — continued across the U.S. as engineers and programmers rushed to complete their covert assignments. Among them were six women tasked with programming the world’s first general-purpose, programmable, all-electronic computer, ENIAC. The work of Kay McNulty Mauchly, Betty Snyder Holberton, Jean Jennings Bartik, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum, Frances Bilas Spence, and Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, untold for 70 years, is one of innovation and determination. Yet for 60 years, their story was unaccounted — a mystery that started with old black-and-white pictures of ENIAC.

Bio:
Author, Lawyer, and Professor at American University Washington College of Law Kathryn Kleiman embarks on a journey through history to tell the stories of the programming pioneers you may not know existed who led our charge into the era of computing. Ms. Kleiman published “Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer,” based on her longtime research and interviews of the six ENIAC Programmers. Ms. Kleiman is a recognized leader in Internet policy and governance. She was part of the group that formed the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), co-founded of ICANN’s Noncommercial Users Constituency, and served on the final drafting of ICANN’s Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy. Before attending her Keynote Presentation, learn more about Ms. Kleiman’s work uncovering the story of the women “in front of” ENIAC on the ACM SIGGRAPH Blog.

Learn more about the SIGGRAPH 2023 Keynote Speakers and Sponsored Keynote Speakers by checking out the full program. For more information about the conference, other programs, and opportunities to experience at SIGGRAPH 2023, or to register to attend in person or online, go to s2023.SIGGRAPH.org/register.

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About ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH, and SIGGRAPH 2023

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Fueling Creativity in the Digital World

Jason — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 10:00:00 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
26 July 2023

Media Contact:
Marketing & Media Office
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Fueling Creativity in the Digital World

SIGGRAPH 2023 Technical Papers research showcases innovation in further advancing the field of character animation.

CHICAGO—Since its inception 50 years ago, SIGGRAPH has served as an epicenter for inventive ideas and innovative research in the ever-evolving field of computer graphics and interactive techniques. These innovations have given us realistic CGI, or computer-generated images, that helped blast traditional filmmaking and gaming into a new era.

This year, computer scientists, artists, developers, and industry experts around the world will convene 6–10 August in Los Angeles for SIGGRAPH 2023. Fittingly, the theme behind SIGGRAPH this year, notes Conference Chair Erik Brunvand, is to recognize 2023 as the “Age of SIGGRAPH,” honoring the full chronology of the industry, the community, and the organization — then, now, and far into the future.

One example of CGI innovation is the ongoing advances in character animation. Many of these advances are driven by motion capture technology that consistently delivers efficient, state-of-the-art visual effects prevalent in our beloved superhero blockbusters.

The creative potential in the field of character animation research remains endless.

“Character animation represents a truly unique field within computer graphics. The goal of character animation is to replicate the intelligence and behavior of living beings, and this extends not only to humans and animals, but also to imaginary creatures,” says Libin Liu, assistant professor at Peking University who will be presenting new research, along with his team, as part of the SIGGRAPH 2023 Technical Papers program.

“Over the years, the research community has explored many approaches toward achieving this goal … and with the exciting progress we’ve seen in AI, there will be a boom in research that utilizes large language models or more comprehensive multi-modal models, as the ‘brain’ for the character, coupled with the development of new motion representation and generation frameworks to translate the ‘thoughts’ of this brain into realistic actions,” says Liu. “It’s an exciting time for all of us in this field.”

As a preview of the popular Technical Papers program, here is a spotlight of three unique approaches that showcase innovation in advancing the character animation field even further.

Body Language

Many of us unconsciously converse or express ourselves using physical gestures. Some of us may gesture with our hands, shift our body posture to make a point, or put into action another body part (eyes or legs) while we talk. Indeed, speech and communication go hand-in-hand with physical gesturing — a complicated sequence to represent digitally.

A team of researchers from Peking University-China and National Key Lab of General AI have introduced a sophisticated computational framework that captures the detailed nuances of physical human speech gestures. And this framework does so while allowing users to control those details using a broad range of input data, including a piece of text description, a short clip of demonstration, or even data representing animal gestures such as video of a bird flapping or spreading its wings.

The key component underpinning the team’s new system is a novel representation of motions, specifically the quantized latent motion embeddings, coupled with diffusion models — one of the key components behind recent AI-driven image generation techniques. This representation significantly reduces ambiguity and ensures the naturalness and diversity of movements. Additionally, they enhanced the CLIP model developed by OpenAI with the ability to interpret style descriptions in multiple forms and have developed an efficient technique to analyze sentences, enabling the digital character to understand the speech’s semantics and determine the optimal time to gesture.

Building on the advances made in the digital human space, this new work addresses the challenge of producing digital characters that have the capability to perform physical gestures during conversations, and with minimal direction or instruction. The system supports style prompts in the form of short texts, motion sequences, or video clips and provides body part-specific style control; for instance, combining the gesture of a yoga pose (warrior one) with gestures of feeling “happy” or “sad.”

