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Cybernetics in the 3rd Millennium (C3M) Volume 17 Number 3, Oct. 2023
Alan B. Scrivener — people.well.com/user/abs — abs@well.com
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author peruses SIGGRAPH 2023 show guide at Los Angeles Convention Center
In this issue:
Short Subjects
"Fractured Flickers" letterhead with Theda Bara
(artofjayward.blogspot.com/2015/06/fractured-flickers.html)
- the Glass Bead Game contest has gotten no entries, so nobody won.
Why? Maybe I have too few readers, or everyone's busy, or it was too hard
to use. Maybe it needs a Graphical User Interface (GUI)? I'm just starting
to learn Python GUIs. Or maybe it needs to be web-based and mobile friendly.
I need to figure out server-side Python web hosting options.
Or maybe it's just not an appealing game. Thoughts?
- more ChatGPT & AI buzz
It is well known that many major companies were started by two
people in a garage with a small investment of seed money, including
Harley-Davidson, Disney, Mattel, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Microsoft,
Apple and Google, but there very probably won't be a garage startup that
becomes a big player in the AI/ChatBot space.
That's because it takes an enormous amount of compute power to create
and operate these beasts. In his latest blog entry, Robert X. Cringley
talks about the impact on high-performance chip demand caused by this
new industry.
( www.cringely.com/2023/06/15/ai-and-moores-law-its-the-chips-stupid/ )
He mentions:
... GPT-5 will still cost $1+ billion and even ChatGPT, itself, is costing
about $1 million per day just to run. That's $300+ million per year to run
old code.
And that's just deployment costs. He doesn't even delve much into the problem
of creating them in the first place. In a different but related corner of AI,
a friend of mine who is an avid Tesla-watcher says Musk is spending a
rocket-load of money to train autonomous (self-driving) vehicles with real
road data.
I spent some time on Google News and found that it has been widely reported
that Tesla expects to spend more than $1 billion a supercomputer for
training AI models for autonomous vehicles, called Dojo.
A July article reports:
"Tesla hedges Dojo supercomputer bet with 10K Nvidia H100 GPU cluster
Keeping full self-driving dream on the road just needs more graphics chips?"
by Tobias Mann, The Register, Wed 30 Aug 2023
( www.theregister.com/2023/08/30/tesla_nvidia_supercomputer )
An August article adds:
"Tesla starts production of Dojo supercomputer to train driverless cars
The supercomputer has gone into production and is expected to elevate
the company's self-driving efforts to the next level."
by Andrew J. Hawkins, The Verge, Jul 19, 2023
( www.theverge.com/2023/7/19/23800854/tesla-driverless-dojo-supercomputers-production )
Clearly these kind of AI projects are like big chip foundries, in that only
very large corporations and governments can play. What this means remains to
be seen, but there probably won't be two people in a garage disrupting this
market.
- Three follow-ups to last time's article Playing With Geodesic Polyhedra:
( people.well.com/user/abs/Cyb/archive/c3m_1702.html#sec_2 )
- updated Web3D app
screen cap of geodesic
visualization by the author
One of the Web3D apps I linked to last time had a user interface glitch which
I've now fixed.
( people.well.com/user/abs/swdev/w3d/experiment.html )
I plan to use this new knowledge to create other, similar visualizations,
replacing the apps I've already created with about 1/20th as many with
interactive model selection. Stay tuned.
( people.well.com/user/abs/swdev/w3d/geodesics.html )
- tensegrity structures at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD)
tensegrity toy at Merrithew
( www.merrithew.com/shop/ProductDetail/ST06281_Tensegriteach--6dowel )
According to Wikipedia, in 1948, artist Kenneth Snelson produced his
innovative "X-Piece" (now called a tensegrity structure) after artistic
explorations at Black Mountain College where Buckminster Fuller was lecturing,
and elsewhere. Some years later, Fuller coined the term "tensegrity" for the
shape now widely available as the "tensegrity toy" (see above photo).
There has been some dust-up about Fuller claiming to have invented it, or maybe
just acting like he invented it, along with naming it. But that aside, it
turns out there are a whole family of structures that use the principles it
is based on, which can make dramatic improvements of the effectiveness of
some mechanical systems.
When I worked on the geodesic visualization project I completely forgot about
a talk that I attended in 2015. It was a meeting of the San Diego Professional
Chapter of ACM/SIGGRAPH, and the speaker was Robert E. Skelton, Director of
the Structural Systems and Control Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering, University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
( maeresearch.ucsd.edu/skelton )
tensegrity robot illustration from "Control Synthesis for
a Class of Light and Agile Robotic Tensegrity Structures"
by J.B. Aldrich and R.E. Skelton K. Kreutz-Delgado
( maeresearch.ucsd.edu/skelton/publications/aldrich_acc03jba_FP11-4.pdf )
He introduced us to his research in the application of tensegrity principles to
real problems in mechanical engineering. It was beautiful and hypnotic but it
was hard to grasp some of the 3D structures and movements.
Looking back it has occurred to me this might be another candidate for
visualization using Web3D.
For more information, see "The Mechanical Systems Design Handbook" (2002)
"Section III: Dynamics and Control of Aerospace Systems" by Robert Skelton,
"Chapter 17: An Introduction To the Mechanics of Tensegrity Structures."
( maeresearch.ucsd.edu/skelton/publications/pinaud_mechanics_CRC.pdf )
Quote:
... these mathematical results easily scale from the nanoscale to the
megascale, from applications in microsurgery to antennas, to aircraft
wings, and to robotic manipulators.
- Virtual Reality (VR) virions at the Scripps Research Institute
screen cap from a YouTube demo of VR at Scripps:
"Capsule summary of Virus Symmetry — multiplayer VR/AR experience"
( www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxHMyqdljLE )
Background:
In 1981 Arthur Olson founded the Molecular Graphics Lab, now the Center
for Computational Structural Biology (CCSB), at Scripps Research
Institute in La Jolla, California. They use computer graphics and related
technologies to better understand the organic chemistry of diseases.
Arthur Olson's web site at Scripps Research:
( www.scripps.edu/faculty/olson )
Center for Computational Structural Biology web site at Scripps Research:
( ccsb.scripps.edu )
In 1988 I was working for Stellar Computer, a manufacturer of graphics
supercomputers, in the Los Angeles sales office. Scripps Research was one of
our customers. I was actually at our headquarters in Newton, Massachusetts
when I met Michael Pique from Scripps, a 3D molecular visualization expert.
(He was, among other things, helping us with demos and trying to organize a
Stellar user group.) Mike and I became good friends and later ran the San
Diego chapter of SIGGRAPH together for about 14 years (see article below for
more on that organization).
Soon after meeting Mike I was sent to Scripps in the La Jolla neighborhood
of San Diego, along a stretch of Torrey Pines Road famous for (arguably)
having the highest concentration of biotech companies and organizations in
the U.S. I was there to meat their team and do some training. That was when
I met Art Olson and some other very talented scientists and programmers, some
of whom I still see on occasion.
Art and his lab, along with many other talented folks at Scripps, have done
great things over the years to fight diseases and stuff, and have produced a
number of covers for prestigious magazines such as Science and
Scientific American, but one project brought out the nerd in me.
I was thrilled when I found out that Art and his team produced an OmniMax film
clip of flying through a DNA molecule, that was used on the ride "Horizons" in
the Future World area of the EPCOT theme park in Walt Disney World, Florida.
DNA fly-through in Horizons ride, by Arthur Olson and team
( progresscityusa.com/2011/07/24/the-horizons-story-part-i )
That's some uber-cool geek bragging rights there.
I still see Mike a few times a quarter and Art a few times a year.
Impetus:
This past summer Mike and I were hanging out at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park
(I live nearby and he has a membership with guest privileges, so we do this
fairly often). On this occasion I pulled out my iPhone and showed him the
Web3D models of geodesics I'd been doing, mentioned in the last 'zine.
