SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 Invites You to the “Dream Zone”

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – This year for the first time, SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 will be hosted in Australia, from November 17 -20 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. The event will span content from space visualization, autonomous cars, the art of animating the year’s greatest movies, to the discussions about technology, such as deep fakes and the challenges of cybersecurity. Almost 10,000 visitors will attend the event and will participate in some 15 programs. This is the Asia Pacific region’s key event offering participants an opportunity to explore careers in the business of the CGI, FX and animation industries.

‘Dream Zone’ Conference

This year’s conference, themed ‘Dream Zone’, comprises 250 sessions and features over 800 speakers.

“This year, the SIGGRAPH Asia 2019 team has prepared a truly amazing and inspirational program for you, putting you in ‘Dream Zone,’” commented conference chair, Tomasz Bednarz. “And that is with the goal to constantly keep you engaged and smiling while experiencing the best computer graphics and interactive techniques in the region.”

Highlights of the panel discussions and invited speaker sessions include:

Keynotes:

• “Revolutions in Mapping the Digital Universe” by Donna J. Cox, Advanced Visualization Laboratory and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
• “Making Things Making Meaning - Frontiers in New Media” by Jeffrey Shaw, Center for Applied Computing and Interactive Media, City University of Hong Kong
• “Why Do I Create Images with Mathematics” by Inigo Quilez, co-founder of Shadertoy

Featured Sessions:

• “Shaping Shocking Moments for IT Chapter Two” by Josh Simmonds, Nick Tripodi & Alex Halstead at Method Studios
• "Frozen 2 and the Past, Present, and Future of Tech at Disney Animation” by Ernest Petti, studio CG supervisor at Walt Disney Animation Studios
• “Staging the Endgame - Avengers: Infinity War and its sequel Avengers” by Sidney Kombo-Kintombo, animation supervisor at Weta Digital
• “The Cyber Security Challenges for Next-Generation Mixed-Reality” by a panel of speakers who will approach the topic from four different directions.
• “The Story of HoloLens” by Charlie Han, product lead at Microsoft
• “Childish Gambino's Pharos-Real-Time Dome Projection for Live Concert” by Keith Miller, Weta Digital & Alejandro Crawford,
• “Making of Pixar’s Onward” by a panel of technical directors and animators from Pixar Animation Studios
• “Visualizing Birth of Planet Earth for Fulldome Theaters by a panel of speakers from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States of America
• “Empowering Storytellers Through Technology,” in conversation with Zareh Nalbandian Animal Logic's co-founder and CEOF
• “Bridging the Gap between Education and Industry in the VFX, Games and Animation Fields” by a panel of experts from the VFX Industry
• “Star Wars: Over Four Decades of Storytelling with Innovation” by Rob Bredow, SVP, executive creative director & head, Industrial Light & Magic
• “How Weta Digital Created Junior for Gemini Man” by Guy Williams, visual effects supervisor at Weta Digital

Computer Animation Festival:

• Panel & Production Talk: MPC Film Presents: VFX of Disney’s The Lion King by Elliot Newman, VFX Supervisor at MPC Films
• Panel & Production Talk: Featured Session: “Proactive Large-Scale Pipeline Efficiency Management” by a panel from large-scale animation and VFX studios to share insight to their challenges

ACM SIGGRAPH Frontiers Workshop:

• “Deep Fakes,” Panel discussion led by Hao Li, Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California

State-of-the-Art Exhibition

The exhibition will showcase the latest hardware and software applications for computer graphics and interactive techniques. 69 companies and brands, representing 18 countries and regions, are participating, some of which organize exhibitor talks. Companies include AMD, Autodesk, AWS, Carpe Diem Solutions, Forum8 Co., Ltd, Foundry, HOUDINI, Industrial Light & Magic, LENOVO, MSI Australia Computer, NVIDIA, PIXAR, Qualisys, Tracklab, Tsinghua University – Tencent Joint Laboratory, UBISOFT, Unity Technologies, VICON Motion Systems, Weta Digital and Xsens.

First-time Programs

Four programs are making their debut at SIGGRAPH Asia 2019:

• The Business & Innovation Symposium aims to connect academic, technology, business and creative professionals in the SIGGRAPH Asia community. This will be done through the exchange of market trends, business mindsets, business models and capital.
• Demoscene, which encompasses a party-area to showcase a selection of demos by coders, artists and musicians, a retro museum, and inspiring technical talks by demoscene veterans.
• The ACM SIGGRAPH Frontiers Workshops, which touches on positive and negative aspects of deep fake technology, future driver experiences and how artificial intelligence might extend realities.
• The ACM SIGGRAPH Asia Thesis Fast Forward program, a part of the Doctoral Consortium, provides young presenters with a platform to share their innovative ideas in front of a panel of experts, who select a best performance.

Returning Programs

Popular programs to return to SIGGRAPH Asia in 2019 are:

• Birds of a Feather (BoF), which is a graphics-related, attendee-organized, informational discussion of shared interests, goals, technologies and/or backgrounds.
• The Computer Animation Festival, Asia’s premier showcase of the year’s best CG productions, will provide attendees with selected top short film screenings and invited panel and production talks.
• Emerging Technologies, a display and exhibit of interactive technologies that will change and improve our lives, such as ‘Co-Limbs: An Intuitive Collaborative Control for Wearable Robotic Arms’ and ‘Hanger Drive: Driver Manipulation System for Self-balancing Transporter Using the Hanger Reflex Haptic Illusion’.
• Real-Time Live!, where attendees get to see the future of interactive techniques, live on stage. Watch the most innovative interactive techniques as they are presented and deconstructed live by their creators during SIGGRAPH Asia’s Real-Time Live! experience.

Academic Sessions and Presentations of Research Papers:

Academics, industry experts and researchers come together to discuss the latest ideas and technical applications for Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques.

Sessions include:

• Technical Briefs is a forum for leading international experts, academics and industry presenting the latest developments and research in progress. It is a showcase of actual implementations of research ideas, or work at the cross-roads of computer graphics with computer vision, machine learning, HCI, VR, CAD, visualization and many others.
• The Technical Papers program features the results of state-of-the-art research on topics from complex geometry and machine learning, 3D shape stylization, creating realistic character-scene interactions to simulating complexity of fluids and strands in the virtual world, among others.
• Doctoral Consortium is a forum for Ph.D. students to meet and discuss their works with one another, and with a panel of experienced SIGGRAPH Asia researchers in an informal and interactive setting.
• The Posters Gallery & Presentations is an interactive forum for innovative ideas that offer a behind-the-scenes view of new commercial and artistic work, as well as solutions that help solve challenging problems.

More information is available on the conference website.

Source: Siggraph Asia

AWN Staff Editor