“With this work, we’ve moved another step closer to making digital humans behave like their real-life counterparts. Our system equips these virtual characters with the capability to perform natural and diversified gestures during conversations, thereby considerably enhancing the realism and immersion of interactions,” says Liu, a lead author of the research and assistant professor at Peking University’s School of Intelligence Science and Technology.

“Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this technology is its ability to let users intuitively control the character’s motion using language and demonstrations. This also allows the system to interface seamlessly with advanced artificial intelligence like ChatGPT, bringing an increased level of intelligence and lifelikeness to our digital characters.”

Liu and his collaborators, Tenglong Ao and Zeyi Zhang, both at Peking University, are set to demonstrate their new work at SIGGRAPH 2023. View the team’s paper and accompanying video on their project page.

Realistic Robots in Motion

Who doesn’t love a dancing robot? But how to easily replicate or simulate legged robots and their dynamic motions remains a challenge in the field of character animation. In new research, an international team of researchers from Disney Research Imagineering and ETH Zürich describe an innovative technique that enables the optimal retargeting of expressive physical motions onto freely walking robots.

Retargeting motion, or editing existing motions, either from motion capture data or other sources of digital artistic creations, is a quicker way to simulate physical motion in the digital world. Accounting for the significant differences in proportions, mass distributions, and number of degrees of freedom of the motion data makes editing them onto a different system most challenging.

To that end, this new technique enables the retargeting of captured or artist-provided motion onto legged robots of vastly different proportions and mass distributions.

“We can take an input motion, and then automatically solve for the best possible way that a robot can execute that motion,” note the researchers. Their method takes into account the robot dynamics and also the robot’s actuation limits, which means that even highly dynamic motions can be successfully retargeted. The result is that the robot can perform the motion without losing its balance — not an easy feat.

The latter is a major hurdle the team has overcome with this new approach. Due to the significant differences in sizes, shapes between animals, or artist-created rigs and a legged robot, the retargeting of motions is difficult to achieve with standard optimal control techniques and manual trial-and-error methods.

The researchers’ approach is a differentiable optimal control (DOC) technique that allows them to solve for a comprehensive set of parameters to make the retargeting agnostic to changes in proportions, mass distributions, as well as differences in the number of degrees of freedom between the source of input motion and the actual physical robot.

The team behind DOC includes Ruben Grandia, Espen Knoop, Christian Schumacher, and Moritz Bächer at Disney Research and Farbod Farshidian and Marco Hutter at ETH Zürich. They will showcase their work as part of SIGGRAPH 2023 Technical Papers program. For the paper and video, visit the team’s project page.

Tennis, Anyone?

The ultimate dream of computer gaming enthusiasts is to be able to control their players in the virtual world in a way that mirrors the players’ athleticism and movement in the physical world. The authenticity of the game is what counts.

A global team of computer scientists, one of whom also is a tennis expert and NCAA tennis champion, has developed a physics-based animation system that can produce diverse and complex tennis-playing skills while only using motion data from videos. The team’s computational framework empowers two simulated characters to engage in extensive tennis rallies, guided by controllers learned from match videos featuring different players.

“Our work demonstrates the exciting possibility of using abundant sports videos from the internet to create virtual characters that can be controlled. It opens up a future where anyone can bring virtual characters to life using their own videos,” says Haotian Zhang, first author of the new research and a Ph.D. student studying under Kayvon Fatahalian, associate professor of computer science at Stanford University. Zhang and Fatahalian are set to present their work at SIGGRAPH 2023, along with collaborators from NVIDIA, University of Toronto, Vector Institute, and Simon Fraser University.

“Imagine the incredible creativity and convenience as people from all backgrounds can now take charge of animation and make their ideas come alive,” adds Zhang. “The potential is limitless, and the ability to animate virtual characters is now within easy reach for everyone.”

The researchers demonstrate the system via a number of examples, including replicating different player styles, such as a right-handed player using two-handed backhand and vice versa, and capturing diverse tennis skills such as the serve, forehand topspin, and backhand slice, to name a few. The novel system can produce two physically simulated characters playing extended tennis rallies with simulated racket and ball-handling dynamics.

Along with Zhang and Fatahalian, collaborators Ye Yuan, Viktor Makoviychuk, and Yunrong Guo at NVIDIA, Sanja Fidler at University of Toronto, and Xue Bin Peng at NVIDIA and Simon Fraser University, will demonstrate their work at SIGGRAPH 2023. For the full paper and video, visit the team’s page.

Each year, the SIGGRAPH Technical Papers program spans research areas from animation, simulation, and imaging to geometry, modeling, human-computer interaction, fabrication, robotics, and more. Get a glimpse of this year’s content by watching the SIGGRAPH 2023 Technical Papers trailer, and view the full program for even more detail. Visit the SIGGRAPH 2023 website to register.

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Graphic Technologies, Interactive Experiences, and Storytelling Add to Fast-rising Growth of Gaming

Jason — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 10:00:00 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
18 July 2023

Media Contact:
Marketing & Media Office
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“Magic Made Real: How POSSIBLE and Riot Games Realize League of Legends for the Stage” © Presentation content by Possible, Inc. Photos and broadcast footage of event by Riot Games. All rights reserved.

