The great Dan Garza has made his way back to Siggraph this year and we’re delighted to have him provide his thoughts on Siggraph ‘07. As you recall, Dan was one of our student bloggers back at the ‘05 show in LA and did a great job. So, we’ve invited him to give his thoughts on this years show, so, without further ado:

The last time my hawaiian patterned eggplant physique swaggered into SIGGRAPH was two years back. We had won a national competition and best in show at a film fest and were flown to LA. A lot has changed.

Quick recap LA ‘05 through my eyes:

-Sensory overload phase: Flashy lights, first rate hotel, VIP parties, gifts, industry give-a-ways, dancing, drinkin’ to the point of blurry and new friends. Woo-hoo! more

If you hurry (you have until 2 p.m. today) down to the bowels of the San Diego Convention Center (rooms 15 and 16 on the Mezzanine Level), you can still enjoy the Guerilla Studio experience, make some art, meet some collaborators, or just goof around.

With Gibson guitars wailing in the background, I discovered artists, students, and curiosity seekers “playing with lots of cool toys,” as one of them described it. Down there earlier, I watched a young man get his face scanned using a Polhemus handheld scanner so that he could “play with myself,” so to speak, using animation software. I also watched artists sketching on Wacom tablets, people animating stacks of colorful teacups, folks printing out all sorts of CG drawings, sketches, and previsualizations, and I listened in as artists hotly debated new ways to animate organic shapes to do all sorts of “reverse engineering,” whatever that is. In other words, this is the colorful, expressive, and free little corner of Siggraph where anything goes. more

One of the great joys of each Siggraph is the hodge-podge of hopeful students and professionals that gather in the juried Emerging Technologies pavilion. Described by the Siggraph organizers as chock full of “Digital innovations that change the way we work, live, and play”, the exhibits are mostly fresh out of the R&D labs and university computer science departments. (See http://www.siggraph.org/s2007/attendees/etech/ for more.)

In the darkened hall, you‘ll find pools of light shining on hardware and software galore: 3D displays, robotics, input devices, interaction techniques, computer vision, sensors, audio, speech, biometrics, wearable computing, scientific visualization, and more. more

Finally got a chance to sneak over to the Electronic Theater at the San Diego Civic Center Theater last night for the 7pm showing. As with every Electronic Theater from Siggraph’s of yesteryear, the pre-show is just as entertaining as the actual clips.

For ‘07 the committee offered a tribute to some of the ground-breaking innovations in game technology–from the ’80s. They projected three different laser-based Atari games onto the huge movie screen and invited industry pros to try their hand at the joystick classics. more

More Siggraph news from our ongoing virtual press conference

Autodesk, Inc. extends its congratulations to all recipients of this year‘s Autodesk Masters awards. Through this annual program, Autodesk recognizes exceptional Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya software artists and technical specialists whose work and dedication have significantly contributed to the advancement of computer graphics. The 2007 Autodesk Masters were announced yesterday at Autodesk‘s SIGGRAPH User Group meeting. more