From 27 to 30 November in Bangkok, Thailand, the tenth edition of SIGGRAPH Asia will showcase some of the world’s top professionals, academics and creative minds who are at the forefront of digital imaging, research, science, art, animation, gaming, interactivity, education and emerging technologies. The event is the region’s largest annual conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques. SIGGRAPH Asia will take place at the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre (BITEC) and is expected to attract 7,000 attendees from over 60 countries.
Themed- The Celebration of Life and Technology, the impetus behind this year’s conference and exhibition is to exhibit how human experience impacts and pushes the boundaries of digital imaging, research, science, art, animation, gaming, interactivity, education and emerging technologies.
“Over a decade, SIGGRAPH Asia has grown from a niche event to one of the largest computer graphics and interactive techniques conferences and exhibitions in the region. This year, we are proud to host SIGGRAPH Asia in Bangkok, which is home to one of the region’s fastest growing computer graphics and animation industries. It is a very exciting time to be in an industry that is evolving so quickly, where we are using technology to change the way we experience new things,” says SIGGRAPH Asia 2017 Conference chair and director Surapong Lertsithichai.
Over 600 speakers will be presenting. Notable panel and production sessions include:
- Opening Keynote- Seeing a Human Frontier: Albert Yu-Min Lin, research scientist and explorer, California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology @ UC San Diego, National Geographic Society
- Keynote 2- Still in Motion: Michael Cohen, director of the computational photography group at Facebook
- The Making of Pixar’s Coco: Pixar’s top artists and supervisors will discuss the artistic and technical challenges of creating the huge cast of characters, beautiful environments and epic crowds in the film, and how they brought the Land of the Dead to life
- The Making of Thor: Ragnarok: Marvel Studios, Framestore, Industrial Light & Magic and Method Studios will demonstrate their VFX journey of how they created some of Thor: Ragnarok‘s most heart-stopping moments;
- From Pepe to Piggy, the Evolution of Google Spotlight Stories: Piggy co-diretor Mark Ofteda will discuss the evolution of Google Spotlight Stories and the challenges of interactive storytelling in VR and 360-degree mobile
- Production Challenges and Lessons from making VR Films: Jaunt China CEO James Fong, Ido Banai, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Plenoptic Cognition and Jake Kahana, Co-founder of Caveday will delve into the production processes, experimental techniques and on the ground challenges of making story driven VR Films and life changing VR experiences;
- ILM presents Behind the Magic, the Visual Effects of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story: ILM associate visual effects supervisor Alex Prichard will discuss the Academy Award nominated effects work that went into Rogue One
- Unity presents Film-making in a Real Time Engine, the Making of ADAM– World premiere of ADAM episode three: Oats Studios VFX supervisor Chris Harvey and Unity field engineer explain what it took to make a nearly photoreal animation using photogrammetry, custom shaders and the Timeline feature
- Thailand Animation Studios Showcase: Top animation studios in Thailand will present case studies of some of their award-winning original animated contents and discuss how they keep up with the best of the animation industry around the world through their unique Thai style
Celebrate Life and Technology on the exhibition floor
A total of 73 exhibitors will participate in the SIGGRAPH Asia 2017 Exhibition. They come from 15 countries, including, China, France, India, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States. The Exhibition is a showcase of the latest developments in hardware and software applications in computer graphics and interactive techniques.
Of these, 53 are first-time exhibitors, including companies such as ArtFX, Epic Games, IKEA Communications, Luxion, NewOlderVFX, Ringling College of Art and Design, SOFA Framework, Unity Technologies and Yannix (Thailand).
The VR Showcase Program immerses visitors into virtual and augmented worlds to convey how virtual reality can be applied to fields such as healthcare and entertainment, as well as influence human interactivity and engagement.
A first for SIGGRAPH Asia, the Art Gallery Program will exhibit a special project titled Mind-Body Dualism. Created exclusively for SIGGRAPH Asia, this project is a collaboration between artists from Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and the Digital Museum of Digital Art (Dimoda) which tasked the artists to build an environment where artists from Southeast Asia could explore virtuality as a reflection of their physical worlds.
For academia and industry, the Technical Papers Program will feature the results of state-of-the-art research on topics of modelling and design to fabrication, from HDR imaging to novel displays and from physically-based animation to capturing faces, bodies, and hands, among others.
At the Workshops Program, participants are encouraged to actively discuss novel research ideas at three workshops: Data-Driven Animation, Artificial Intelligence MEETS Virtual and Augmented Realities and Digital Heritage and Innovative Collaborations.