( people.well.com/user/abs/swdev/w3d/geodesics.html )
He got all excited and said I needed to see Art's Virtual Reality (VR) demo of
viruses with similar shapes. After a few email exchanges I was invited to Art's
lab to see for myself.
Problem Statement:
3D model of human rhinovirus 14 virion,
based on X-ray crystallographic data,
by Dr. Michael Rossmann
Many virus particles (virions) have symmetric structures with similar
sub-assemblies combining in ways similar to geodesic structures. Articles on
their structures abound, such as "The Structure of Viruses" by James H.
Strauss and Ellen G. Strauss (2017).
( www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7173534 )
One concept they attempt to convey is a virion's "T" symmetry (for
triangular), expressed such as T-3 and T-60. But it's difficult to convey
the idea using just flat illustrations on a page.
The goal of this VR project was to create a set of experiences, for children
and adults, to convey these concepts more naturally.
The Demo:
Art sent me a link to a video of the project before the demo, but I held
off watching it until after, wanting to go in fresh.
animated thumbnail of video "CellPAINT-VR Virus Symmetry —
A multiplayer lesson"
( www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY4lSKYvOXA )
We met in the main atrium of the Skaggs Institute building, and donned VR
helmets (actually Augmented Reality, with VR overlaid on real world views)
and and game controllers. Also getting a demo was a molecular biology
scientist for the lab (who I've also known since 1988).
Learning to operator the controllers had a challenging learning curve for both
myself and the scientist. In discussing it later Art said that this was
usually true for folks in our "boomer" age range. The middle schoolers picked
it up immediately, which I found a bit humbling.
We went through a series of stations, which seemed to be physically located
around the atrium, and learned about the structure and symmetries of some
virions in various ways, as you can see in the video. They were overall
enchanting as well as educational, and I wished we could play with each longer.
I especially liked "exploding" a virion into its component sub-structures,
and using a 3D "paint" interface to color like sub-structures with matching
symmetries. It was easy to make sense out of.
At one point I stumbled backwards slightly, and out of the corner of my eye I
saw a horizontal surface at about waist level, so I reached for it to steady
myself. It tuned out it was a part of the virtual environment, and I grabbed
at empty air. Luckily I didn't fall. But that moment I realized I'd "bought
in" to the illusion.
Finally Art "took us out," and asked how long we thought we'd been in the
Augmented Reality. We both guessed about half an hour. It turned out it had
been an hour. I was actually starting to get a headache (which is very rare
for me), but I would've gladly spent more time anyway.
During the debriefing, I brought up with Art the list I made in the last 'zine
in the geodesics article, in the section "LESSONS LEARNED,"
( people.well.com/user/abs/Cyb/archive/c3m_1702.html#sec_2 )
which I've abbreviated here:
... One thing that jumps out at me is that there is a spectrum of ways to
explain this stuff, ranging from the most obtuse to the most illuminating.
In approximate order:
- verbal description
- black and white line drawings on paper or screen
- shaded color illustrations on paper or screen
- video of a physical model or 3D computer animation
- 3D interaction
- climbing around
- building physical models
- building the apps
He suggested and I agreed that VR belongs near the bottom, certainly after
"3D interaction."
Technical Details:
I was so enamored by the experience I forgot to ask about the hardware and
software. I thought there must be a server somewhere in another room. I
asked later and found out the whole simulation was actually running in one of
the VR/AR helmets, and the others were slaved to it over WiFi (I think).
META Quest Pro VR/AR helmet, from RoadToVR
( www.roadtovr.com/meta-quest-pro-price-drop-vive-xr-elite )
The helmets were META (formerly Oculus) Quest Pro if I'm not mistaken.
( www.meta.com/quest/quest-pro )
A control interface was through a Windows laptop. The software, called
CellPAINT-VR, was written by Ludovic Autin using the Unity game engine.
( ccsb.scripps.edu/cellpaint/cellpaint-vr )
( unity.com/ )
Future Directions:
Inspired, I would love to get some virion structure data (I think the Protein
Data Bank has it) and do some similar visualizations using Web3D. It's not as
awesome as VR/AR, but it can be accessed by any computer or smartphone
worldwide. Stay tuned.
Further Info:
thumbnail from one of Art Olson's videos
Arthur Olson's YouTube channel
( www.youtube.com/user/arthurolson/videos )
has additional videos on similar topics.
Report on SIGGRAPH 2023: The Premier Conference & Exhibition
on Computer Graphics & Interactive Techniques
author's swag bag and iced latte at SIGGRAPH 2023, Los Angeles
"... the reason we think that computer graphics technology has succeeded in
faking reality is that we, over the course of the last hundred and fifty years,
have come to accept the image of photography and film as reality."
BACKGROUND
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is the world's largest
educational and scientific society, formed in 1947.
(
www.acm.org )
For a long time they have had Special Interest Groups (SIGs). There are
currently thirty-eight of them:
- SIGACCESS - Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing
- SIGACT - Special Interest Group on Algorithms & Computation Theory
- SIGAda - Special Interest Group on Ada Programming Language
- SIGAI - Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence
- SIGAPP - Special Interest Group on Applied Computing
- SIGARCH - Special Interest Group on Computer Architecture
- SIGBED - Special Interest Group on Embedded Systems
- SIGBio - Special Interest Group on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology
- SIGCAS - Special Interest Group on Computers and Society
- SIGCHI - Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction
- SIGCOMM - Special Interest Group on Data Communication
- SIGCSE - Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education
- SIGDA - Special Interest Group on Design Automation
- SIGDOC - Special Interest Group on Design of Communication
- SIGecom - Special Interest Group on Economics and Computation
- SIGEnergy - ACM Special Interest Group on Energy Systems and Informatics
- SIGEVO - Special Interest Group on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation
- SIGGRAPH - Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques
- SIGHPC - Special Interest Group on High Performance Computing
- SIGIR - Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval
- SIGITE - Special Interest Group on Information Technology Education
- SIGKDD - Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining
- SIGLOG - Special Interest Group on Logic and Computation
- SIGMETRICS - Special Interest Group on Measurement and Evaluation
- SIGMICRO - Special Interest Group on Microarchitecture
- SIGMIS - Special Interest Group on Management Information Systems
- SIGMM - Special Interest Group on Multimedia Systems
- SIGMOBILE - Special Interest Group on Mobility of Systems, Users, Data & Comp
- SIGMOD - Special Interest Group on Management of Data
- SIGOPS - Special Interest Group on Operating Systems
- SIGPLAN - Special Interest Group on Programming Languages (Online)
- SIGSAC - Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control
- SIGSAM - Special Interest Group on Symbolic & Algebraic Manipulation
- SIGSIM - Special Interest Group on Simulation
- SIGSOFT Online - SIGSOFT Software Engineering
- SIGSPATIAL - Special Interest Group on Spatial Information
- SIGUCCS - Special Interest Group on University & College Computing Services
- SIGWEB - Special Interest Group on Hypertext, Hypermedia and Web
One of the ACM's SIGs is SIGGRAPH, the Special Interest Group on GRAPHics,
later lengthened to Special Interest Group on computer GRAPHics and
interactive techniques. It grew to be the largest SIG by far; I forget the
numbers but two decades ago it was probably an order of magnitude bigger in
membership than the rest of ACM combined.
The first annual conference and exhibition was in Boulder, Colorado in 1974.
I didn't know a thing about it.
(
history.siggraph.org/conference/siggraph-1974-1st-annual-conference-on-computer-graphics-and-interactive-techniques/ )
I was senior in college and had yet to program a computer to draw any type of
3D object on a screen.
I first became aware of SIGGRAPH when I attended the conference in Detroit
in 1983.
