[HDRI] SIGGRAPH 2006

[Mark Banas (lists)]

On Aug 7, 2006, at 2:58 PM, Kirk Thibault wrote:

> How was it?
>
> -------------

Hi Kirk,

I personally thought it was huge, fun, interesting and exhausting all  
a the same time. Pretty much par for the course at SIGGRAPH...

The full-day HDRI session on Sunday was really packed (despite being 8 
+ hours) and had some interesting presentations of opinions, research  
and (games) industry uses, and the birds-of-a-feather was also well  
attended. I never got my press-pass for the conference (they've upped  
the requirements for what is "press"), so I was prevented from taking  
photos during the sessions and at the show floor... I did get some  
HDR shots around Boston, and I can post a link to those soon.

Some of the highlights of the conference (for me, a non-researcher)  
were:

- Finally got to meet Greg Ward in person, but he was always too  
swamped with groupies to have a real conversation with. ;-)

- Streaming HDR video (using the new MPEG-HDR codec) shown on the  
Brightside monitors!

- Well, actually seeing any HDR image on the Brightside monitors was  
just too cool for words. Helge thinks something similar will be mass- 
market available in just 2 years thanks to display industry trends!

- Erum Khan's presentation on Image-based Material Editing (on HDR  
images):
http://graphics.cs.ucf.edu/ekhan/project_ibme.htm

- I had a great opportunity to talk to Erik Reinhard about (among  
other things) what passes for "HDR" and tonemapping on Flickr (and  
that NYTimes article highlights this as well).

- The realization that lots of interested and talented people have  
"heard of" HDRI, but there really isn't a central gathering/ rallying  
point for people bridging the gap between research and commercial  
implementations.

- To this end, I talked to 5 vendors of photographic hardware and  
software to actively encourage them to add HDR capture/ input support  
to their imaging products. (Again, they've heard of it, but didn't  
know all of the immediately marketable uses and sales angles.)


Naturally, this is only what one guy saw while wandering from Sunday  
to Wednesday. I never did meet up with Jack or Mark from this list,  
but I'm sure they were at some of the same sessions.

-Mark