Siggraph 2006

Sorry it took so long for an update to this blog. I've been ridiculously busy with work this last week. I attended this year's Siggraph. Siggraph is the biggest annual computer graphics conference. My company sent me there to attend courses and listen to academia present their papers. I also had to spend one day at my company's booth to answer people's questions about our products. It was way too much learning for one week and my brain is pretty mushy right now.

Since I'm a firm believer in pictures here are a few things I saw at Siggraph this year.

These dots in the shape of a teapot were from a true 3d display. The dots are created by a 50,000,000 watt laser focusing on different positions in space and basically turning the air to plasma at those points.

This robotic hand was controlled by a camera was focused on my hand. The robot hand mimicked what I did with my hand.

This is a training simulation for heart surgeons. The control has very accurate force feedback.

This one was just fun. I got to build my own robot :)

The dark man in the foreground has a headband on. The headband has an array of 100x50 electrodes touching his forehead. He also has a camera attached to his head. The electrodes apply a mild shock in a way that allows blind people to see. I tried it out and it works!

There were a ton of other cool things on the floor, but that's all I'm going to cover for now.