(
history.siggraph.org/conference/siggraph-1983-10th-annual-conference-on-computer-graphics-and-interactive-techniques/ )
I was sent there by my employer, GTI Corp., and we were selling an interactive
3D graphics system — one of the first of its kind. Called the POLY 2000,
it drew 2000 color, flat-shaded polygons (provided about 800 of them were
back-face culled) at 30 frames per second. The starting price was about
$100,000. I could tell then that SIGGRAPH was special, but that's a story
for another day. Wow, that was fifty years ago.
Let's zip through the decades. For the next decade I worked in
3D graphics and attended 6 out of ten annual conferences, in Anaheim,
Boston, Dallas, Las Vegas and Chicago, always paid for by my employer and
working a vendor booth, never having much time for the other activities.
Initially I was with Stellar, offering $100K Graphics Supercomputers, which
went up to about $250K when you filled all the memory slots (memory was
expensive and in short supply then). Later our compact Vistra was around $40K.
Both included the Application Visualization System (AVS) software from Advanced
Visual Systems (AVS Inc.). When AVS was spun off, the software cost $6500 and
needed a $40K UNIX workstation to run on.
Which brings us to the 1993 Anaheim with AVS Inc., the 20th conference.
(
history.siggraph.org/conference/siggraph-1993-20th-annual-conference-on-computer-graphics-and-interactive-techniques/ )
I was again in the AVS booth, and saw little of the conference.
Still, it was special in a number of ways which I've written about before.
See "If It's Just a Virtual Actor, Then Why Am I Feeling Real Emotions?"
(Part Six), in the section SERIOUS FUN, of C3M v. 12 n. 1, July 2015.
(
people.well.com/user/abs/Cyb/archive/c3m_1201.html#sec_2 )
Over the next decade I started out being sent to two more SIGGRAPHs by AVS,
in Orlando and Los Angeles, before that gravy train/chain gang came to an end.
I then transitioned to working in a mapping software job (2D graphics) which
had no interest in SIGGRAPH, followed by jobs using Next technology at Apple
and Dover Pacific to do mostly web forms driven by databases, with no graphics
in sight. I still managed to take vacation days and attend SIGGRAPH twice in
LA by taking vacation time, since I was local. Also at that time I was active
in the local Los Angeles professional (as opposed to student) chapter, and
starting in 1997 I got involved with the leadership of the local San Diego
professional chapter in anticipation of moving back from the Los Angeles basin
to "sweet home San Diego" where I grew up. At both those LA SIGGRAPHs we
threw San Diego chapter parties, and being part of the chapter leadership gave
me the opportunity to attend the full conference, including papers, panels and
classes, not just the commercial exhibits and a few other (new tech, art show,
meetups whatnot) that I had seen on breaks from booth duty.
By the 21st century I had been shaken out of the post-dot-com web tech
job scene, and began doing 3D graphics again as consultant using the business
name Human Interface Prototypes. I went to another self-funded LA SIGGRAPH
(paying for my car travel and motel) with full conference admission provided
thanks to my chapter volunteering, and then another one in San Antonio,
Texas, paying for my own airfare as well. At this point I was scouting for
clients for my consulting business.
Which brings us to SIGGRAPH 2003, the 30th conference, which was the first held
in San Diego, and we were pleased as punch.
(
history.siggraph.org/conference/siggraph-2003-30th-annual-conference-on-computer-graphics-and-interactive-techniques/ )
I was once more self-funded, but had virtually no travel costs except parking.
Our chapter put on a SIGKIDS event for three days of the conference, which
is a whole 'nother story. I wrote an article to earn my full conference
pass, which I've linked down below.
Over the next decade I managed to attend six of the ten conferences, all
self-funded. There were four I went to in LA, another in San Diego, and
yet another Anaheim. For four of these the San Diego chapter had planning
events for those attending, held in private homes, a pub, and even a gelato
parlor.
During this time I worked in some non-graphics jobs and did more graphics
consulting. Ironically, in 2012 I was doing interactive display of geospatial
data for Mindtel and didn't have time to go up to LA. Also, in 2011 I resigned
from the executive committee of the San Diego local professional chapter after
twelve years of volunteering, having other commitments. So I no longer got
the chapter freebies, or planned parties.
Which brings us to SIGGRAPH 2013 in Anaheim, the 40th conference.
(
history.siggraph.org/conference/siggraph-2013-40th-annual-conference-on-computer-graphics-and-interactive-techniques )
the author at SIGGRAPH Anaheim 2013
This time I was looking for clients. (Six months later I finally found one,
SynGlyphix Corp., through my personal network. We were providing expensive
customizations of free software that ran on $4,000 PCs.) And I brought my
wife and daughter (as I had to all the San Diego conferences).
I realize that as we zoom through these decades, I'm not doing a very good job
of conveying the appeal of this conference. I keep looking for the "next big
thing." I keep running into old friends and colleagues there. It's a true tech
community. And there is such a cornucopia of ideas. To dip into the
firehose arbitrarily, here is a project I saw on a humble poster in 2010:
"Visualizing Empires Decline" by Pedro Cruz, Computational Design and
Visualization Lab, Univerisade De Coimbra, Portugal.
(
pmcruz.com/works/visualizing-empires-decline.html )
The most recent decade has been different. I've only gone to two SIGRAPHs,
both in LA. Once again, in 2014, I found myself in the ironic position of
being too busy doing interactive graphics to attend. Then I took an early
retirement option, and just worked odd jobs for a while (or stayed at home
writing this 'zine), while the teens flew by. I did do a stint with a startup
doing streaming queries, SQLStream, in 2017, but there were almost no graphics
involved. In 2019 I went with my old friend and colleague Mike Pique of the
Scripps Research Institute to an LA SIGGRAPH. I saw old friends and new tech
once again. This might have been when I joined the SIGGRAPH Pioneers, and
began attending their reception during the conference. (Or was that 2010?)
photo by the author at SIGGRAPH Los Angeles 2019
Around this time I was starting to develop Web3D software that was based
on the free, open source X3DOM Javascript library, and ran on a $400 smart
phone.
In 2020 and 2021 the conference went fully virtual due to COVID. After
returning in 2022 to Vancouver, in 2023 the 50th SIGGRAPH came back to
the Los Angeles Convention Center.
(
history.siggraph.org/conference/siggraph-2023-50th-annual-conference-on-computer-graphics-and-interactive-techniques/ )
ROAD TRIP
My friend Mike Pique told he was attending SIGGRAPH 2023 in LA; he had a two
bed hotel room and offered me a bed, and pointed me at a site offering free
exhibit passes. I didn't plan to go originally, but it was the 50th, and I
thought I had the financial slack, so I went for it.
I had a new credit card and it offered cash back and interest deferral, so I
put all the trip expenses on it, making record keeping easy. I've included
transactions cut and pasted from their web site, for the educational value.
In advance I bought ACM/SIGGRAPH and Pioneers memberships, so I could attend
the Pioneers Reception on Tuesday night, 8 August.
 AUG 5 ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUT NY $60.00 (ACM #12907935) |
We usually manage with two vehicles in a three person family, one being an
in-town short-range electric, so I reserved a small car from Enterprise.
On the morning of the 8th I rented a black Toyota Corolla at 8:40 AM.
I drove North on Interstate 5 to San Clemente, where the traffic jammed up
and I exited for breakfast at a drive-through fast food.
| AUG 8 CARLS JR SAN CLEMENTE CA $12.26 |
I used surface streets and an inland parkway in South Orange County to get
around a freeway wreck. (This used to be my commute when I first worked at
AVS in Laguna Hills.)
I discovered that I didn't have an iPhone charging cord I needed, so I planned
to stop for lunch at a restaurant I remembered fondly, which I recalled had a
Staples nearby. It was the North Woods Inn, built in 1955 before Disneyland,
resembling a log cabin with icicles dripping from the roof, and claiming to be
the first themed restaurant. Well, they'd really downgraded the menu, and the
service IMHO, but I ended up with some edible hot wings; ate half and took the
rest to go.
| AUG 8 CLEARMAN'S NORTH WOODS LA MIRADA CA $28.31 |
Found the Staples and it had been turned into a Staples distribution center.
