Mike Springer of Google

Too much work, too little sleep. So many friends, old and new. Amazing things flying on the big screen. This is VIEW Conference 2009. But everything has a price, like not being able to make it for the first session in the morning.

Since in one of my many past lives I also taught computer graphics to American architecture students in Rome, I have quite an interest in 3D applications for modeling and visualization. So, with another coffee, I attended the Workshop: “Using Google SketchUp for Design and Geo-Modeling: A Beginner's Course” with Mike Springer, Software Engineer at that small, un-known, provincial company named Google.

The public packs into VIEW 09.

The VIEW Conference 2009 [http://www.viewconference.it/] is the 10th International Computer Graphics Conference, which started on November 4^th and will last until the 7^th of November 2009. It's held in the beautiful city of Turin, in the north of Italy, where I had the pleasure of attending this event, now for the fourth time.

Previously I have had the opportunity to tell the wonderful series of events happening at the Torino Incontra Conference Center to a magazine, a blog, and a CG portal. This year I have the great honour to talk to Animation World Network's readers.

The sparkling energy behind VIEW is Maria Elena Gutierrez who is driving a group of partner institutions, private and public sector, in investing in innovation and knowledge-sharing in the field of Technology and Creativity.

Hai capito? Visual culture panelists (l to r) Phil Stenton, Will Wright, Glen Entis and Michael Rubin get some auditory input.

Friday, the final day of the VIEW Conference, and a time for summing up. Let’s make a list:

• That luscious gianduia chocolate.

• On the technical side, the computer graphics folks such as Paul Topolos of Pixar, Lucia Modesto of PDI-DreamWorks, and Jack Grahm of Double Negative seemed to revel in showing off what they have been able to do with their new toys and techniques.

Pervasive computing gets the upper hand.

Well, I’m torn. Shall I go to the presentation on “Hair shells and bi-quad transition rig on Shrek the Halls and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” or to the “Humanizing virtual agents: the role of speech technology in effective human-machine interaction?” All of this requires a certain mind-set. Maybe if they made a rule that titles had to be short, like “Beards and boundaries” and “Talk to me, Mac,” I would feel less anxiety about making these choices.

VIEW Conference visitors The Hive filmmaking collective presents their credentials and contemplates transformation

The autumn haze in Turin is downright metaphorical. The precursor of another grey Po Valley winter, a haze that creeps into the bones and causes a ridiculously high percentage of arthritis in these parts. Sunny Italy my foot.