The 15th edition of SIGGRAPH Asia, ACM SIGRAPH’s annual conference and trade exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques in Asia, is underway at EXCO in Daegu. Celebrating the theme Colourful World, the four-day event will welcome some of the most influential technology leaders in the world.
Attendees from around the world are expected to convene at SIGGRAPH Asia over four days to get a preview of unprecedented advancement of technologies post-pandemic. “Daegu Convention and Visitors Bureau is incredibly thrilled to be the host city for SIGGRAPH Asia 2022. Following two years of halt on all large trade conferences and exhibitions, the return of events such as SIGGRAPH Asia is exactly what our city needs. We are looking forward to welcoming thousands of visitors from all corners of the globe as they share the inspiring advancement in animation and technology. We are also excited about the opportunities to all our local partners, businesses and even job opportunities presented as a direct result of SIGGRAPH Asia,” said Daegu Convention and Visitors Bureau CEO Charlie Bae.
SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 is led by professor Soon Ki Jung. He is supported by a team of stellar experts chairing disciplines across art gallery, business and innovation symposium, computer animation, courses, emerging technologies, featured sessions, games, technical communications, technical papers, real time live and XR.
Jung said, “SIGGRAPH Asia 2022 is about celebrating our ability to interact, collaborate for the first time with our peers after two years of travel disruptions. While we saw unprecedented technological acceleration during the pandemic, nothing replaces the power of a physical event to foster the spirit of innovation. We are proud to be hosting SIGGRAPH Asia in Daegu and showcasing the future of technologies in the field of entertainment and its impact on our daily interactions.”
Three distinguished speakers have been invited to deliver keynote speeches. Award-winning artificial intelligence and technology revolutionary Renault chief scientific officer Dr. Luc Julia will share his expertise on There is no such thing as Artificial Intelligence, opening up the conversation around false narrative associated with AI and implications of abandoning all research in this field and threatening advances in disciplines such as machine learning or deep learning.
- Dr. Julia will be delivering his keynote speech tomorrow Wednesday 7 December at 10:00 am – 11:00 am KST at Auditorium, level 5, west wing.
d’strict chief executive officer of award-winning Sean Lee will bring to the forefront discussions on the topic of Changes in the Visual Arts Market Brought About by Immersive Content Technology. Lee’s celebrated and mesmerising immersive content has changed the nature of public art projects. He will share his vision on expanding the art experience through new technologies like crypto.
Lee will be delivering his keynote speech on Thursday 8 December at 10-11 am KST at Auditorium, level five, west wing.
The third speaker, another industry heavyweight, is Naver Z Corporation CEO DaeWook Kim. He will tackle the keynote topic of Empowering creators with technology in the Metaverse. Kim will inspire delegates on how creators can unlock the infinite possibilities presented in the Metaverse with technological advancements in computer vision and motion AI.
- Kim will be delivering his keynote speech on Thursday 8 December from 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm KST, Auditorium, level 5, west wing.
SIGGRAPH Asia Conference Featured Sessions
Major breakthroughs in the field of graphics and interactive techniques by some of the world’s leading tech giants and companies at the forefront of research, development will be hosting the featured sessions. Award-winning Christophe Hery from Meta Reality Labs Research will be hosting a panel discussion featuring pioneers in the field of telepresence and autonomous agents, as well as visual effects and metaverse practitioners. Featured speakers include:
- Digital Domain U.S.A. technical supervisor Melissa Cell
Digital Domain has been creating top notch, realistic digital humans for over 15 years, bringing characters such as Benjamin Button, Thanos, and She-Hulk to life for the big and small screen, and their expertise in this area has allowed them to go even further. Cell will highlight how the digital human group leveraged technology and workflows that were originally developed for VFX film productions to breathe life into autonomous virtual characters like Zoey, one of the most advanced autonomous virtual humans.
- The University of Sydney Australia co-director Motus Lab Dr. Mike Seymour
Using technical examples, the talk will discuss some of the obligations the industry has in its relationship with actors, issues of data ownership and allowing the creative team to maintain authorship and direction of the performances in this new open green fields area of machine learning driven digital humans.
- Epic Games U.S.A. director of engineering Jihun Yu
Metahuman is a complete framework that gives power to create and use highly realistic digital human characters. The team will present the core computer graphics and machine learning technologies utilised in the pipeline to bring the metahuman creator and mesh to metahuman technology to end users.
More featured sessions can be found on their website.
SIGGRAPH Asia Exhibition and Experience Hall
The three-day SIGGRAPH Asia Exhibition, held from 7-9 December 2022 will offer attendees a glimpse of innovative future technologies that could soon be used in the commercial and consumer space.
There will be more than 50 exhibiting companies and brands from 11 countries and regions at SIGGRAPH Asia 2022. These include Adobe, AMD, Amazon Web Services, Autodesk Korea, CLO Virtual Fashion, Copresence AG, Dexter Studios, Foundry, Fox Renderfarm, Google Research, Industrial Light & Magic, IO Industries, Leaders Systems, NCSoft, Pixar’s RenderMan, Qualisys, Rotomaker, Ritsumeikan University, Seoul Robotics, SideFX, Vicon Motion Capture, Visol, X, inc., Xencelabs / XP-Pen, to list a few.
The Experience Hall within the exhibition space is also home to the art gallery, emerging technologies, and extended reality (XR) immersive programs.
Key highlights include:
- Showcase of the Computer Graphics ecosystem:
Animation and visual effects, augmented reality, cloud-based systems, computer graphics, interactive and innovative technologies, gaming technologies, imaging, virtual reality and simulation, visualisation and more. - Live demonstrations and workshops
- The Incubator for the CG start-up scene
(The article has been written by Animation Xpress head – editorial response team and communications solutions Neha Mehta)