Will digital catch catch on? The University of Electro-Communications hopes so. Courtesy of SIGGRAPH.

This year the Emerging Technologies section of SIGGRAPH was renamed New Tech Demos, and VFXWorld took a stroll through the exhibits in L.A. last week with the chair, Mk Haley, Imagineer at Walt Disney. When asked about the most exciting aspect of the exhibit, Haley was quick to say, "Seeing the concepts go to production!" But not just any production, she wants to see user oriented (ergo) in addition to consumer oriented (quality).

Haley, who has been with ACM-SIGGRAPH since 1989 and has SIGGRAPH Pioneer membership, is the perfect person to chair the New Tech Demo because of her interest in robotics and new technology.

This year, 50% of the exhibits were juried and 50% curated. One of the main themes was Cultural Heritage. Three zones or categories emerged: Tabletop Devices, Haptic Feedback and Displays & Robotics.

Haptic feedback devices are technologies that provide tactile feedback to a person through motions or pressures.

Maglev Haptics! Butterfly Haptic's New User-Interface Technology came up with a handle that you may grasp and move through six degrees of freedom. This device, friction free, has torque and force feedback in the handle and allows the user to provide position and orientation input to the user's application. Soon to be in production, the Carnegie Mellon University project sponsored by the National Science Foundation is expected to be marketed as an affordable hardware by Butterfly Haptics L.L.C.

Another Haptic technology is Programming Robots by Haptic Means, a way of programming commands to a small robot by touching parts of the robot and pressing various buttons on the machine to make it respond, such as touching the left side of the robot head and watching the robot turn its head and move to the left.

/ed technology enables the sensation of being slashed with a sword or pierced with a stick, and it's a tool to help actors with their facial and body expressions during fight scenes. This is definitely an application for game development to make your games more realistic, and there may be medical applications as well.

Digital Sports Using 'Bouncing Star' Rubber Ball Comprising IR and Full-Color LEDs and Acceleration Sensor is a ball that resists strong shocks and can be used for sports in low light conditions. The ball changes color when it bounces and the display on the floor that has light patterns on it changes when the ball passes through the light area. It may seem like a sophisticated way to play "catch" with your friends, but Haley pointed out, "It's really addicting."

For those party times when you're ready for a drink, there's the Landscape Bartender: Landscape Generation Using a Cocktail Analogy. This enjoyable device generates landscapes on a big screen by sensing the ingredients and weight of a cocktail that the bartender makes. Expect to see a nice sunrise island display when the bartender makes a Tequila Sunrise.

If you don't drink alcohol, that's fine, there's the Latte Art Machine that creates images on the surface of your favorite latte by utilizing inkjet technology and manipulating the layer of bubbles on top of the drink.

Ground-penetrating radar digitizing ants, creepy? Courtesy of SIGGRAPH. © Tamagochan.

Atta Texana Leafcutting Ant Colony: A View Underground is the first time a ground-penetrating radar was used to digitize a moving, living ant colony. This is the technology that can explore an anthill without using destructive testing methods. Haley said, "In the past, ant hills were poured with concrete and this was destructive. Now ground radar allows the colony to be explored." The technology presents the radar data into 3D format and scales the viewer (you and me) to ant size. Exploring anthills with this technology brings a very different perspective to how the colony lives and functions.

Haley said that robotics was "moving more towards service type helpers for people. This is popular in Japan." Her hope is to see more robotics that can perform services for disabled and elderly, "like the Human Washing Machine." While not a SIGGRAPH display, the Human Washing Machine is a shower that does it all for you. Just get inside and stand there and it washes, soaps, rinses and dries you.