Graphic Technologies, Interactive Experiences, and Storytelling Add to Fast-rising Growth of Gaming

SIGGRAPH 2023 Features Games-focused Panels, Programs, and Exhibits That Embody Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques

CHICAGO—SIGGRAPH 2023, the premier conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, marks its 50th year of breakthroughs and innovation. The advancements of technologies in interactivity, graphics, and storytelling represent the evolution and growth of the multibillion-dollar gaming industry. SIGGRAPH 2023 presents content that covers the various developments of the industry and all its advancements with panels, workshops, and live demonstrations at the 50th annual conference, which runs 6–10 August 2023 in person in Los Angeles, with a companion Virtual Access component.

With the ongoing growth of gaming, from casual and home gamers to online esports competitors and professionals, game creators continue to make strides with the latest advancements in graphics and visual technologies to related technologies for interactivity, augmented and mixed realities, and generative AI. These innovations add to the storytelling and provide new, unique gaming experiences.

“I always enjoy seeing games released that add new visual and interactive experiences that we didn’t know were possible,” said Josef Spjut, SIGGRAPH 2023 Games Focus Area Chair. “As technologies improve and evolve, I expect much of the related technologies that are created to have a big impact on the way game development is done. While the current trajectory of gaming is likely to continue, new story-based games will continue to push graphics and storytelling fidelity, and esports will add features to help players with analytics, skill development, and performance.”

The range of game-focused programs at SIGGRAPH 2023 includes a metaverse workshop organized by Lauren Cheatham and presented by Carissa Kang, Danny Pimental, Matt Soeth, and Benjamin Crosier entitled “Frontiers Workshop: Beyond IRL, How 3D Interactive Social Media Is Changing How We Interact, Express, and Think” that will discuss how younger generations are growing up with exposure to immersive virtual environments. The panel will cover how the metaverse will change how people interact, express, and think and how to create environments and experiences that encourage and support unique self-expression, positive community engagement, and create space for learning and growth.

The Production Session “Magic Made Real: How POSSIBLE and Riot Games Realize League of Legends for the Stage” features Ryan Chung, Anna Robinson, Chris Anderson, and Jake Mcpherson, the creative and producing team behind the League of Legends World Championship Opening Ceremony. They will talk about how they execute the technology with the spectacle flawlessly to have the 100 million-plus viewers believe the magic of one of the world’s premier esports events. Natalya Tatarchuk brings back fan-favorites “Advances in Real-Time Rendering Part 1” and “Part 2” where she demonstrates state-of-the-art and production-proven rendering techniques for the fast and interactive rendering and engaging virtual worlds of video games. For more of Tatarchuk’s other sessions and presentations, visit the full program schedule.

Always a spectacular live show, Real-Time Live! will be streaming on Twitch for the first time. In-person and online viewers can see a showcase of mind-blowing graphics technologies, real-time demos, scientific visualization, and other transformative technologies live and in front of an audience. Roblox is investing in generative AI techniques, and by leveraging natural language and other expressions of intent, creators can build interactive objects and scenes without complex modeling or coding. “Roblox Generative AI in Action” with Brent Vincent and Kartik Ayyar aims to make creation faster and easier through the use of AI image generation services. Rich Hurrey, Eric Soulvie, Kai Husen, Clifford Champion, and Shane Griffith have developed an innovative software technology that enables the authoring and real-time performance of 3D poses, deformations, and animations. Their demonstration of “Feature Film Quality Characters Anywhere” leverages layered deformers without the limits of traditional bone and skin weight system.

For the first time, SIGGRAPH 2023 will host an Open Gaming Session and Tournament. The gaming session is open for registered participants to create teams and play different games or to sign up for the 16-player, 1vs1 rocket league tournament. As gaming and esports have spread across gaming communities globally, SIGGRAPH is bringing some of the active social gaming and interaction aspects to the conference to give participants a chance to network with others who engage in the gaming industry or as a hobby.

Learn more about the various games-focused programs by checking out the full program. To get more information about the conference, opportunities, or to register to attend in person or online, go to s2023.SIGGRAPH.org/register.

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Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Haptics, Robotics, and Display Technologies Showcase How SIGGRAPH Fosters Growth and Innovation

Jason — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 10:00:00 +0000

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12 July 2023

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Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Haptics, Robotics, and Display Technologies Showcase How SIGGRAPH Fosters Growth and Innovation

Contributors to the SIGGRAPH Emerging Technologies, Immersive Pavilion, and VR Theater Demonstrate These Advancements and Evolution of Technology

CHICAGO—SIGGRAPH 2023, the premier conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, marks its 50th year of breakthroughs and innovation by highlighting the development of emerging technologies over the years. This year’s contributions will showcase the developments in virtual reality, artificial intelligence, haptics, robotics, and display technologies. The 50th annual conference runs 6–10 August 2023 in person in Los Angeles, with a companion Virtual Access component.

