San Jose - Sunday

We decided not to go to the amusement park as it turned out to be miles away. Instead we decided to just hang out in downtown San Jose instead. The jazz festival is on so lots of people , closed roads, stalls and of course jazz.

First stop was the San Jose Museum of Art. Some very nice stuff here. The big exhibit was by Martin Ramirez but that didn't appeal to me so much. The stuff by Camille Rose Garcia was fantastic, pop surrealism with Goth overtures. Also a nice piece by Vik Muniz who makes images using everyday objects in a mosaic-like effect.

After the museum we had lunch at Gordon Biersch, we sat in the sun, drinking beer and listening to jazz.

From lunch we headed over to the Children's Discovery Museum. This is an amazing place full of interactive displays. The water area with the whirlpools and the soap bubble displays were very cool. Full of kids so we didn't get to play with too many of the things :)

All sunned out we headed back to the hotel. Got our meeting with Sun tomorrow before heading back to Auckland. Supposed to be meteor showers tonight will see if we can see em thru the light pollution.

Saturday in San Fransisco

Up at 7:30, quick breakfast on paper plates (classy joint this) and then hopped in a cab downtown to get the Greyhound bus. Unfortunately the bus was going be an hour late so we hi-tailed it down to the train station and just managed to get the 9:00 train to San Fransisco.

The train was one of those Amtrack style double-decker ones. It got really packed out because there was a big Giants game on in San Fransisco.

The weather was looking a little overcast but it did clear up although it was quite windy. The train station was in a rougher part of time but once we made our way to the center of town things started to look up.

We got onto one of those hop-on-hop-off buses and did the first half of the tour and then got off at fisherman's pier. The place was packed with lots of attractions, shops and restaurants. We went onto Hyde Street pier. It is a museum with heaps of restored ships and people in period costumes. It also had good views of the bridge and Alcatraz.

From the pier we wondered around a bit more taking in the sights, eventually landing up at the musee mecanique. It has tons of antique penny arcade machines and heaps of classic (and original) arcade games such as Pong, Star Wars, Moon Patrol and Millipede.

Outside of the museum alongside the pier was a WWII sub, the "USS Pampanito" and a WWII Liberty ship called the "Jeremiah O'Brien". These ships only took 60 days to build. Apparently they built them faster then the Germans could sink them !

Got back on the bus for the second half of the tour. It took about an hour. We had a quick look at the Disney store near Union Square and then headed back to the train station to get the train to back to San Jose. The trip took about 1hr and 45 minutes.

We had dinner at the "Old Spaghetti House", the food was pretty good and three courses for only 10bucks ! Then back to the hotel. Might go to the amusement park tomorrow..

Friday in San Jose

With SIGGRAPH over we have flown up to San Jose. US airport security sucks you even have to take your shoes off and put them thru the x-ray machine !

San Jose is big and our hotel is little out of the way. The gift basket was a bag of lollies and microwave popcorn. Excellent. I really get the feeling you need a car to get around this place. It is also very very hot here I think I even got a bit sunburnt.

Our first stop after checking in was the flea market. Its supposed to be the biggest in the world only about 400 of the stalls are open on a Friday so it wasn't to busy. Apparently 2000 stalls are open on Saturday and Sundays !

After that we caught a cab into the downtown area of San Jose and went to TheTech museum of innovation. This is a create place with almost all the displays being interactive in a way and all to do with technology. We only had a hour before they closed so rushed from one place to another.

From there we wandered around the downtown area for a bit and had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. The food was very good.

Headed home for an quite night as we are planning a day trip to San Fransisco tomorrow. Gonna try get a Greyhound bus, how American is that :)

Last day of SIGGRAPH

I'm absolutely knacked, was awoken by a trains horn at 4:30am it just kept going and going for about 10 minutes !

First session of the day was a set of paper presentations all on "Image Based Modelling". Some very cool ideas here.

The first was videograph which allows a user to extract a 3D model from video. It very easy to use, basically the user just draws rectangles (and other shapes) to define areas they want to extract (say the bonnet, doors, wheels etc of a car) and then in each frame of video they adjust the points to their correct positions or add new points as more of the object becomes visible. A simple click later and the software creates a textured 3D model that can be used in games or to add into other video clips.

The second paper covered the building of a 3D model of a building just from a picture of its facade. It also was able to generate a grammar describing the building so a procedural engine could be used to build new buildings in the same style. This was done by some of the guys who did the urban design and procedural modelling course, on day 2, that I attended.

The last two papers both covered the generation of accurate tree models from photographs. It was interesting to see the different approaches taken and how they affected the final tools.

The last session of the day was a "sketches" session in which quick overviews of technologies or techniques are given. The one I went to was titled "Drat more rats" and was given by the Pixar guys about all the new technology they used to do their new Ratatouille movie. Some very interesting soft body dynamics and fluid simulations going on here. Hopefully this movie's story line is good because the visuals are fantastic.

It was really interesting to see how much simulation is used to generate today's 3D animations but how the holy grail seems to be to still give artists control of the process so that the simulations can be direct for arts sake.

Another dinner

Trying to cut down on our overeating Young and I shared a pizza... big mistake. Turns out a Chicago style pizza is actually more like a pizza cake...


I'm so full I'm gonna explode !

Day four of SIGGRAPH

We headed back to the convention center at 8:00 for our first session. This one titled "Digital Art Techniques". It discussed the merging of computer science and art. The first part was present by Kenneth Huff, an artist who uses digital tools to create super high quality prints and animations. Some fantastic images and a good overview of his approach and techniques.

The second and third parts covered VJaying and the technical and artistic issues with live performances. Some very nice visuals in this one. I particularly liked the visualizations generated as a backdrop, as a concert pianist gave a performance, by using data from his EEG.

The last part was all about interactive art installations some very interesting ideas there.

The second session for the day was on interactive technologies. Lots of discussion on touch technologies (like Microsoft's surface) and the issues with gesture based devices, accuracy and user interfaces.

Some very interesting demos by a Microsoft researcher. I really liked the one that projected a game screen onto a table top. In the game you got to drive little micro-machine dune buggies around. Also above the table was a 3D camera. If you added things to the table (like hills made out of folded cardboard or your hand) the3D camera would add them as terrain to the game and your buggies would then drive over them or ramp off them. Very cool demo.

There was also a presentation by a guy from the company that makes interactive whiteboards on some of their technology and some of the giant wall sized installations they have done.

Tonight is the SIGGRAPH reception. Should be good.

Dinner in the USA

Last night we had dinner at the Kansas City Barbeque. Food on paper plates, beer by the jugful , half a cow on the plate and everthing covered in BBQ sauce :)

Turns out the place was the location for the "sleezy bar" bar scene in Top Gun. All the staff had Top Gun t-shirts and pictures of F-14s were painted on the wall.

Here some pics....