SIGGRAPH 98 Report
by Alan M. Shih
7/19/98 - 7/24/98
During the SIGGRAPH 98, courses and exhibitions were attended. I
was responsible to find out information on SGI's plans and specifications
of their NT-based workstations, as well as the exhibitions on speech recognition.
Unfortunately, there were no vendors presenting any speech-recognition
software, and SGI was not willing to reveal any information on their NT
workstation. Therefore, my report on the SIGGRAPH 98 will be covering
what I saw and what I think are interesting, without overlapping too much
with other members' reports.
Courses attended:
3D Geometry Compression: consists of many sessions stretching through the
first 3 days
JAVA 3D: attended the 2-hour introduction session.
Exhibitions:
3D Geometry Scanning
Geometry Manipulation Software
Sound Dome
ChromaDepth 3D
Haptic Devices
Displays
Graphic Cards
SGI NT-based Workstation
Speech Input
Hand Writing Recognition/ Devices
Pointing/ Input devices
3D Geometry Scanning
There are many interesting approaches on scanning 3D geometry into manipulatible
computer models. Some use laser technology, some use images from video/
camera, and some use touch probes. There were quite a few vendors
in the SIGGRAPH 98 exhibition area promoting their scanning equipment.
The following table lists those I could find.
Roland DGA Corporation
PICZA Digitizer |
Touch Probe |
Lower cost
slow, lower accuracy |
www.rolanddga.com |
Gentech
Gen-Trix |
Camera |
Lower cost
slow, more tedious |
www.gen.co.jp |
Gentech
Citi Builder |
Camera |
Based on series of arial photos of a city and position data for several
points of the target object, creates a 3D city model |
www.gen.co.jp |
| Real 3D, Inc. |
Camera/Laser |
Higer cost but Fast |
www.real3d.com |
| Virtual 3D Technologies Corp. |
Camera |
Reasonablly cost and speed but the unit is comparibly larger than other. |
www.virtual3dtech.com |
| Cyberware |
Camera/Laser |
Prices ranging from $23K to $410K based on the models. Fairly
fast scanning speed |
www.cyberware.com |
Immersion Corp.
MicroScribe-3D |
Touch Probe |
Prices ranging from $3K to $5K based on the models. Slow and
more tedious |
www.immerse.com |
| Geometrix, Inc. |
Camera |
Price around $10K.
Reasonable scanning speed. |
www.geometrixinc.com |
Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd.
CyberModeler |
Camera |
Slower, works for only convex geometry. Concave geometry is still
under work. |
www.sibdaily.com |
| Polhemus Inc. |
Laser |
Fast, hand-held |
www.polhemus.com |
| Visual Interface, Inc. |
Camera |
Fast, hand-held |
www.visint.com |
Geometry Manipulation Software
There were several vendors demonstrating geometry manipulation software.
Most of these software are intended for artists to do animations.
However, the underlaying technology for most of these software are based
on NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline) formulations. NURBS is a
scalable mathematical representation that can be used to represent curves,
surfaces, volumes, or beyond the fourth dimension. NURBS is
a well-researched topic and references/books for it can be found easily.
Most software offer the ability to import a geometry model or a set
of points. The imported data can be converted to a set of control
nets which allows the user to manipulate the geometry without losing the
fidelity of the geometry definition.
Other than the bundled software that come with scanning hardware, the
following vendors offer such software separately:
Sound Dome
Brown Innovations demonstrated their "Localizer" sound dome, which provides
clear audio to the person standing under the dome. The sound fades
away very rapidly when the person step away from the dome. This provides
a localized sound presentation without disturbing others in the same room.
For more details, you can visit their Web site at http://www.purestereo.com
ChromaDepth 3D
This is a way to create 3D images with "nomal" look without the glasses,
but jump into 3D with the glasses. Though this particular item may
not have much value in scientific visualization, but it is an iteresting
item for toys and for entertaining purpose. The lenses create the
stereo illusion by shifting the image colors in different direction for
each eyes. The depth is encoded by the color and decoded by the optics.