SIGGRAPH conferences often launch experimental developments and projects that then are utilized by the mainstream in the day-to-day. These technologies evolve to become more complete and ready to deploy in real-life applications. Scientists, engineers, artists, designers, programmers, researchers, and inventors, among others, conceive of innovations that have the potential to shift the way consumers work, socialize, and play in mixed reality and shared spaces.

“Technology is important to the SIGGRAPH community, and we have always worked to be the catalyst for technological advancements that improve and enhance the way people live,” said Dr. Mashhuda Glencross, SIGGRAPH 2023 Emerging Technologies Chair. “As technology shifts to change the way in which we interact with computer generated environments, data, and people, our community responds and amazes with more innovation. Historically, these emerging technologies and developments that are first shown at SIGGRAPH have had major impact in the real world, and I expect no less with this year’s Emerging Technologies contributions.”

Advancements in display technologies is a key focus of SIGGRAPH 2023 Emerging Technologies installations, with developments in virtual reality headsets, near-eye displays, and an AI-mediated video conferencing system. The “AI-mediated 3D Video Conferencing” project by Michael Stengel, Koki Nagano, Chao Liu, Matthew Chan, Alex Trevithick, Shalini De Mello, Jonghyun Kim, and David Luebke, is a 3D video conferencing system that can reconstruct and autostereoscopically display a life-sized talking head using consumer-grade computer resources and minimal capture equipment. A virtual reality head-mounted display that can achieve near retinal resolution, supporting a wide range of eye accommodation and matching the dynamics of eye accommodation is showcased with the “Retinal-resolution Varifocal VR” installation from Yang Zhao, Dave Lindberg, Bruce Cleary, Olivier Mercier, Ryan McClelland, Eric Penner, Yu-Jen Lin, Julia Majors, and Douglas Lanman. The “Neural Holographic Near-eye Displays for Virtual Reality,” from Suyeon Choi, Manu Gopakumar, Brian Chao, Gun-Yeal Lee, Jonghyun Kim, and Gordon Wetzstein, has the ability to produce full 3D depth cues, correct for visual aberrations, and lower power consumption. A prototype holographic display, the installation will demonstrate how Neural Holography algorithms have taken significant strides toward unlocking this potential.

The Immersive Pavilion celebrates the evolution of augmented, virtual, and mixed realities, and makes the connection between past, present, and future advancements. This year’s content demonstrates the opportunities for collaboration and more immersive storytelling and connecting emotionally in a different reality. With “Heightened Empathy: A Multi-user Interactive Experience in a Bioresponsive Virtual Reality,” by Mark Armstrong, Kinga Skiers, Danyang Peng, Tamil Selvan Gunasekaran, Anish Kundu, Tanner Person, Yixin Wang, Kouta Minamizawa, and Yun Suen Pai, users are immersed in a VR representation of each other’s emotional states while also reflecting this to the audience. The three modes are designed to stimulate cognitive, emotional, and compassionate empathy. From Ke-Fan Lin, Yu-Chih Chou, Yu-Hsiang Weng, Yvone Tsai Chen, Zin-Yin Lim, Chi-Po Lin, Ping-Hsuan Han, and Tse-Yu Pan, “Actualities: Seamless Live Performance With the Physical and Virtual Audiences in Multiverse” is a seamless live performance provided for on-site and online audiences synchronously, allowing virtual and physical audiences to interact with each other in the multiverse. Both audiences are part of the performance and can influence the visual showing on the screen or personal devices.

The SIGGRAPH 2023 VR Theater strives to create memorable experiences in a world of immersive storytelling through its jury-selected short-form works. The VR Theater presents the creations from those working in a medium without walls or frames. This year’s showcase includes “Lustration,” from executive producer Nathan Anderson, a four-part animated series that follows a group of characters from both the real world and afterlife. Viewers can actively explore the environment while watching the illustrative art style, different camera angles with changing scenes, and perspectives that keep the viewers engaged. From director Charuvit Wannissorn, “Luna: Episode 1 – Left Behind” is an interactive VR story about a robot and a little girl trying to survive an AI apocalypse. With a branching narrative and creative use of voice, the story utilizes a unique facet of VR where the audience embodies a character to feel like a part of the story.

Learn more about how SIGGRAPH 2023 is demonstrating the evolution of technology by reviewing Emerging Technologies, Immersive Pavilion, and VR Theater content on the full program. For more information about the conference, opportunities, or to register to attend in person or online, go to s2023.SIGGRAPH.org/register.

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Art and Design Merge With Science and Technology for Innovative Storytelling and Impact-based Experiences at SIGGRAPH 2023

Jason — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 10:00:00 +0000

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30 June 2023

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“Returning the Gaze” © Julian Ceipek: Software Assistance This installation is supported by Universal Robots for ANNAKIKI’s Milan Fashion Week.

