LAX

I'm at the airport, leaving Los Angeles. The plane has an hour delay, so I have a little time to reminis over this years SIGGRAPH conference. As always I had a great time. Highlights? Really enjoyed seeing a lot of artwork from the Blue Sky animation "Horton hears a Who", which apparently is not going to be published in a book. Saw a number of interesting technical talks, but now that the developments in the computer graphics world are mainly incremental with tiny steps, there was nothing shockingly new.

There were a few amazing images on display though: holographic computer prints! Not the way we (that is: Harris Kagan in his Holography lab at Ohio State in the late nineties) did it analog by multiple exposures of computer generated images printed on slides, but by printing directly on the photographic film. It actually turned out that the guys who were with the exhibit of these images had no idea how traditional holograhphy is done. The images were stunning, but I did not take pictures of them because they would not be able to display the dimensionality of the images

As far st the Art show goes: one installation stands out: "Echo Location" by Kirk Woolford (U.K.) and Carlos Guedes (PT). If you walked in front of it, it displays a cluster of white lines moving frantically over a background of what seems to be an old castle, moving through the door or window like opening. When you stand stand still long enough, the lines slow down and eventually form a human figure. I like the atmosphere of the piece

But the best part of the conference was meeting people and as always: being inspired by the strong computer graphics community!

It seems the delayed plane is finally at the gate, so I'm signing off!

You may wonder: how come he has internet at the airport. Well, I was quite suprised to find a "co_presidents_club" WiFi network, and even more so when it turned out to be open: no password. For those of you who may need internet at LAX: go to gate 60!