The choice of the background color determines the colors should be used
to achieve the 3D effect. If black background color is choosed, for
example, objects in red color will appear closer to the eyes and objects
in blue color will be the most background objects. For more information,
http://www.chromatek.com
Haptic Devices
The word "haptic" derives from a Greek word "haptein", which means "Relating
to or based on the sense of touch" A haptic device is one that
simulates the sense of touch by supplying output to the user in the form
of force, or haptic, feedback. Large forces are produced by "force
feedback" devices and affect the finger and hand position and movement.
Small scale forces are produced by "tactile" devices and affect the skin
surface by stretching and pushing it.
There were several vendors presented their devices. Detailed report
can be found in Alan's (Craig) report. Following are some interesting
devices other than those Cybergloves or PHAMToMs.
| University of Tsukuba (Japan) |
Haptic Screen |
A projector located above a elastic screen which has an
array of 6x6 linear actuators beneath it. Each actuator has force
sensor that responds to the force applied by the user. Image of virtual
object is projected on the elastic surface so that the user can directly
touch the image and fells rigidity. |
intron.kz.tsukuba.ac.jp |
Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics
(Japan) |
Foot Interface:
Vibration Slippers |
A research project by Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics, this interesting
device allow a user to step on virtual roaches projected on the floor and
feel the vibration |
lapalce.photo.t-kougei.ac.jp |
Tokyo Institute of Polytechnics
(Japan) |
SPIDAR: Spatial Interface Devices |
Connected with cable, pulley and motor, a user can move with the cube
space to "push" (and feel the feedback force) the virtual objects |
Dr. Makoto Sato
msato@pi.titech.ac.jp |
Displays
There were several interesting display technologies appeared in SIGGRAPH
98. Other than HDTV and Paroram-style display, there are several
items worth noting:
| echtzeit GmbH, Berlin |
Virtual Head |
Designed to enhance communication in virtual environments
and telepresence. It renders a 3D images of every conference partner
in real time. the head movements are captured by a tracing system.
Compressed video and audio infomration are exchanged via a high band-width
network. |
www.3dmedia.com |
| Sanyo Multimedia Center USA |
3D Display System |
Overlayed with double image spliters behind and in front of, images
on the LCD panel are separated to supply crosstalk-less 3D images without
special glasses. A head-tracking system expands the stereoscopic
area without special attachment to viewer |
toobase@aol.com |
| Dimensional Media Associates, Inc. |
High Definition Volumetric Display (HDVD) |
This patented technology produces true 3D arial images without using
lasers and without requiring users to wear special eyeglasses or VR headsets.
This is a device that might benefit scientists in visualizing their data
in a different way. I will look into this device more closely. |
www.3dmedia.com |
| TAN Projektionstechnologie GmbH & Co KG, Germany |
Grahic Projection Displays |
European version of CAVE and Immersadesk |
www.tan.de |
Graphic Cards
I got many brochures on graphic cards. Whoever is interested is welcome
to come and have them.
SGI NT Workstation
Unfortunately, SGI has not released any information on its NT workstations
as anticipated.
Speech Input
After scouting the exhibition halls twice, I still could not find any vendor
demonstrating speech recognition technologies or related software.
However, I did find some vendors with hand writing recognition software.
Hand Writing Recognition/ Devices
A vendor selling a light pen and touch pad demonstrated their hand writing
recognition software. The result was interesting, but the error rate
was still high, and the recognition process is still CPU-intensive that
takes a significant time to process the 7-character word. Speech
and hand writing recognition can be the driving forces to push the demand
for faster CPUs on personal computers.
Pointing/ Input Devices
Dr. Sibert at George Washington University presented his finger-mounted
pointing device. This device emits signals to the sensors mounted
on the frame of a display. The focus position is calculated based
on the signals gathered from these sensors on the frame. It gives
relatively accurate position at optimal position. However, this research
device is still not for practicle usage as the accuracy drops dramatically
when the finger is moving close or away from the optimal distance.
Also, it may cause fatique problem when wearing such device on the finger
for typing and pointing. For more information, please visit Dr. Sibert's
web site: http://www.seas.gwu.edu/faculty/sibert
There is another unique input device called Touch Cube that claims to
allow users achieving high-precision 3D input via multiple finger movements.
Information can be obtained from their web site: http://www.ituresearch.com