Art and Design Merge With Science and Technology for Innovative Storytelling and Impact-based Experiences at SIGGRAPH 2023

The Art Gallery and Art Papers Programs Provide a Platform for Artists to Highlight Engagement, Inclusivity, and Multidisciplinary Approaches

CHICAGO—SIGGRAPH 2023, the premier conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, celebrates its 50th year of breakthroughs and innovation. The advancements of art and science are on display through selected works from the Art Gallery and Art Papers programs. Artists will showcase projects that represent new approaches to unexplored stories through their artistic worldview. The 50th annual conference runs 6–10 August 2023 in person in Los Angeles, with a companion Virtual Access component.

SIGGRAPH’s 50th conference serves as a platform for a retrospective in art and design, as well as promoting gender equality, diversity, and inclusivity in the digital art community. By recognizing and commemorating underrepresented groups, the Art Gallery and Art Papers programs serve as inspiration for future generations of artists. The future of art and technology, creative approaches, and powerful ideas can blur the boundaries between art and technology and many disciplines toward a more inclusive and vibrant future for digital art.

“This year’s selected works are very powerful and reflect many current social, cultural, and environmental issues,” said Yoon Chung Han, SIGGRAPH 2023 Art Gallery Chair. “Time capsules contain elements that allude to the past, present, and future. They preserve a collection of everyday artifacts, memories, data, information, and messages to the future. Art has emerged from the constant evolution of technology over time that examines our cultural and societal practices and provokes alternative viewpoints to facilitate the discussion about global issues.”

The Art Gallery program features the theme of “Time Capsules: Discovering the Undiscovered.” From the 100-plus submissions, 12 projects were selected that represent the timely, critical, and creative expressions in artificial intelligence, robotics, animal-human hybrid, virtual reality, sensing devices, data art, interactive sculptures, space, and human bodies.

Robotics is an important technology and has been used by many artists to address and question human-machine relationships. With “Returning the Gaze,” this timely installation by artist Behnaz Farahi addresses feminism and gender issues through robotics, gaze, and camera-sensing technology. “Conservation of Shadows” is a creative expression installation by Haru Ji and Graham Wakefield. This is the newest version of the artists’ installation, and the generative art experience features artificial nature in mixed reality. The experience is created with AI and combines interaction in VR for an immersing experience. These are just two of the impactful installations that will be on display at this year’s conference.

The SIGGRAPH 2023 Art Papers program bridges culture and technology, encouraging artists, designers, researchers, and engineers to rethink and explore the future of our society. Art must recognize the creativity of technology, while technology should acknowledge the capacity of art to produce reliable knowledge. Submissions explored how computer graphics and interactive techniques — especially those linked to recent developments in AI, machine learning, robotics, the metaverse, AR, and even blockchain — relate to societal and environmental questions.

“Technologies open new fields of exploration for artists, new ‘canvases,’ combining moving images, sounds, interactions, sensors, and more,” said Nicolas Henchoz, SIGGRAPH 2023 Art Papers Chair. “Generative AI forces people to think about the very notion of creativity, the role of production, the concept of intention, authorship, and perception. Therefore, we need to have artists addressing the questions raised by emerging technologies, investigating disruptive practices, and usages. The objective is to push artistic practices to go beyond criticism and be part of a solution, as has occurred during the Renaissance, the Bauhaus movement, or even hippie modernism.”

The Art Papers program showcases how art and design, combined with science and engineering, become more active in shaping, communicating, and building solutions for people, society, and even the planet. The next generation of artists engages in transdisciplinary projects, anticipated to have a larger impact.

“Movement Quality Visualization for Wheelchair Dance” is a system that can establish visual representations of wheelchair dances — describing movement, including emotional and expressive content. This research by Yurui Xie, Giulia Barbareschi, Ayesha Nabila, Kai Kunze, and Masa Inakage plays a major role in inclusivity and opening cultural perspectives while demonstrating the value of transdisciplinary research. “Kiss/Crash: Using Diffusion Models to Explore Real Desire in the Shadow of Artificial Representations” is an installation using AI imagery to explore the theme of desire and the expanding gap between real experience and artificial representation in the digital age. This installation by Adam Cole and Mick Grierson spurs critical thinking about the current debate on imagery and AI. These Art Papers are just two of the varied topics one will explore at SIGGRAPH 2023.

Learn more about how art and design play a role at SIGGRAPH 2023 by reviewing Art Papers on the full program and adding a visit to the Art Gallery to your conference schedule. Bookmark the ACM SIGGRAPH Blog for interviews and deep dives into these fascinating topics on the forefront of art and technology. For more information about the conference and the various programs and opportunities to experience at SIGGRAPH 2023, or to register to attend in person or online, go to s2023.SIGGRAPH.org/register.

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Pack It, Knit It, Link It: Challenges in 3D Printing, Textile Production, and Beyond

Jason — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 10:00:00 +0000

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14 June 2023

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Pack It, Knit It, Link It:
Challenges in 3D Printing, Textile Production, and Beyond

At SIGGRAPH 2023, researchers set to debut inventive computational solutions that easily, efficiently overcome complex challenges in physical world

CHICAGO—The vast field of computer graphics and interactive techniques spans the gamut of industries, from gaming and film to biomedical and manufacturing. The core of SIGGRAPH 2023, the 50th iteration of an annual global — and marquis — conference for the brightest and most inventive minds in the field, is a platform to share and showcase the bold, innovative research and products that are changing — and improving — the way we live, work, and play.

