Sorry for the late post but I definitely will finish the 5-day season of this journey:)
In the morning I attended the studio course, which covers the GPU general computing discussion on Mobile phone. Personally I feel the presentation is not that clear for the technical detail, but definitely covers huge knowledge about what the GPGPU technology is like on the mobile device. Picture below illustrates the comparison of current different computing interfaces. I suppose if there is some heavy computation that do not need to be sent to the server to compute (like real-time tracking for the mobile system), utilizing the GPU for the task should be a good option.
Exhibition
Besides the academic mind mixing, another important platform is that the industrial companies show off of their “coming soon” technologies. Below are some high lights.
Qualcomm shows a lot of advanced computer vision technologies this year. Here is a cloud-based object recognition services for mobile devices. It will come with their new CPU so it may need to take a while.
USense is a startup targeting VR/AR experience. Applause for the Chinese start up in US! They purpose two systems. One for mobile, which have two camera inside the headset to help recognize the hand gesture. The wire version have two camera to sense the 3D world and a leapmotion sensor for hand gesture, I think.
Advanced VR Develop Experience Sharing
In the afternoon I attend the talk about VR application and experience. SONY discuss their learning from the new head set. To guide the user in a fully 3D environment, using 3D sound to drag the attention is very important since it is super easy to lose the focus of the story in 3D video. BTW, to enhance the VR experience, hand gesture, especially the grasp motion need to be efficiently detected.
Another one is to use the VR for realistic journal report. To create a new media to bring the audience to the scene of the crime or war zone to experience negative emotions. For the effects please refer to the Buzzfeed video below. Last is a start-up about a droid which can take 360 degree videos.
A secret everyone knows
I feel that I am lucky because I catch this chance. So every SIGGRAPH, pixar will send 1,500 renderman teapot (the shape of the famous Utah teapot) for anyone. Three days, each day 500. The wait list is crazy and normally the teapots will be gone in less than 15 minutes. Each teapot comes with a metal box and a unique ID for it. OMG, it really will be one of the thing that encourage me to go back here next year!
So if you want one, remember to check out with Pixar guys once the exhibition opens about the time. Oh, pixar also like to host renderman party during siggraph. This need invitation and also will be super easy to fill. So also ask the employee about how to register.