Google maps directed me to another, which I slogged through Disneyland and
Knott's Berry Farm traffic to get to.
I bought the charger cord and some other stuff I needed and hit the road,
feeling I was running late.
| AUG 8 STAPLES CERRITOS CA $43.78 |
Later I discovered the cord was for Android. Doh!
I made it through East LA by using the I-710 North to I-60 West to I-10 West
dodge like a true Angeleno, bypassing the East LA Interchange, and then exited
it Los Angeles street and cut through the fashion district to get to the
Convention Center (but that's yet another story). I pulled into the
underground parking beneath the exhibit halls.
| AUG 8 LA CONVENTION CENTER LOS ANGELES CA $25.00 |
I found the registration desks, using a shortcut from a kind stranger in a
SIGGRAPH badge, and they made me a badge.
the author's SIGGRAPH Los Angeles 2023 badge
I made a quick pass through the exhibits, asking around until I found a booth
with a nice swag bag, and then realized my iPhone had died, since I had lacked
the cord I needed in the rental car, and I still needed to link up with Mike
and some others from Scripps Research.
I really needed to charge my iPhone since I had lacked the cord I needed in
the rental car, but I cobbled together what I could use at a USB charging
station in the exhibit hall. I talked to a guy from Australia, his first
SIGGRAPH, about the conference and his work and the problems with Australian
power converters. I was trying to open an electronic gizmo of some kind in a
blister pack, and found my trusty Swiss Army Knife was missing. Luckily it had
an AirTag on it to track it. After my phone was charged enough I began
tracking the lost knife. Cell reception in the steel frame building was bad,
so I got a very approximate fix. The circle of uncertainty was a dozen yards
in diameter. I backtracked to everywhere I'd gone in the hall, registration,
security, booths. No joy. I gave up for the time being and consoled myself
with an iced latte, cookie and fruit at Groundworks West.
| AUG 8 2LEVY LA CONV CENTER LOS ANGELES CA $18.62 |
photo by the author at Groundworks West coffee counter
SIGGRAPH Los Angeles 2023
Meanwhile, when my iPhone had juice I'd texted Mike, and at the cafe he texted
back and it turned out he and Art were nearby, so I waited for them to arrive.
I decided it was time to stop freaking out about logistics and begin enjoying
the show. (This is where I took the pic at the beginning of this article.)
HISTORY ON DISPLAY
Mike had a panel or something to attend so he suggested Art and I look at the
historical stuff in the halls a half floor below the walkways along the East
windows.
They had posters from most of the conferences, and I did a video walk-by (in
two parts) of them.
I hope y'all can see these on Facebook.
(
www.facebook.com/1653189248/videos/pcb.10227976296626763/585305567148340 )
(
www.facebook.com/1653189248/videos/pcb.10227976296626763/258201267066890 )
Art and I quickly found a fascinating gentleman, Gordon W. Romney, PhD,
who had done the first polygon rendering of a dynamic 3D object.
one of the first polygon renderings, by Gordon W. Romney, PhD
( firstrender.net )
he was at University of Utah, a graduate student of the legendary Ivan
Sutherland, and he chose a Soma Cube puzzle as the objects to render.
He used a Univac 1108 mainframe computer connected to a Tektronix oscilloscope
which displayed a point at a time.
Univac 1108 computer
( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC )
As he explains on his web site:
The desired camera and film were mounted on the Tektronix oscilloscope.
The appropriate filter was pulled into position between the CRT and the film.
The Rendering program was initiated by light-pen to generate respectively the
Red, Blue and Green scans to produce the rendered color image from the virtual
object.
Art and I watched his presentation to a crowd that gathered, and then talked
to him further after they dispersed. I told him I had used a similarly
primitive setup in early 1977, to program my first 3D objects in a class at
the University of California, Santa Cruz. (I looked it up; my transcript says
it was "Info Sci 160: Intro Comp Graphics.") We used a Burroughs 5700
mainframe computer connected to a PDP 8 minicomputer, connected to an
oscilloscope. It drew vectors.
Burroughs 5700 computer
( www.retrocomputingtasmania.com/home/projects/burroughs-b5500/b5000_b5500_gallery )
He and Art were trading Ivan Sutherland stories and tracing other mutual
friends and colleagues, and I wandered on.
Somewhere I picked up a card from the magazine IEEE Computer Graphics and
Applications (CG&A). The IEEE is the Institute of Electrical and Electric
Engineers, and this magazine has been covering the CGI beat forever.
IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications
(CG&A) 50th SIGGRAPH article
They were offering a QR code to reach an article they'd produced,
"The Big 50: Celebrating 50 ACM SIGGRAPH Conferences," announcing that
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CG&A) celebrates 50 ACM SIGGRAPH
Conferences with the July/August 2023 special issue.
(
www.computer.org/digital-library/magazines/cg/the-big-50 )
It has spoken histories of folks' memorable SIGGRAPH experiences.
My next agenda item was the Pioneers Reception, over at the JW Marriott
nearby. I decided it was walking distance, but first I went back down into
the underground parking, to my car.
My missing knife was on the passenger seat. The Find My app had shown me
approximate Lat/Lon but nothing about altitude. That pesky Third Dimension!
The knife had been under the floor I was standing on.
I ate the rest of the hot wings, knowing the reception would only serve snacks.
I walked North to the Marriott, stopping in the lobby gift shop for some
snacks and sundries.
| AUG 8 GIFT SHOP JW MARRIOT LA LOS ANGELES CA $29.57 |
I found the reception up and down and up some escalators (no, really), and
there at the entry table was an old colleague, Jeff Jortner, who I'd known as
a Stellar customer in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
I also ran into Joan Collins, the person who first invited me to volunteer,
at an LA Chapter event. I always thank her again.
I chatted with some other folks, many retired now. But also there is the next
generation: you have to have 20 years in the industry to be a "pioneer" and
now there are folks in their late 30s and early 40s who qualify.
I used my drink ticket to get a diet Coke, and tipped the bartender a dollar.
I told him it was the first cash I'd touched on the trip. (The LA Convention
Center prides itself on being "cashless" these days.)
Outside adjusting their mikes I found the keynote speakers, Foley and van Dam,
authors of a classic computer graphics textbook. Andries van Dam I knew from
a Stellar connection, and it was a pleasure to meet James Foley and his wife.
Joan shooed me away so she could fix their mikes — one for the video and
one for the PA.
Not unlike the Oscars, the most moving moments were in the tribute to those
who passed in the last year.
Professors F & v D gave us a fine presentation on how they came to write their
text. Near the end they asked for a show of hands of how many people had the
text on a shelf at home. About 75% of the room raised hands.
James Foley at SIGGRAPH LA 2023 Pioneers Reception
held at JW Marriott Hotel Los Angeles, photo by the author
It occurred to me that this was a group of people who set out to change the
world, and did.
WHAT'S NEW
Tuesday night I bunked with Mike at a hotel across from the convention center,
after moving my car there and bringing in my suitcase, and Wednesday morning
we got up and went to the Original Pantry Cafe,
(
pantrycafe.restaurant )
(
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_Pantry_Cafe )
a place we have dined together several times before.
Founded in 1924, the place has always been open, and cash only, but no
more. They close in the afternoon now and they take cards. Still good
food and service though.
| AUG 9 THE ORIGINAL PANTRY CA LOS ANGELES CA $39.42 |
Mike asked me to tell him a Pantry story, so I told him my fave: when it's
crowded they seat you with strangers. In the late ‘80s we shared a table with
an Austrian couple. Only the husband spoke a little English. They'd been to
Disneyland. I asked what they liked best. They both said, "Michael Jackson."
Mike had another thing to get to, so I strolled back to the convention center
to spend more time in the exhibits. Here I've compiled my observations from
both days.
- Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR) was all over the place.
This makes sense to me. If you're selling rendering software or special
effects apps you can give demos and even trial versions over the web. But
there is no way to get a full VR demo without the hardware being physically
present. In one booth people were lined up to experience VR/AR while riding
a tricycle.
( www.facebook.com/1653189248/videos/pcb.10227976296626763/1987020454977338 )
- Dell and HP
Two of the biggest PC hardware manufacturers had large booths touting end-to-end
solutions. It seems like maybe most video production houses have the modeling,
animation and effects software they need, but still need help in content and
workflow management, and so the hardware companies are pushing into these areas.
- CenterGrid Virtual Studio
( cgvirtualstudio.com )
For at least ten years it's been possible to run a "virtual desktop."
I remember thinking in the '90s that as soon as the internet got fast enough
to deliver full-screen hi-def video at 30 Hz, the screen and the computer
could be far apart. (Of course the biggest problem would be lag.) Well it
has evolved. This vendor offers a virtual studio experience, with
"blazing fast" virtual workstations equipped with high end CPUs and GPUs,
provisioned with software such as 50 user Rockstar Maya, V-Ray Studio, and
13 person Next Gen Realtime, giant render farms (probably on blades), a private
cloud for security, 24/7 support and a "green energy" (geothermal)
sustainability promise, all from a data center in Hamilton, Ohio, about 30
miles North of Cincinnati.
- Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD)
( www.scad.edu )
Booths for art colleges always abound at SIGGRAPH, and I picked up a brochure
for this one because I like Atlanta. I hope all these can find the animator
or game developer jobs they want, and can earn enough to live the American
dream.
- CAVRNUS Carlsbad, CA
( www.cavrnus.com/ )
I always like to keep of track of what's going on in my home county of
San Diego, so I sat down with my phone and searched the on-line show guide
for businesses in the area. I found one: CAVRNUS.
CAVRNUS booth, photo by author
It took me awhile to figure out they were offering virtual meetups, with
photo-realistic locations, cartoony avatars, and virtual documents like
PowerPoints, websites and PDFs you could share. Was this to "gamify" a
Zoom meeting? I visited thier web site later and I still can't figure out
the application. It probably wouldn't work for a Massively Multiplayer Online
Game (MMORG), or a dating app. Maybe there are psychological benefits for
folks working from home (WFH) to go over budgets in a virtual world.
One of the things I figure out 50 years ago at GTI was that if you want to
get revenue this quarter for 3D graphics, you need to find people who already
have a problem they are solving with an expensive non-CGI solution, and offer
a cheaper alternative. If the project is blue-sky it will be delayed. I
don't see that kind of market here, unless it is going to save on plane
tickets.
- TikTok had a booth. Why? I wondered. It turned out they were
recruiting tech talent.
- Terathon Software
I met this guy at the Pioneers Reception (I think) named Eric Lengyel,
of Terathon Software. I got his card.
( terathon.com )
It included links to two of his projects:
He seemed, like me, to be a guy who'd worked at a tech hub but then moved back
to his home town (Lincoln, CA, 30 miles North of Sacramento) to run a one-man
consulting company. Nice to see these folks still have a niche.
One of my SIGGRAPH traditions is to get a pin and poster for the next year's
conference. I usually do it first but this year I was distracted. I was also
still in the dark about the location. I had been Googling "SIGGRAPH 2024"
every few days for the past few weeks and it hadn't been posted yet. So when I
stumbled on the booth promoting next year's conference in Denver I was excited
to see if they still had posters and pins or they had run out. Neither, as it
turned out; the story was they had changed the procedures and would be handing
these items out next year at the conference. I wondered if this was because
they'd made the decision late.
SIGGRAPH 2024 Denver promo card
I was wrapping up at this point, gleaning any last bits of value from the
experience. I noticed as I traversed the walkways along the East edge of
the convention center that I could see giant screens out the window, on the
buildings across Figueroa Blvd., showing some kind of CGI effects. I thought
they had something to do with SIGGRAPH, but upon watching them I realized they
were just advertising some new TV shows on Netflix.
I was running out of energy, and found a comfy chair in the Chapters Booth,
next to the Student Volunteers booth, which were buzzing with excited young
(mostly) attendees and volunteers. For me it was a good place to rest. I
looked though the show guide to see if I'd missed anything major. (Actually,
I'd missed the art show and emerging technology exhibit, because I hadn't
spent the hundreds of dollars to upgrade. Once they were included in an
exhibits pass, and they always had something to blow my mind, but oh well.)
I took the picture at the top of this 'zine while sitting there.
Someone passed by with a plate of donuts and a coffee. I rose and walked in
the direction they came from. Sure enough, catering had put out tables of
donuts and coffee for a break in proceedings in a large hall, and I snagged
some of each. I thought to myself that the sugar and caffeine rush wouldn't
last too long (underneath it I was pretty beat), so this was my cue to get
back to my hotel and depart.
I walked to the hotel through the shopping and entertainment district North of
the convention center, LA LIVE. It's been there a while but I'd never seen it
in daylight. Thankfully there was a Starbucks and I was able to get more
espresso.
| AUG 9 STARBUCKS STORE 13222 LOS ANGELES CA $6.95 |
Back at the hotel I packed up, checked out, got my car out of valet parking,
and drove away. I worked my way back through the fashion district to get to
LA's art district, sometimes called SOHO.
AN OLD FRIEND
Over the years I have come to associate SIGGRAPH with my friend Lili Lakich,
a neon artist.
Lili Lakich
( www.wccdusa.com/dvds-books )
(
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Lakich )
This is mainly because over the years I have rented spaces from her for SIGGRAPH
parties. Her studio at 704 Traction Ave. in the downtown Los Angeles art
district was once her residence, and also for a while served as the Museum of
Neon Art (MONA), which she co-founded. I've also seen her on other occasions,
but the link has framed in my mind, so it naturally occurred to me call her
before the trip and set up a lunch date.
I arrived in SOHO and rounded the block a few times before finding a metered
parking space a few blocks from her studio.
| AUG 9 LADOT METER PARKING LOS ANGELES CA $2.75 |
She invited me in and switched on her neon works because she knows I like to
see them lit. (I found someone's home movie of the studio on YouTube. It is
a remarkable space. It's not surprising that computer graphics professionals
enjoy it so much.)
(
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlVsL8-WHIw )
She showed me her most recent project. A background painting of a woman's
face was on a table, and she had a number of lit neon tubes in different
colors laying on it, to test how they interacted with the background and each
other. She explained that after she chose seven colors she would bend them
and mount them.
About three weeks later she posted a picture of the finished piece on her
Facebook page.
neon sculpture "Woman with 7 Colors" by Lili Lakich 9/7/23
( www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10159930882232404&set=a.149791117403 )
She shut off the power to the sculptures and we left for lunch on foot. The
place she'd picked was closed so we wandered SOHO looking for another.
As we walked through the neighborhood Lili exchanged greetings with a number
of people. "You seem to know a lot of people here," I said. She replied, "I
should, I've been here 42 years."
She chose a charming spot called Eat Drink Americano.
| AUG 10 TST* EAT DRINK AMERICA LOS ANGELES CA $62.16 |
As we sat down she saw my SIGGRAPH badge and asked, "What do you do for Human
Interface Prototypes?" I said, "Oh, that's just a tax dodge." (Note: if the
IRS is reading this, that was a joke; my accountant assures me I am obeying
all tax laws.)
"Remind me again what SIGGRAPH is," she said. I responded with the content
of the first paragraph of this article, "The Association for Computing
Machinery (ACM), bla bla bla, Special Interest Groups (SIGs), bla bla bla,
Special Interest Group on computer GRAPHics and interactive techniques."
"Does that include AI?" she asked.
"Yeah, I guess, somewhat," I allowed.
