CMIC staff and students head to SIGGRAPH 2018
A group of staff and students from Victoria University of Wellington’s Computational Media Innovation Centre (CMIC) is taking part in a series of international conferences and expos that describes itself as a “five-day immersion into the latest innovations in CG, Animation, VR, Games, Digital Art, Mixed Reality and Emerging Technologies”.
SIGGRAPH 2018 hosts up to 20,000 delegates from all over the world and involves research, hands-on demonstrations and collaboration opportunities for researchers and commercial businesses in those industries.
Associate Professor Rhee is involved in the SIGGRAPH 2018 held in Vancouver, Canada this month with a team of staff and students from CMIC and Associate Professor Rhee’s start-up DreamFlux. The team are taking part in the “Real-Time Live” event, where they will present their work on creating an “interactive mixed reality system” to audiences of 2000 people or more. Their technology blends virtual objects into live-streamed 360 degree video to enhance the user’s experience of being elsewhere during their VR experience.
Associate Professor Rhee said: “We are the only team of university students and staff among the top ten finalists of this year’s Real-Time Live. The event will provide an opportunity to promote Victoria University’s research potential and capacity in Computer Graphics, and Virtual and Augmented Reality, and show completeness and robustness of our implementation of VR/AR and Computer Graphics technologies.”
Professor Ken Anjyo, Director of CMIC, and Associate Professor Taehyun Rhee, Deputy Director of the CMIC, are also involved in the organisation of SIGGRAPH Asia, held in Tokyo in December 2018. Professor Anjyo is the General Chair of SIGGRAPH Asia 2018, and Associate Professor Rhee is Programme Chair of the VR/AR (Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality) programme of the event.
In a recent interview with Japanese magazine CGWorld, Associate Professor Rhee said:
“The AR/VR category is about stories, interaction, and technology. We want to encourage crossover work and collaboration between industries and bring together the latest research and technology.”