Research expected to debut as part of the conference’s Technical Papers program are “ones to watch” — exciting new technologies, ideas, and algorithms that span all areas of graphics and interactive techniques. Particularly noticeable this year is the emergence of research methods that extend beyond the digital world and address creation of real-life content.

“A lot of research in computer graphics has been about determining the best way to visualize various real-world phenomena using computers, and in doing so, there are often details that are elided to fit such complicated things into the computational framework,” says Jenny Lin, a lead author of one of the featured new research projects that will be showcased at SIGGRAPH 2023. Lin and her collaborators have devised a formal semantics framework for machine knitting programs, applying mathematics to describe anything a knitting machine can make.

“Going from virtual representations to the physical world involves addressing details that we often take for granted when going about our daily lives,” she adds. “There’s a very natural connection between these two directions, and there’s something very gratifying about using the language of computers to understand and improve something as tactile and grounded as knitting.”

This year, computer scientists, artists, developers, and industry experts around the world will convene 6–10 August in Los Angeles for SIGGRAPH 2023. As a preview of the Technical Papers program, here is a sampling of three novel computational methods and their unique approaches to real-world applications.

Equipped to Make It Fit

Additive manufacturing, better known as 3D printing, brings digitally designed products to life. It allows for unprecedented freedom of 3D geometries and it gives manufacturers the ability to produce parts on demand, and locally. With 3D printing, supply chain management can be simplified, and it is easier to transition from engineering iterations to full manufacturing.

3D printing is undergoing a transition from being a prototyping technology to being a manufacturing technology. However, the main roadblock is the overall cost of the manufactured part. 3D printing hardware, materials, and human labor all drive the cost of the technology. The drive for higher cost efficiency requires printing in batches where parts are tightly packed in the 3D printer’s build volume to maximize the number of printed parts per batch. One of the main limitations of this process is the limited utilization of the build volume due to the computational complexity of the packing process.

In a collaboration between MIT and Inkbit, a 3D manufacturer specializing in polymer parts, researchers are addressing the complex problem — and headache — of digitally packing many parts in a single container with multiple constraints. To date, many part models are virtually placed in the printing tray, also referred to as “nesting”, and the printer executes the job printing the whole tray. The problem with this process is that the container isn’t densely packed and there isn’t an efficient method to automate and ensure the 3D printers are printing the maximum volume of parts in a designated container.

Left: They densely pack the benchmark into a cuboid with a packing density of 35.77%. The packing is free of interlocking. Right: An in-focused view highlighting densely packed objects. “Dense, Interlocking-free and Scalable Spectral Packing of Generic 3D Objects” © 2023 Cui, Rong, Chen, Matusik

The team of researchers, led by Wojciech Matusik, CTO at Inkbit and professor of electrical engineering and of computer science at MIT, developed a novel computational method to maximize the throughput of 3D printers by packing objects as densely as possible and accounting for interlocking-avoidance (between many parts with different shapes and sizes) and scalability. Their approach leverages the Fast Fourier Transform, or FFT, a powerful algorithm that has made it possible to quickly perform complex signal processing operations that were previously impossible or prohibitively expensive.

Coupled with FFT, “our work is making the individual placement of a 3D part into a partially filled build volume as fast as possible,” says Matusik. “Our algorithms are not only extremely fast but they can now achieve print volumes with much higher densities (40% or more). The higher print efficiency will unlock lower cost of parts manufactured.”

The lead author Qiaodong Cui is set to present the new work at SIGGRAPH 2023. The team also includes Victor Rong of MIT, and Desai Chen, research engineer at Inkbit. Visit the team’s page for the full paper and video.

The Refined Knitting Machine

Some may say that knitting is a relatively easy technique, or craft, to learn — and could even serve as a relaxing stress-reducer. Automating the needle-and-yarn technique with machine knitting is well established in the fashion and textiles industries. This has seen a recent surge in popularity due to increased understanding of the scope and complexity of the objects — fabrics, patterns — that can be automatically generated.

While the technique of knitting has been automated, the systems are still struggling with the ability to support everything that a knitting machine can make, as well as generate precisely what a user wants. To date, say the researchers, there is no such system that guarantees correctness on the complete scope of machine knitting programs.

A multi-institutional team of computer scientists from Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, and University of Washington, have created a novel computational framework to optimize machine knitting tasks. Their formal semantics for the low-level Domain Specific Language used for knitting machines provides a sophisticated definition of correctness on the exponentially large space of knitting machine programs.

The researchers applied knot theory to develop their new framework and addressed the key properties humans care about in knitting that are poorly captured by existing concepts from knot theory. To that end, they devised an extension to knot theory called “fenced tangles” as a mathematical basis for defining machine knit object equivalence.

