The latest innovations in art, science and technology are showcased both in implementation and presentations during a two-week virtual gathering of the global graphics community.
SIGGRAPH 2020, which was held virtually beginning August 17, concluded its week of live sessions with nearly 400,000 streams worldwide. Though no new content will air, registration will remain open through September 11 with content available to participants through October 27.
“SIGGRAPH 2020 was a huge testament to the strength and collaboration of the incredible graphics community,” commented conference chair, Kristy Pron. “While we love to gather in-person and many missed the chance to see old friends, our incredible contributors and exhibitors brought their A game to this online experiment, and I could not be happier to have presided over SIGGRAPH’s first virtual conference.”
The virtual event played host to the latest innovations in art, science, and technology from more than 1600 contributors across 700 presentations during its two-week release. It welcomed international audiences from 95 countries. Representation from six out of seven continents included participants from the United States, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, France, Brazil, Israel, China, and more. This year’s exhibition housed more than 80 diverse companies, showcasing the latest in computer graphics hardware, and software during custom virtual demonstrations and over 70 curated sessions.
Highlights from the conference included a keynote from New York’s magicLab executive and cyber illusionist, Marco Tempest; the presentation of 163 research papers and 69 posters; three world-premiere animated shorts in the Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater; the worldwide release of Magic Leap’s The Last Light, a VR Theater selection, and the unveiling of Felix & Paul Studios’ first AR Project, a collaboration with The Jim Hensen Company; a two-day diversity and inclusion summit; sneak peek production sessions and talks focusing on not only film and games but prestige TV and advertising; two retrospective panels celebrated pioneers from PDI (Pacific Data Images) and the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, respectively; and, the first-ever Real-Time Live! global broadcast.
SIGGRAPH 2020 conference award winners are:
ACM Student Research Competition
- First Place, Graduate – “Bound-constrained Optimized Dynamic Range Compression” by
Dorian Chan, Carnegie Mellon University - First Place, Undergraduate – “Non-photorealistic Radiance Remapping” by Kohei Doi, Kyushu University
Art Gallery
- Best in Show – “Cacophonic Choir” by Hannah E. Wolfe, Colby College; Sölen Kiratli, Media Arts and Technology Program (MAT), UCSB, University of California Santa Barbara; and Alex John Bundy, Planetarium Music
Art Papers
- Best in Show – “Enhanced Family Tree: Evolving Research and Expression” by Fan Xiang, Shunshan Zhu, Zhigang Wang, Kevin Maher, Yi Liu, and Zhiqiang Liang, Tsinghua University; Yilin Zhu, Stanford University; and Kaixi Chen, Beijing Yuguo Culture and Technology Ltd. Inc.
Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater
- Best in Show – Loop by Erica Milsom, Pixar Animation Studios (United States)
- Best Student Project – Gunpowder by Romane Faure of Supinfocom Rubika (France)
- Jury’s Choice – The Beauty by Pascal Schelbli of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg GmbH, Animationsinstitut (Germany)
- Audience Choice – To: Gerard by Taylor Meacham, DreamWorks Animation (United States)
- Special Recognition – Stem Cells: The Heroes in Crohn’s Perianal Fistula Treatment by Alan Smith, MadMicrobe Studios (United Kingdom)
Immersive (Immersive Pavilion and VR Theater)
- Best in Show – DeepView Immersive Light Field Video by Michael Broxton, Daniel Erickson, Jason Dourgarian, Jay Busch, Matthew DuVall, Matt Whalen, John Flynn, Ryan Overbeck, Peter Hedman, and Paul Debevec, Google Inc.
Real-Time Live
- Best in Show (Tie) –
- Interactive Style Transfer to Live Video Streams by Ondřej Texler, David Futschik, Michal Kučera, Ondřej Jamriška, Šárka Sochorová, and Daniel Sýkora, CTU in Prague, FEE; and, Menglei Chai and Sergey Tulyakov, Snap Inc.
- Volumetric Human Teleportation by Ruilong Li, Kyle Olszewski, Yuliang Xiu, Shunsuke Saito, and Zeng Huang, University of Southern California; and, Hao Li, University of Southern California, Pinscreen
- Audience Choice – DrawmaticAR – Automagical AR Content From Written Words! By Yosun Chang, AReality3D, Permute.xyz
To access on-demand SIGGRAPH 2020 content through September 11 register here.
Source: SIGGRAPH 2020
