brian@ucsd.EDU (Brian Kantor) (08/07/88)
I just got back from Atlanta, and am slowly recovering from jetlag and information overload. To the organizers of Siggraph88: good job! A few high (and low) points : The animation screening rooms were back and greatly appreciated! The cafe seating was an excellent idea and I very much want to see it done in future - although it might not be a bad idea to use slightly larger monitors if they're available. Those F*ING badge readers have got to go. From the standpoint of the conference attendee, they serve only two purposes: 1) to slow down access to any part of the conference, and 2) convey the message that a) we're suspected of having counterfeited the badge b) having our attendence patterns recorded and analyzed for some unknown purpose Since it was necessary to have a student volunteer or security guard stationed at every one of them to take your badge, run it through the reader, wait for the PClone to figure it out, then display your name on the screen, and then hand you back your badge so you can continue in, it seems as though the person could look at your badge as you walked past - and save the money for the damned badge readers. The human eye and brain are still the best pattern recognition and verification devices we have. The badge holder was designed to make the badge easy to remove so you could get it run though the damned badge reader, so the badges fell out very easily. People kept losing their badges all over the place: I personally found three on the floor myself and turned them in. I hope the people got them back. Next year you might want to put some double-stick tape on the back of your badge to hold it in the badgeholder, which ought to fix both the badge-loss problem and the card readers at the same go. The film and video show was EXCELLENT, as always, and some truely amazing images were shown. But even better, works with real stories, real humor, and real filmic value were chosen. A double pat on the back for the judges. I saw it Tuesday (the first) night, and despite the thunderstorm flickering the power and causing some minor glitches in the show, all went very well. Super stuff! [Now if only the AV audio technician hadn't been hearing-impaired so he could have heard the audience yelling "TOO LOUD" between pieces, it would have been nearly perfect. My ears were ringing afterward, and I pity those people who didn't sit at the back of the arena as I did. Dr. Mandelbrot, who was sitting behind me, remarked something about becoming deaf as well... Advice for future Siggraph film and video show attendees: bring earplugs and sit well back from the speaker systems.] The two courses I took were excellent: the beginning animation course offered some good insights into what goes on to get a piece of good looking animation onto the screen, including the production aspects of dealing with customers, film and video labs, and putting the final product together with other non-CG elements. The fractals course was extremely well organized, and the notes (in the form of the hardcover book "The Science of Fractal Images" [pub Springer-Verlag]) was excellent. The lecturers were very well organized and quite clear, and covered the subject well. Dr. Mandelbrot's closing remarks upon the future uses and research directions of fractal geometries was inspiring. I also bought some other course note sets for courses I would have liked to have taken. It's a pity there isn't some way for our library to simply order a full set of notes, but apparently somebody has to go to Siggraph to pick up the notes from the notes desk and carry them 15 feet over to the shipping desk to get them. I've heard this is being worked on but I haven't heard the solution. The food at the course lunches was the usual insipid chicken but not bad, and the crowd-control people were reasonably polite as they herded us around, although they seemed to always be surprised we were there - the only event at which the facilities were ready enough ahead of time that we didn't have to wait in line was the course reception, which was the best organized of ANY such at the past several Siggraphs. Panel sessions were good, and some surprising points were raised and discussed. (I attended those rather than paper presentations for the most part, since the papers are in the proceedings where I can study them at my leisure and give them the time they deserve.) There were some very good questions from the people in the audience, many of whom seemed this year to be CG users rather than researchers/developers. I particularly liked the challenges to some of the tacit assumptions that seem to have been made in graphics - one of the most interesting presentations was the panel on whether photo-realism was what we really wanted from CG all the time. The panel which discussed the work being done at the MIT Media Lab was inspiring, and the panel on CG in Hollywood really presented the motion-picture producers' views and concerns well. The vendor show presented some nifty new hardware and a good selection of software packages, with a BIG collection of ancilliary graphics equipment - film/video recorders, processors, printers, tablets, and other machine/human interface devices. Ardent's pocket projector with the super-8 mini-movie of their demo images has to be the prize giveaway toy of the show. I got a lot of good ideas from the show and some good pointers towards which equipment I'd use to fufill some of the requirements we have. It was also nice to see some of the graduates of our lab demoing their company's software that they'd helped write. Too many three-piece suits though - I'd rather talk to the technical people than the sales people - although I have to admit that the sales personnel were much better informed this year than in previous shows. My guess is that it's finally struck home to many manufacturers that used-car-salesman don't make good computer salesman. There seemed to be many fewer suits blowing smoke (both figurative and tobacco) this year than last. I'm exhausted and you're bored. I'm looking forward to next year's Siggraph - a year is just about how long I'll need to assimilate this one. Well worth it! Brian Kantor UCSD Computer Graphics Lab c/o B-028, La Jolla, CA 92093 brian@ucsd.edu
siegel@hc.DSPO.GOV (josh Siegel) (08/08/88)
In article <1079@ucsd.EDU> brian@ucsd.EDU (Brian Kantor) writes: >It was also nice to see some of the graduates of our lab demoing their >company's software that they'd helped write. Too many three-piece suits >though - I'd rather talk to the technical people than the sales people - >although I have to admit that the sales personnel were much better >informed this year than in previous shows. My guess is that it's >finally struck home to many manufacturers that used-car-salesman don't >make good computer salesman. There seemed to be many fewer suits >blowing smoke (both figurative and tobacco) this year than last. I wanna comment on those three-piece suits... At the Pixel booth, all of the development people were there in three-piece suits. The high muckity mucks at AT&T decided that everybody had to wear a suit. They also stole all the development machines from the development lab (all of the machines that have half working boards etc). This meant that there were no machines to work on... this meant we all got to go to SIGGRAPH and be booth scum... As the head of third party software said, "Josh, your booth scum now... your lower then whale shit... Your own mother would spit in your face... welcome..." They also had sales people there... [I don't work for AT&T... I work for another company (part time) who works very closely with the development team. As a result, I get sucked into all of the three piece suit stuff...] > > Brian Kantor UCSD Computer Graphics Lab > c/o B-028, La Jolla, CA 92093 > brian@ucsd.edu -- Josh Siegel (siegel@hc.dspo.gov) I like using a C-47A "puff dragon" to go shooting beer cans with.
rreed@mntgfx.mentor.com (Robert Reed) (08/23/88)
In <1051@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU> franklin@turing.cs.rpi.edu
(W. Randolph Franklin WRF) writes:
This year's technical reception was much worse than earlier years
when they occurred in museums.
Though this year's reception was not the best I can recall, it
certainly was less crowded than last year in Anaheim. I do agree
with you on the museum angle, though. The best I've been fortunate
enough to attend was in Boston at the Museum of Science, followed
by the reception at San Francisco's Museum of Natural History.
Detroit, Dallas and Minneapolis were all in either hotels or
business centers, and all suffered from severe overcrowding. Dallas
was probably the worst (remember the Infomart?), followed by the
"dessert and Irish coffee" sardine session at the Detroit Ren Center.
Has SIGGRAPH's attendee size peaked?
I sure hope so. I don't know what the numbers were, but it seems
that we've stabilized around 25-30K or so. I heard a rumor that a
lot of people avoided this year because it was Atlanta. We'll
find out next year in Boston. I have noticed that we don't seem
to be swamping convention facilities anymore.