East Coast Researchers Showcase Breakthrough Technologies at SIGGRAPH in Boston

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 27, 2006--The SIGGRAPH 2006 Emerging Technologies exhibition will showcase several leading East Coast researchers, scientists, and pioneers demonstrating the next forefront interplay between humans, digital systems, and interactive technologies.

Emerging Technologies features a broad range of installations from research labs, universities, independents, and industry giants. Of 110 international submissions, 36 installations were selected to be showcased at SIGGRAPH 2006 and eight of those are East Coast contributors. In addition to the hands-on display, each contributor will give a presentation to illustrate their installation and research at SIGGRAPH 2006.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will showcase three accepted submissions at the exhibition. Walter Dan Stiehl brings The Huggable: A Therapeutic Robotic Companion for Relational, Affective Touch to SIGGRAPH 2006. It features a new type of robotic companion inspired by pet therapy research. Unlike current robotic companions, The Huggable features a full body sense of touch, silent, smooth, voice-coil actuators, and an embedded PC with networking capabilities to communicate between the robot and the nursing home or hospital staff. Tangibles at Play, by MIT's Angela Chang integrates art, design and education to reveal new perspectives on how we use our hands and peripheral senses to understand information. And lastly from MIT, Takehiko Nagakura will present an interactive space browser for architectural designs called Deskarama.

New York City's Jefferson Han of Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences will present Multi-Touch Interaction Wall at SIGGRAPH 2006. This installation is a 16-foot-long rear-projection interaction wall that can accurately detect multiple points of contact from any number of users simultaneously.

From Upstate New York, Young-Seok Kim, of the Virtual Reality Laboratory of the State University of New York at Buffalo, will bring Fingertip Digitizer: Applying Haptics and Biomechanics to Tactile Input Technology. This technology is a novel fingertip-mounted haptic sensing digitizer that captures the physical phenomena at the fingertip during a user's tactile activities.

Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL) in Cambridge, MA, had two if its cutting-edge technologies accepted. Ramesh Raskar will present Instant Replay, a real-world, slow-motion instant replay for table game air-hockey. His new space labeling technology tracks the pucks with a high degree of accuracy and speed in natural illumination without visible tags. Submerging Technologies by MERL's Paul Dietz consists of three interactive water displays: a tantalizing fountain which withdraws when a hand comes near, a musical harp which has water "strings", and a liquid touch screen. By exploiting the electro-optical properties, the water itself serves as a sensor.

In addition, Harvard University's Song Zhang will present a geometry video acquisition system that measures absolute motions of both geometric shape and positions of deformable objects in real time to generate geometry videos and to find potential applications in various fields. The data acquisition speed is 90fps and 266,000 points per frame. This technology is called High-resolution, Real-Time-Geometry Video Acquisition System.

For more information on the Emerging Technologies Exhibition visit http://www.siggraph.org/s2006/main.php?f=conference&p=etech.

SIGGRAPH 2006 will bring an estimated 25,000 computer graphics and interactive technology professionals from six continents to Boston, USA for the industry's most respected technical and creative programs focusing on research, science, art, animation, gaming, interactivity, education, and the web from 30 July to 3 August 2006. SIGGRAPH 2006 includes a three-day exhibition of products and services from the computer graphics and interactive marketplace from 1-3 August 2006. More than 250 international exhibiting companies are expected. Registration for the conference and exhibition is open to the public.

ACM SIGGRAPH, the leading professional society for computer graphics and interactive techniques, sponsors SIGGRAPH 2006.