Four world-premiere immersive experiences and the first-ever 55-seat venue for virtual reality storytelling in the VR Theater were some of the highlights of SIGGRAPH 2019.

The computer graphics community made it to Los Angeles, and the week-long conference also honors ‘Best of’ Industry with Premier Awards concluded with its highest attendance since 2013, boasting 18,700 global professionals in computer graphics and interactive techniques. The 46th annual SIGGRAPH has ended, the  47th annual SIGGRAPH conference will be held in Washington, D.C., 19–23 July 2020.

https://youtu.be/c52FYBwuqzs

On the conclusion of this year’s event, SIGGRAPH 2019 Conference Chair Mikki Rose said, “SIGGRAPH 2019 was a true spectacle for our community and I could not be happier for this event to have helped creators and scientists recharge and refuel for the year ahead. This year’s presenters delivered incredible content, once again, and I saw more young folks eager to learn than I’ve seen in my 17 years volunteering. I am so proud to be part of this global community and cannot wait to see it thrive for many years to come.”

Livestreams reached new audiences

SIGGRAPH 2019 played host to the latest innovations in art, science, technology, and more from over 700 presenters throughout its five-day stay in downtown L.A., and was enjoyed by an international audience from 79 countries. Representation out of six of seven continents included participants from the United States, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Nigeria, France, Brazil, China, and more. Not to be out done, this year’s Exhibition housed more than 180 diverse companies, each showcasing the latest in computer graphics hardware, software, and more. Select livestreamed sessions also reached an audience of nearly 20K additional viewers.

https://youtu.be/qEJnVDii8VU

Other highlights from the conference included a fireside-chat format keynote on career and industry from Executive Vice President of Production at Marvel Studios Victoria Alonso (watch the livestream); the presentation of over 150 research papers; four world-premiere immersive experiences from Walt Disney Animation Studios, Magic Leap, Epic Games, and Parallux and NYU Future Reality Lab; a one-night-only Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater event at Microsoft Theater.

https://youtu.be/V_hyMcb4Sjk

There was more, though. Events like the SIGGRAPH’s two-day Business Symposium; sneak peek Production Sessions focusing on not only film and games but prestige TV from Netflix and HBO; a Talk on foundational principles for “the metaverse” from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney; Tuesday night’s Real-Time Live! retrospective and live awards vote; the first-ever 55-seat venue for virtual reality storytelling in the VR Theater; and, a special session celebrating 40 years of the Facial Action Coding System, or FACS. Attendees also enjoyed digital art installations and the chance to create and make within the Experience Hall.

SIGGRAPH 2019 Conference Award Winners:

Art Gallery
Best in Show – “RuShi”
John Wong, John Wong Art

Art Papers
Best in Show – “CAVE: Making Collective Virtual Narrative”
Kris Layng, Ken Perlin, Corrine Brenner, and Sebastian Herscher, New York University / Courant and Parallux; and, Thomas Meduri, New York University / Courant and VRNOVO

Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater
Best in Show – “Purl” by Kristen Lester, Pixar Animation Studios (United States)
Best Student Project – “Stuffed” by Élise Simoulin of Supinfocom Rubika (France)
Jury’s Choice – “The Stained Club” by Mélanie Lopez of Supinfocom Rubika (France)
Audience Choice* – “Mayday – Final Chapter” by Muh Chen, Grass Jelly Studio (Taiwan)

Emerging Technologies
Best in Show – “Matching Visual Acuity and Prescription: Towards AR for Humans”
Jonghyun Kim, Michael Stengel, Ben Boudaoud, Josef Spjut, Kaan Akşit, David Luebke, Rachel Albert, Trey Greer, Ward Lopes, Zander Majercik, and Peter Shirley, NVIDIA; Jui-Yi Wu, NVIDIA and National Chiao Tung University; Morgan McGuire, NVIDIA and University of Waterloo; and, Youngmo Jeong, NVIDIA and Seoul National University

Immersive (Immersive Pavilion and VR Theater)
Best in Show – “Bonfire”
Larry Cutler, Eric Darnell, Wei Wang, Michael Hutchinson, and Nathaniel Dirksen, Baobab Studios

Real-Time Live
Best in Show and Audience Choice – “GauGAN: Semantic Image Synthesis With Spatially Adaptive Normalization”
Taesung Park, University of California Berkeley; Ting-Chun Wang, Chris Hebert, Gavriil Klimov, and Ming-Yu Liu, NVIDIA; and, Jun-Yan Zhu, MIT