Emerging Technologies at SIGGRAPH 2001

SIGGRAPH Overview

	October 02: Emerging Technologies
	Markus Vogl, Fort Lauderdale: Every year the Emerging Technologies showcase proves to be one of the most exciting parts of the annual ACM sponsored SIGGRAPH convention. This year was no different. The official SIGGRAPH press release stated: “This year’s installations extend the boundaries of man-and-machine integration.” Last year’s “Emerging Technologies” showed us many haptic interfaces. This year it seemed to be a more straightforward approach - from knocking on a window to arranging plastic blocks (to mix original music) to a completely automated photography robot, which selected its very own motifs. Emerging technologies yet again stuns and leads us into areas of the unknown and unexplored. Let me try to give you a comprehensive overview of hopefully all of the new Technologies starting with my favorites “The Interactive Window” and “Lewis the Robotic Photographer”.
	“The Interactive Window” is a common pane of glass turned into an interactive surface using simple passive acoustic pickup signals and a low–power microwave radar.The original motivation was to track the location of knocks on a virtual fish-tank. The first realization of the technique took place within the augmented Ping Pong table project, now presented at Ars Electronica. At SIGGRAPH 2002, Joe Paradiso and his team presented a bit more elaborated version, in which viewers could create interactive virtual artistic patterns by knocking and bashing on the window. For future application retail stores might use this technique. It could entice a new era of window-shopping where users can tap on the window to gain more information on a product. Joe Paradiso and his crew have demonstrated a technique to easily retrofit common windows for contact interactivity. The technique uses basic mathematical principles to determine the knock position through the time it takes to travel to one of the four corner microphones, it determines the type of impact and finally estimates the impact intensity.
	Next on our list is “Lewis the Robotic Photographer” Developed by Cindy Grimm at the Washington University in St. Louis; Lewis is a human-sized robot who acts like a photographer at a wedding. He roams through a pre-determined area and selects shots, which he determines to be valuable, e.g. a couple standing talking to each other. Over time the best shots are automatically accumulated into a photo album and participants can print selected shots or send the photo album electronically. It seems like robots can handle more and more complex tasks and industrial robots offer more and more value to humans by easing production and increasing productivity.
	Another MIT Media Lab technology at this year’s SIGGRAPH, was the “Public Anemone: An Organic Robot Creature” a robotic anemone like creature with an organic appearance and natural quality of movement. People can interact with the cyber flora and fauna of the robotic terrarium as it transitions from day to night accompanied by music and lighting effects. The terrarium consists of a pond of oil and multiple creatures including interactive tubeworms and multiple crystals. Users can interact with the environment through sophisticated real time stereovision, which controls 8 channels of audio and music, 40 color-controlled lights, 6 ultrasonic foggers. 1 waterfall pump, tubeworm capacitive sensors, tubeworm servo controllers, and pond grass lights. The robot itself has 13 degrees of freedom, 8 body stages and 5 tentacles. The actual skin is made of highly elastic silicone rubber. The more realistic robots in general will look, feel and move the more comfortable humans will be to interact with it. The technology implemented in this experience will improve the design and implementation of future use of robotics.
	“Smart finger” by Hideyuki Ando from the Japan Science and Technology Corporation is a brand new tactile display for augmented reality. Whoever is wearing the finger adapter actually gets a tactile feedback. It helps you feel textures as you trace your finger along an object and might have a future in extending the capability of visually impaired people.
	Teleexistence Wide-angle Immersive STEReoscope or shortly named “Twister” was another Japanese contribution, which showcased the first eyewear-free full color surrounding stereoscopic display. Developed to immerse two or more people into the same 3D virtual world (mutual teleexistence), it has full-color LED’s and a light barrier for stereopsis mounted on a cylindrical frame. Basically, you have to climb into this huge turning cylinder, in which you can communicate with multiple partners as if you were in the same room. Future plans are to improve upon the existing technology and to develop a High Definition display, for smooth communication all over the globe.
	“Ultrasound Visualization with the Sonic Flashlight” is the brainchild of Damion Shelton at Carnegie Mellon University. It is a handheld ultrasound device which allows the user to see the ultrasound pictures on a handheld device therefore the user would not have to redirect there eyes to view the work area on a separate monitor. It has the human body seem translucent right in front of your eyes.
	“Virtual Chanbara” Chanbara is the sword battle of the Samurai and this virtual display features a force-feedback device which actually let’s you feel the impact of the enemy’s hits and the force to block enemy’s attacks. It requires about a 100 square foot space and quite some rigging for the wires. The participant is equipped with 3D stereoscopic glasses and a flywheel and the virtual fight is displayed on a big drop screen. The showcase is fully networked and can be used for instruction or virtual tournaments.
	“The Virtual Showcase: A Projection-Based Multi-User Augmented Reality Display” presented by the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics showcased a projection based, multi-user, augmented reality display, which allows to present physical content, with overlapping virtual content. In essence physical models can be made visible and enhanced with virtual data, so for example a skull can be displayed with or without skin, showcasing muscle and bones. It has the same form factor than a real museum showcase, is presented on top of a pedestal, which is retrofitted with the display devices and speakers.
	“Nona Vision” is another new form of display, which combines nine rear projection screens. Images for the screens are captured by nine cameras mounted on a specially designed camera head. The display is mounted on a 360-degree turntable. The display rotates around the viewer so it always displays a full-surround image. Virtual travel might be one of its future uses, since resolution is high and it keeps viewers immersed in its surround view, older people or handicapped people, for whom it is more difficult to travel might prefer to experience certain destinations virtually rather than physically.
	A contribution of the Media Technik and Design University of Hagenberg showcased an interesting study of augmenting reality with sound. The user can directly manipulate the 3D sound sources and observe the results immediately. Imagine being able to virtually drag speakers around a room to hear their sound in respect to the room and the speaker’s placement. Another advantage of ASR is low cost. This system requires only a PC, a Web cam, and I-glasses.
	“Block Jam”, a Sony Corporation contribution, is a tangible interface and re-configurable input device for musical applications. This musical interface allows collaborators to use 24 tangible blocks to control phrases and sequences, the blocks can be moved and depending on the alignment one creates new mixes and develops new sounds. Imagine being at a party and instead of enjoying the interpretation of canned music through a DJ, you can interact with the DJ. Depending on your interaction, the music will flow a certain way and you and the rest of the crowd can influence the sounds. One of the Sony’s developers stated: ”We aim to move music media away from the personal and push it towards the social.”
	“Occlusive Optical See-through displays in a collaborative setup” is another display augmentation, where equipped with a rather large headset you had the chance to see virtual 3Dmodels, one can see through them and grab them as well as interact with your virtual partner.
	If you have been to Ars Electronica before you might have experienced their cave, and at this year’s SIGGRAPH Ars Electronica’s FutureLab presented the “ARSBOX”. As they have a lot of experience in cave developments, these particular improvements are geared towards economical decisions. Their custom projection based VR system keeps cost low, and is fully scaleable and upgradeable. The version showcased at SIGGRAPH had 3 displays and was controlled through a hand held palm device, specially geared to control content during a presentation. Medium sized companies might opt to present their content in a cave environment. That concludes my report from this year’s SIGGRAPH and I certainly hope to see you there next year. M.V.Vogl-Media Rep Fort Lauderdale Professional SIGGRAPH Chapter.