.SIGGRAPH 2004.
Other .
Emerging Technologies Lab (Page01)




The Emerging Technologies Lab is always something I look forward to most at SIGGRAPH (description below). The past 2 years has seen a very large focus on HCI and this year there was a great deal on haptic interfaces.



Here are a few highlights which I wanted to draw attention to:

3D Spatial Narrative: "The Island of Misfit Toys"
By moving the screens around in a circle the viewer looks in on a frozen moment in time in a 3D space. The user gets a real sense of space. For more info click here.


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June (presented by the NFB)
I watched this presentation 3 times over the course of the week at SIGGRAPH and was moved every time (it has a personal significance to me). The animated 3D short (approx 6 mins) is scored by Philip Glass and was just presented at the Ottawa Animation Festival last week (Sep 22 - 26). It is a retrospective on the life of mixed-media artist Joyce June Wieland who died of Alzeihmers disease in 1998. It's place in the Emerging Technologies Lab is due to the technology used to create the animation. More info here and here.


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Remote Furniture
People sitting on 2 facing rocking chairs communicate and interact with one another through movement. A computer moderates the movements from one chair to the other (back and forth). For more info, click here.
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Swimming Across the Pacific
I thought this was the most gratuitous waste of technology and funding that I came across at SIGGRAPH. Then again, it looked interesting and had a ton of people lining up to see it. Once strapped in users used forced feedback devices (pullies etc) and a VR headset to interact with their virtual environment and swim across the atlantic. Click here for more.

More on Page 2 of Emerging Technologies Lab.


Interactive displays of assumption-shattering concepts that will enhance human life in the near and distant future. Installations of both technology and art created by scientists, engineers, and fine artists. What's next in augmented and virtual reality, ubiquitous computing, displays, hand-held devices, real-time graphics, mobile technologies, robotics, imaging technology, haptics, sensors, gaming, the web, wearable systems, visualization, collaborative environments, entertainment, and art.