I told her about a pattern I'd been thinking about recently. "Do you remember
from algebra, something called the quadratic equation, a x squared plus b x
plus c equals zero. The solution is this big expression."
"Yes." She seemed a little concerned about where this was going to go.
"Well, it turns out this was understood four thousand years ago by the ancient
Sumerians."
"Really."
"Yes, they didn't use our notation but they left clay tablets with the
solution. Then, four hundred years ago, Galileo rolled balls down ramps and
came up with the idea of momentum, mass times speed, which sort of gives the
oomph of a moving body. And it's conserved." She nodded.
Then in 1950 Claude Shannon, working for the phone company, came up with the
first quantitative measure of information, the bit. Eight bits make a byte, and
today we measure information in megabytes, millions of bytes."
"Yes." I'm sure Lili has many megabytes of Photoshop files.
"So we have a civilization that has understood algebra for 4,000 years,
understood physics for 400 years, and is beginning to understand information
for the last 73 years."
She pointed out that we are having growing pains, for example AI in the arts.
I realized she really wanted to talk about AI, so we did. She shared how she'd
asked ChatGPT for for a bio of her, and it got a lot of things wrong. But it
was doing pretty good illustrations, and at lightning speed.
I wanted to reassure her. I think AI is going to replace some mediocre
work, but will achieve nothing great. "Remember those old label makers in
the seventies, that used plastic tape with two color layers, and made raised
letters?" She did.
1970s vintage Dymo label maker
( historysdumpster.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-dymo-label-maker.html )
"You could label your baby food jars full of parts so you tell screws from
bolts. They looked really sharp when we first saw them, but after a few years
they looked tacky. They were cheap and plentiful, and the letters were wonky
sometimes, and the tape would peel. This is because we changed. We adapted.
I think we're going to adapt to AI. It's going to get really boring."
I reminded her of the late '60s when futuristic stuff was fashionable, and
people dressed in light blue and silver jumpsuits like stewardesses or
monorail operators. Five years later earth shoes, macrame and eating sprouts
were "in." I predicted that there will be a backlash, sort of like the "shop
local" movement, of human-certified art. She said she hoped so.
Then she asked me what was new at SIGGRAPH.
I realized that not much was new. "They're just polishing the pixels," I
tried to explain.
I told her how in 1987 in Anaheim I brought a lawyer friend to the Electronic
Theater (the big video show) and there was a short clip of a cloth hanging
from a window by two corners, blowing in the wind. One corner detached and
cloth flapped hanging from the single point; then the other corner detached
and the cloth blew away. The crowd went wild over maybe a 90 second clip.
My friend asked what all the fuss was. "Last year nobody knew how to do that,"
I explained. There were similar reactions in the nineties as techniques were
developed for realistic hair, realistic skin, and realistic crumpling metal.
Now, I'm not saying there isn't always innovation going on. I always
recommend people look at the preview video for the technical papers.
"SIGGRAPH 2023 Technical Papers Trailer "
(
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBZ2sDxvZQE )
But this year's refinements are subtle, representing slight improvements.
It's been a long time since a totally new technique appeared in the Electronic
Theater to be cheered.
I told Lili how I'd been at a National Computer Graphics Association (NCGA)
conference in 1988 where Robert Abel gave the keynote talk. (NCGA has since
disbanded.) He was a well-regarded effects pioneer, working initially in
practical and optical effects. He showed us footage of how he was using a
vector graphics system from Evans and Sutherland to to
previsualize
these effects. They'd made a commercial for a management consulting firm
that involved people in trailers furnished like offices with one wall open,
being stacked and rearranged by giant cranes. They made a vector animation
of the motions to get the client to approve, while it was still cheap to change.
vector graphics effect in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Of course these vector images, or "wire frames," looked nothing like real
objects. But Abel went on to predict that the day would come when computers
could actually do the effects. This of course would require the cartoony
efforts of the day (e.g. Pixar's "Tin Toy" and the morphing scene in "Willow")
make the breakthrough to the elusive "photorealism." I'm sure the people in
that room believed him, but the movie industry was skeptical.
Five years later "Jurassic Park" rocked the movie world, with 100% CGI
dinosaurs that looked real enough for audiences to suspend disbelief.
And at that point the SIGGRAPH conference, which had been mostly academic
researchers, was taken over by Hollywood. SIGGRAPH '93 in Anaheim had
SGI combining four of the largest booths to make room for a Jurassic Park ride.
By '95 the conference was in Los Angeles, because it was too hard to get the
movie people to drive down to Orange County. From that point forward 13 of 29
conferences were at the LA Convention Center, with 6 more elsewhere in
Southern California. This change resulted in huge growth, followed by huge
shrinkage for the conference. I showed her a graph of the rise and fall.
(More on that later.)
I also told her about the Pioneers Reception, How it occurred to me that
this was a group of people who set out to change the world, and did.
It was done on purpose, with foreseeable benefits in the sciences, industrial
design, vehicle simulators, video games, education, and even virtual reality
(though the term would not be coined until 1987).
"We set out to change the world, we did it over fifty years, and last night we
had a party to pat ourselves on the back."
I realized later how valuable it was for me to have this conversation with
Lili, because it really helped me focus my perceptions from the conference.
We chatted some more, about how software subscription models suck, about the
"Barbenheimer" phenomenon (I'd seen Barbie and she'd seen Oppenheimer, oddly
enough), and finally decided it was time to wrap it up. We walked back to her
studio, she made sure she had my current address for her mailing list, and she
gave me a copy of her most recent (2007) book,
Lakich: For Light. For Love.
For Life
(
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0615133517/hip0bd )
the cover of Lili's latest book
A week after the conference I began reading it, and found this description
of her first artwork using electricity and light:
My initial foray into electricity came about as a result of a devastating
personal relationship. In order to stop crying, I had an idea to make a
portrait of myself crying. I thought of animating light bulbs, but didn't
know about hooking up anything electrically. So when my father came to visit
me at Pratt Institute, I enlisted his help in realizing my idea. We went down
to Canal Street for electrical parts. I made a portrait of myself out of
plexiglass and colored acetates, and under my eye drilled holes for tiny bulbs.
We connected them to a motor; plugged in, they blinked down my face like tears.
This was my first electrical work of art, and for the for the first time in my
life, I felt I had absolutely and unequivocally expressed myself.
Lili, if you're reading this, all of your art has touched my heart, including
most recently this piece. No AI can do this.
TAKE HOMES
"After 2 days in LA I find myself thinking about Blade Runner."
— Facebook post by the author, 12 August 2023
I was surprised to find how quickly I wanted to get out of town. At one
time a trip to LA was a big treat for me, but this time it just seemed like
another Southern California strip mall collection with a huge logistics tax.
I headed East from downtown on Cal-60, like a savvy local would, but still hit
traffic jelly and ended up setting out across Eastern LA County into and Orange
County in the vicinity of Whittier, until I made my way to Anaheim and stopped
for snacks.
| AUG 9 STAR LIQUOR ANAHEIM CA $9.03 |
I didn't feel like I escaped the megalopolis until I turned off the freeway in
South coastal Orange County to check my phone, and saw a meadow.
I was happy to get home. The next morning I filled up the rental car, 9.8
gallons at 8:35 AM,
| AUG 10 HAN'S US PETROLEUM ESCONDIDO CA $45.56 |
Then I turned in the car and took the free shuttle home.
| AUG 10 ENTERPRISE RENT-A-CAR ESCONDIDO CA $166.45 |
Adding it up:
| TOTAL: $549.86 |
This doesn't include a few cash costs, including the dollar tip for the
bartender.
The next day our main car was totaled in an accident. Luckily there were
only minor injuries. It turned out I didn't have as much financial slack as
I thought.
Enough of that. It's time to sum up. I must say I feel a great deal of
completeness and closure with SIGGRAPH. I'm not saying I'm done with it, but
I feel like there's nothing out of balance. (I suppose it's still on my
bucket list to present a paper there.) A few weeks after the conference I
invited Mike over to help cull my files from our local San Diego SIGGRAPH days.