Any knitting machine program denotes a specific fenced tangle, which allows for a formal definition of program equivalence that matches human intuition about knitting. “Semantics and Scheduling for Machine Knitting Compliers” © 2023 Lin, Narayanan, Ikarashi, Ragan-Kelley, Bernstein, McCann

Our method “can describe anything a knitting machine can make: not just your standard sweaters and hats, but also dense, shaped structures useful in architecture, and multi-yarn structures that allow for colorwork and soft actuation,” says Jenny Lin, the paper’s lead author and PhD student at Carnegie Mellon in the lab of James McCann, assistant professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon and another author of the work.

She adds, “This is important, because as we develop more nuanced systems for generating more complicated knitting machine programs, we can now always answer the question of whether two machine knit objects — the object you want and the object your program makes — are truly the same.”

As a proof of concept, the team has implemented a foundational computational tool for applying program rewrites that preserve knit program meaning. This approach could be expanded for characterizing machine knitting to hand knitting, which is both more flexible and variable as a fabrication technique.

The team behind “fenced tangles” also includes Vidya Narayanan, applied scientist at Amazon who was advised by James McCann at Carnegie, Yuka Ikarashi, PhD candidate at MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Jonathan Ragan-Kelley of MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and Gilbert Bernstein, assistant professor of computer science and engineering at University of Washington, and they will present their work at SIGGRAPH 2023. The paper and team page can be found here.

Linked and Characterized

Medieval chainmail armor, small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh, have been used for thousands of years as protective gear for soldiers in battle. Picture a knight in their metal “suit” wearing chainmail armor as an additional layer of protection. Fast forward to the wide landscape of materials and fabrics in the modern era and chainmail-like materials remain a physical structure that is challenging to computationally represent, accounting for all of its unique mechanical properties.

An international team of researchers from ETH Zürich in Switzerland and Université de Montréal in Canada draws inspiration from medieval chainmail armor, generalizing it to the concept of discrete interlocking materials, or DIM.

“These materials possess remarkable flexibility, allowing them to adapt to necessary shapes, while also demonstrating impressive strength beyond a certain range of deformation,” says Pengbin Tang, the lead author of the research and PhD student advised by Bernhard Thomaszewski, a senior scientist at ETH Zürich and adjunct professor at the Université de Montréal.

“These unique properties make DIM attractive in robotics, orthotics, sportswear and many other areas of application,” adds Stelian Coros, collaborator and head of the computational robotics lab (CRL) at ETH Zürich.

Discrete Interlocking Materials are governed by strongly coupled, highly anisotropic, and asymmetric deformation limits. New method is able to capture and reproduce these effects for many types of interlocking materials. Using native-scale simulations as a basis, the researchers construct macro-mechanical deformation limits on bending and stretching which they use to develop an efficient macro-scale simulation model. “Beyond Chainmail: Computational Modeling of Discrete Interlocking Materials” © 2023 Tang, Coros, Thomaszewski

The researchers have developed a method for computational modeling, mechanical characterization, and macro-scale simulation of these 3D-printed chainmail fabrics made of quasi-rigid interlocking elements (the connectivity of rings or links in chainmail-like material).

A key challenge the new method addresses is accurately representing the deformation limits the quasi-rigid fabric exhibits when it bends and folds and adopts different shapes. Unlike conventional elastic materials, the mechanics of DIM are governed by contacts between individual elements. Their particular structure leads to extremely high contrast in deformation resistance. To obtain the deformation limits from a given DIM, the researchers’ developed a computational approach involving thousands of virtual deformation tests across the entire deformation space.

The novel method offers an intuitive, systematic way for macro-mechanical characterization which can pave the way to using DIM for garment design, note the researchers. Their analysis has largely focused on kinematic motion and, consequently, doesn’t consider friction nor elastic deformations in the structure. In future work, an extension of their macro-scale model could account for internal friction to simulate friction-dominated scenarios as well as explore geometric detail at the element level, which may be important for additional applications.

Pengbin Tang is excited to present this work at SIGGRAPH 2023. View the paper and video on the team page.

Each year, the SIGGRAPH Technical Papers program spans research areas from animation, simulation, and imaging to geometry, modeling, human-computer interaction, fabrication, robotics, and more. Visit the SIGGRAPH 2023 website to learn more about the program and for registration details.

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SIGGRAPH Celebrates Its Student Volunteer Program; Creates Experiences and Opportunities for the Next Generation of Professionals

SIGGRAPH — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 10:00:00 +0000

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07 June 2023

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SIGGRAPH Celebrates Its Student Volunteer Program; Creates Experiences and Opportunities for the Next Generation of Professionals

SIGGRAPH 2023 Offers Unique Chances for 300-Plus Students to Gain Insight to the Evolving Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Landscape

CHICAGO—SIGGRAPH 2023, the premiere conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, celebrates its 50th year of breakthroughs and innovation. The commemoration includes support from the integral Student Volunteer program, which provides students the opportunity to acquire insight into the SIGGRAPH community. Student Volunteers are the next generation of creators and innovators who will receive hands-on experience and the prospect of meeting and learning from current professionals and visionaries. The 50th annual conference runs 6–10 August 2023 in person in Los Angeles, with a companion Virtual Access component.

