Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!suntc!jh34607
From: jh34607@suntc.UUCP (john howell)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics
Subject: Re: Best of 1989 SIGGRAPH
Summary: More Best of SIGGRAPH
Message-ID: <112@suntc.UUCP>
Date: 10 Aug 89 13:08:34 GMT
References: <89080823183434@masnet.uucp> <5056@alvin.mcnc.org>
Organization: Deere & Co. Technical Center, Moline,IL
Lines: 44


Just a couple of things I saw at SIGGRAPH that stood out to me.

Pixar's Renderman offering and Interface Specification is very
impressive.  I hope that the community embraces the sepcification with
or without Pixar's Renderer,  although the Pixar Renderer
(Photorealistic Renderman) can't be beat in final image quality.

There are a number of processors (boards) for PC's/Mac's that are
gaining popularity for doing things like rendering.
	Levco's Transputer Board for the Mac
	Pixar's Transputer Board for PC's
	Intel's i860 Development Board for AT Bus 386's running Xenix or OS/2
	and others

Everyone (workstation and terminal vendors) had 3D viewing using liquid
crystal shutter and polarized sunglasses ala Tektronix.

It seems like all the Workstations had a Torque Ball input device for 3D
viewing manipulation.  I had my hand on one for a minute, but not long
enough to fall in love ... it may just take some getting used to and I
_love_ the idea.

Several Booths had a 'data glove' demonstration where your hand could
become part of the graphics environment.  Very impressive, but not quite
practical ... yet.

The color copy people were out in force ... several 300 dpi thermal
transfer, Howtek's ThermoJet (which I like to call melted crayon
technology), but the most impressive in terms of qualtity was the Kodak
offering which was essentially photographic quality.

It seems like compositing Computer Graphic Images into live action is
finally practical and being done by several.  PDI did a Computer
Generated Train in live scenery for Japan railroad and Industrial Light
and Magic's Sea Water Creature looked right at home on the live Abyss set.

========================================================================
John Howell			uucp:		uunet!suntc!jrh
Deere & Company			MCImail:	360-4047
Technical Center		CompuServe:	[76666,2505]
3300 River Drive		FAX:		(309)765-3807
Moline, IL  61265		Voice:		(309)765-3784
========================================================================