We sorted and tossed until we reduced four banker's boxes to two. It was a
trip down memory lane. I think we have an impressive record of community
serving events. I plan to blog about it later.
When people asked me for the short version of my review of SIGGRAPH 2023
I told them what I'd figured out talking to Lili: Fifty years ago we set out to
change the world, and we did, and we had a party to pat ourselves on the
back. And I would show them the graph below of fifty years' growth and
shrinkage, labeled "SIGGRAPH conference stats graph from 2023."
But first let me harken back twenty years. Actually this story begins
at the 2002 conference in San Antonio, where I got my pin for the 2003
conference in San Diego. It was a little blue punch card, with the upper
right corner missing. (This was to help you align the cards correctly.)
Later I ran into Mike and he also had a pin. He quipped, "They're Cutting
Corners in 2003!" This was a year after the dot com crash, and things
were in fact tightening up. That year SGI, which had recently changed its name
from Silicon Graphics Inc. to just the initials SGI (to downplay their graphics
emphasis and focus more on servers), announced that it was cutting its
workforce by one third. PCs were drinking their milkshake. Mike responded
with another quip, "they're taking the G out of SGI!" Alas, nine years earlier
they'd been the tyrannosaurus rex of CGI.
A year later when I was given a full conference media pass through the San
Diego chapter in return for writing an article about my experiences,
I called it
"They're Cutting Corners in 2003" ~ or ~ A Long, Hard Look At
the Future of the SIGGRAPH Conference, by Alan B. Scrivener, Chair
San Diego Professional Chapter ACM SIGGRAPH.
(
people.well.com/user/abs/Cyb/archive/SIGGRAPH/sg2003.html )
In it I said:
I worked very hard [for SIGGRAPH this year] and appreciate the work of the
conference committee and their staff, and I don't mean this as a criticism of
them; I know they are dependent on what is submitted to the conference, and
that in turn depends on the research and economic climates, and what
innovation there is to be found, but I have to say that the conference is
losing its edge. I have one friend who says he's found some of the same old
excitement -- and even some of the same people from "old SIGGRAPH" -- at the
Burning Man Festival (www.burningman.com/). Others have said the Electronic
Entertainment Expo (E3) Show (www.e3expo.com/) is where all the newest 3D
stuff is. These trends all worry me, as do the tales I'd heard of large
losses (in some years) and declining attendance and exhibitors. 2003 was the
first year SGI didn't even have a booth.
Remember, this was 20 years ago. The trends have definitely continued.
I also produced the following graph from statistics I got from the leadership:
Attendance, Square Feet of Exhibitors, Profit, and Industry Size (1995=100%)
SIGGRAPH conference stats graph from 2003
I added the caveat "... industry numbers after 1997 are my own wild guesses.
SGI usually knows why its customers buy servers; Dell seldom does."
Later I found out the 2003 numbers were corrected, and I got the new numbers
which as I recall were about 10% better. But they really didn't change the
picture.
While researching this article I stumbled on a graph from 2013, from the
article
"Computer Graphics and the Global Economy: Is Democratization A
Good Thing? — The annual Jon Peddie Research SIGGRAPH Press Luncheon
examined the benefits and challenges of a rapidly changing Media &
Entertainment landscape." By Jennifer Wolfe, Friday, August 23, 2013
(
www.awn.com/vfxworld/computer-graphics-and-global-economy-democratization-good-thing )
SIGGRAPH conference stats graph from 2013
These people obviously had access to better numbers than I did on the size
of the graphics industry. But I suppose it is even more alarming when the
economy rebounds but SIGGRAPH doesn't.
So this is the picture I've been showing people when they ask about SIGGRAPH:
SIGGRAPH conference stats graph from 2023
(Note the two COVID years with zero attendance.)
It was a bubble. The movie industry got what they wanted from us, and mostly
moved on. But I don't think the conference will die. I think it may be close
to equilibrium. Perhaps the academics can start running things again, if they
haven't already. And maybe one day we'll achieve the elusive "retinal realism"
where the image looks exactly like what our eyes see in the good old real world.
If It's Just a Virtual Actor,
Then Why Am I Feeling Real Emotions?
(Part Ten)
(If you haven't read parts one through nine, see the
archives, also listed at the end.)
In my introductory remarks I almost told a story and made a claim, but I was
running short on time and it seemed like a side-quest, so I didn't. After
hearing Brad deGraf speak I was glad I hadn't.
You see, when I was at Rockwell International in Downey, CA we did a lot of
animations of astronauts in various space shuttle and space station
environments.
CGI astronaut from Rockwell International
(not my work but I did similar animations)
from "GTI POLY 2000 Demo Reel" (timecode 7:02)
( www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjI5MFO8Dn8 )
In the video above you can see how the astronaut model was animated with a
"rigging" that provided life-like rotations at the joints. We used a keyframe
animation system that I co-wrote and animation was a breeze on the system.
But since our workflow involved modeling the objects on a minicomputer
timesharing system (VAXC I think) accessed from terminals in another building,
and then transferring the files to the 3D graphics system, it was painful to
make slight tweaks to the models. Wes solved this with a program for tweaking
the models on the real-time system while we watched on the 3D display. Our
analog input device was a knob box with four dials and 16 buttons. The
program which I think we called "polyedit" or something, allowed you to select
a vertex with the left knob (by cycling through them all) and change its X, Y
and Z coordinates with the other 3 knobs.
One day we had a higher than usual number of people in the graphics lab and I
was giving a demo of polyedit, using an astronaut model. I selected the
center vertex of the tip of his nose. I then moved the vertex away from the
face, making a Pinocchio effect of the nose growing. I said something
that was a common lie in aerospace. I don't recall exactly, but something
like "We just need time estimates for planning purposes; we won't hold you to
them." Cue nose growing. People laughed.
This was probably in late 1987, and even though it wasn't a complete "virtual
actor" it was a arguably a real-time cartoon. I was prepared to claim that
this was possibly the first time someone got a laugh with a real-time cartoon.
But when Brad deGraf spoke he mentioned a real time cartoon project with Jim
Henson in '86 or '87, creating a wire frame Kermit the Frog. I can't believe
that Henson didn't get a laugh during this experiment, and this probably
happened before my event, so my claim is fairly weak.
Enough of this foolishness. Back to the panel.
Anne Hering was our next speaker. In the club she usually played Adventurers
Club president Pamelia Perkins (a frumpy busybody), adventurer Mandora (a
large-living explorer), or "domestic engineer" Ginger Vitus (a sexy French
maid). Her range was impressive. She was also the first Adventurers Club
actor I reached out to, who introduced me to the others.
(If you want to follow along on the video, that YouTube again is Panel:
"The VActor (TM) and the Human Factor" at SIGGRAPH 25 July 1994
in Orlando. Speakers: Alan Scrivener, Brad deGraf, Kristian Truelsen,
Art Dohany, Anne Hering, Richard Cray, posted to YouTube Mar 30, 2022,
shot by Greg Panos).
Anne spoke from her seat.
Adventurers Club performer Anne Hering
Anne Hering: I'm going to sit, if that's ok... I'm more secure.
I'm virtually computer illiterate, so excuse my vocabulary, if I use the wrong
terms or something, just understand I'm from an actor point of view. First of
all speaking about more of what we do at the Club. Babylonia, to elaborate a
little more, is a stone mask that is mounted on the wall, about 5' tall and 4'
wide, and her mouth opens, just very basically open and shut, and her eyes
move, and she can smoke. We sit there, up a ladder behind her, right behind
her, and look through, look at a black and white monitor of the room in front
of us, and open and shut her mouth with our legs, and move her eyes with a
U-bar type of thing, and we have a mike, a headset.