The SIGGRAPH Student Volunteer program comprises of students, 18 years and older, from around the world who are enrolled in high school, colleges, or universities in graduate and undergraduate programs. These inclusive, diverse, and forward-thinking students have a chance to showcase their leadership skills, team-building abilities, and passion for the industries that make up computer graphics and interactive techniques. Many of these students go from volunteers to leaders in the SIGGRAPH space, as well as becoming contributors in the industry, whether in production, technology, or academia.

“For an intensive week, the SIGGRAPH conference gives our Student Volunteers an understanding and awareness of what this amazing community offers,” said Meaghan Long, SIGGRAPH 2023 Student Volunteer Program Chair. “This year, we have more than 300 Student Volunteers, and I’m as excited as they are about being at this year’s in-person conference. These students are the core of every SIGGRAPH conference. They’re given responsibilities and duties, but also the time to enjoy the conference and all it has to offer throughout the week. With this program, students often find their community of friends and colleagues, along with a network of mentors and even career-building opportunities.”

Individuals who have hailed from the SIGGRAPH Student Volunteer program have even moved into becoming SIGGRAPH Program and Conference Chairs. They work at their dream jobs, making their dreams into reality, while giving back to the conference that gave them their start. Program alumni go on to succeed in careers at Disney/Pixar, Amazon, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and various universities and international research firms, as the program assists in developing exceptional community leaders.

Upon submissions, the program committee reviews applications, selects a class of candidates, then nurtures the young volunteers who can bring enthusiasm and thoughtfulness, as well as other skills, to the conference. During the five-day conference, those Student Volunteers and assigned Team Leaders provide operational and logistical support in all aspects of the conference. Student Volunteers are given responsibilities that encompass everything from badge monitoring and conference management support to assisting spoken language translations and managing technology demonstrations. Team Leaders’ responsibilities include assigning shifts, addressing on-site questions from participants, and supervising Student Volunteers.

Through volunteering at a SIGGRAPH conference, many students can meet others who share the same interests and inspirations. The conference provides insight and the prospect of connecting to others in the vast community of computer graphics and interactive techniques. Student Volunteers and Team Leaders get access to the full conference, networking opportunities through various programs and events, on-site job fair, and other exclusive benefits which could someday lead them to their dream career.

Long added, “As the Student Volunteer program has grown and evolved over the years, what remains the same is creating experiences and learning with their future friends and colleagues. They’re able to create a bond that lasts longer than the conference itself. Being part of the Student Volunteer program offers opportunities and seeing what’s available, and then pursuing it.”

Learn more about the Student Volunteer program by checking out the ACM SIGGRAPH Blog. To get more information about the conference and the other various programs and opportunities at SIGGRAPH 2023, or to register to attend in person or online, go to s2023.SIGGRAPH.org/register.

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SIGGRAPH 2023 Seeks Future-focused, Inclusive, Interactive Content for 50th Conference

Jason — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 19:08:00 +0000

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15 February 2023

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SIGGRAPH 2023 Seeks Future-focused, Inclusive, Interactive Content for 50th Conference

CHICAGO—Since its first conference in 1974, SIGGRAPH has been a leader and pioneer in the computer graphics and interactive techniques space. SIGGRAPH 2023 marks a milestone year for the conference, as the community prepares to spotlight 50 years of SIGGRAPH conferences 6–10 August at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Submissions are open for many programs, with the next program submission deadline closing 22 February.

This year, in celebration of its 50th conference, SIGGRAPH and its interdisciplinary programs are seeking submissions highlighting themes of inclusion, interaction, and shaping the future. Next to the conference content, at the heart of SIGGRAPH is its contributors — from those who have attended since the very first conference in 1974 to those who may just be joining the community this year.

“SIGGRAPH represents the most brilliant minds and innovations in computer graphics and interactive techniques,” SIGGRAPH 2023 Conference Chair Erik Brunvand of University of Utah says. “Our community has found great success thanks to the progress and advancements showcased at our annual gatherings. I look forward to experiencing what bold achievements our contributors will put on display this year in Los Angeles.”

SIGGRAPH 2023 has some special surprises in store, including a retrospective look at past selections in the Electronic Theater and Posters, along with History programming to reflect on the 50 years that brought SIGGRAPH here. To make this conference a true celebration, SIGGRAPH is planning special reflective and predictive experiences for conference participants to engage with. More details, plans, and special surprises will be revealed in the coming months leading up to SIGGRAPH 2023.

The artists, educators, researchers, and professionals who comprise the SIGGRAPH community are imagining a bold and bright future, and that future includes the recent appointment of the SIGGRAPH 2025 Conference Chair. ACM SIGGRAPH selected Ginger Alford, of Southern Methodist University Lyle School of Engineering, to lead the 52nd conference in 2025. Alford will follow SIGGRAPH 2024 Conference Chair Andres Burbano for the Denver event, 28 July–1 August 2024. But first, make your plans to submit to SIGGRAPH 2023 to contribute your innovations to this monumental event in computer graphics and interactive techniques.

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