What's interesting about, several things are interesting about Babylonia, one
of them and I guess about any of the puppets, is that it is liberating. When I
first started working at the Club and didn't have as much improvisational
experience as some of the other folks, I found the quickest thing to get was
Babylonia, because you are not right out there being looked at, you have in
effect a mask, that you can hide behind, that is bigger and thicker than any
costume you could put on, and it gives you certain liberties, and strangely
enough, the guests, the public are more accessible sometimes when they are
dealing with a puppet or a mask. They don't feel as threatened; you're not in
their personal space because they know you can't come off the wall at them, and
so they're often more likely to do things that were to walk up as, say, the
president of the Club in a dress and say, "Would you bump and grind for me?"
They might not do it as quickly as if I smoked at them with Babylonia and said
in a character voice, "Alright, I want..." you know, they'll do it. God knows
why, thank God they do. So that's one thing. It's a liberating experience
for both the actor and the audience member.
The other thing I've found that, sometimes Babylonia can get things going with
a group on her own but very often it's helpful to have another
actor/facilitator out there, and that's something that might involve in your
work, that you might find a need to have an M.C. if you will, or a go between,
who can act as a liaison between the audience and the puppet. Not that they
can't hear them, but to probe and to generate, and to act maybe as a straight
man, very often whoever the other actor who is down there becomes a straight
man to the puppet's Gracie Allen, and then that's a whole other dynamic you
have, then you have two creative minds bouncing off of each other, and the
audience is pulled in as needed. So that I think is real helpful.
The other thing is the atmosphere in which it all takes place. We're very
lucky at the Club in that we have a very rich, just a plethora of stuff to draw
from in our atmosphere. We are in a building that is a self contained
atmosphere, it all takes place in 1937, everything is, most things are in synch
with that period. So it's a safe atmosphere in which to do that. I would
think it would be a little more difficult do that kind of work in a convention
room where all of a sudden you're asked to suspend your disbelief and talk to
this person, to this puppet that happens to be on the wall where a painting
used to be. That might be a little tricker and take some pre-show stuff or
something to get you to buy into that. We have it very easy at the Club.
People walk in, they immediately know they are not in the real world, or in
real time. They don't always know where they are, but they know they're not
in the real world. And that helps us a lot.
Any other questions you have about that. Oh, and the other thing we don't
often think about at the Club as being a puppet or in this category but really
is, is our organ, who we call 'Fingers'. The theory is the organist was
playing and fell through the organ loft... from the organ loft, organ fell on
him, I don't know, he's dead, he's gone. Anyway, he possesses the organ, and
the organ plays by itself. The organ doesn't talk verbally but we can interact
with the organ and ask it questions and it will musically respond to us because
there is a live accompanist behind the wall who can watch us to a certain
extent. So that too is a puppet although it's not human looking or sounding.
As far at the potential of this goes, I said to Art and Christian before we
started, I'm kind of gonna play bad cop here (somebody should). I am a little
concerned about; very concerned about the potential of it and whether it will
replace actors. I'm happy to hear you say that it's a pain in the ass to do.
I get that it's going to open up a whole field of jobs for us; where I see it
immediately is in business theater, convention work, that kind of thing, theme
parks, and that's wonderful. It's going to be interesting to see how the
unions deal with that. But I am concerned, and maybe this isn't the specific
technology you're talking about but certainly could be an offspring, about the
idea about the idea of replacing somebody's face with someone else's on film,
and what comes to mind immediately is in Forrest Gump and Gary Sinese being
miraculously amputated at the knee, which you probably know he isn't. While I
can sit and say oh that's fascinating that they can do that and I applaud the
technology, it does concern me that there are challenged actors out there who
maybe not getting a shot because they're not from Steppenwolf and they're not
Gary Sinese, even though they could probably chew the scenery just as well as
he, and they don't have legs, they're not going to get a chance. Taken to the
nth degree it concerns me that we could get to the point, let's say, that we
want to use a black actor but he's a little too black, so we change that a
little bit. Or we want to use someone, an actor doing a dialect, but Brooke
Shields just can't get the Russian dialect quite well enough, so we have
someone dub it in and we electronically manipulate her mouth to make, you
know... this all concerns me because these are all things we take years to
study; well, not race, but technique are things we take years to study and
perfect, and it does concern me that that could be dismissed. I don't think
it's going to go that way but I think we should be aware that there's the
potential.
And to wrap up I guess, in all of this I have to hope that audiences in general
will always yearn for live performance. It was probably a concern when film
was first invented that stage actors all of a sudden thought, Oh God, are we
going to be displaced, why would they need us? And then television came in,
and films, and why would they need to come out of their homes? There will
always be concern in my mind that we as humans crave live performance. I think
we will, but it will never generate as much money as this kind of stuff because
they can't hit as many people at once. That's just the reality... the nature
of the beast. But so far we're surviving. It's tough out there, to find a
market for what we are trained to do, sometimes. So that's my concern and I
just want it to be out there, I worry about it, that's all.
I thought about Anne's remarks; something had tickled my brain as she said:
... very often it's helpful to have another actor/facilitator out there, and
that's something that might involve in your work, that you might find a need
to have an M.C. if you will, or a go between, who can act as a liaison between
the audience and the puppet.
There was a connection I was trying to make but I didn't figure it out until
many weeks later.
Art Dohaney was our next speaker. Art played several roles at "the Club" but
my favorite was visiting adventurer Emil Bleehall from the sister chapter in
Sandusky, Ohio (home of Cedar Point amusement park).
(
societyofexplorersandadventurers.fandom.com/wiki/Emil_Bleehall )
Art was masterful in this role. Some comedians work at getting people to like
them. Art would sometimes instead work at being disgusting. He had a "bit"
involving pantomiming taking something from his nose and examining it. It was
hilarious. This is risky business because a comedian needs some sympathy to
do the job. Emil was involved with a big show in the library, the Balderdash
Cup, and he had to win an audience vote to make the gag work. Art always
pulled this off, walking the line between likability and repulsiveness.
Also, I should mention that, unlike Anne and Kris, who I'd recruited, Art
asked to be involved in the panel.
Art came to the podium.
Adventurers Club performer Art Dohaney
Art Dohaney: Hi, I'm Art. Talk to you from I guess my experience from an
actor's point of view.
Myself and Anne and Christian work out at the Adventurer's Club; what we do is
interactive entertainment, interactive improvisation. We manipulate
animatronic characters; we have the advantage of seeing the guests and
reacting with them without them seeing us. We also portray live characters,
we don't just stand behind the scenes, we portray characters every night
throughout the Club, that live in the Club. We have a very personal
interaction with the guests. I've been doing this for about five years now;
it's been really a great learning experience, a lot more than I've learned
through my training.
What's exciting to watch, it's kind of from the sidelines, I'm very much
interested in computers, is to watch the technology as this things starting
to take off. The concern isn't for the lack of or for losing of jobs, the
concern is like, how do we get into that? Here I am, you know, I can do this,
where are we going to do this at. How can you use me.
I think right now it's got a long ways to go. I'm surprised it hasn't picked
up in theme parks as much as I'd think it would have. I mean, it just seems
like something they would love to have. Not necessarily for the animation,
that's a total other side, just speaking as of for entertainment value...
Conventions, and Online kiosks, 45 minutes to two hours to ride a 90 second
ride. why haven't they picked up on this. I find that very surprising. I
hope it picks up. I hope that the other uses for it do, also I understand
animations you are talking about is not in my field, but as far as live
entertainment, it's there. I think it needs some time to really begin, I
think there's a whole field of actors in here and in just about any major
city that are qualified actors. I think in something like this it's important
to get someone who is qualified, who is trained, and not have someone back
there who isn't. It's insulting, or whatever. There is a talent. Really as
far as my insights right now, that's about it. You need us!
There's two pools of talent; The animators and the technology, and then
there's the actors. This is definitely a technology that will bring us
together. And make the best of all of us.
Our next speaker was Richard Cray.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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