SIGGRAPH 2004

By David Em, Alex Pournelle

August 30, 2004

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SIGGRAPH, short for the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Special Interest Group on Graphics, held its thirty-first annual conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center from August 8th to the 12th. The show drew 27,825 attendees, down from its high of nearly 50,000 seven years ago, but up from 17,000 two years ago.

SIGGRAPH remains the Mother of All Imaging Conferences (some might call it the Grandmother at this point), featuring a unique mix of science, art, commerce, and education. With a wide selection of panels, papers, films, and innovative exhibits, SIGGRAPH rarely disappoints.

Then and Now

A couple of decades ago, you could count on seeing a couple things at SIGGRAPH that had literally never been seen before in human history, such as textured 3D objects or hierarchical human animation.

Today, you're more likely to see a refinement of an existing technique, such as a new method to make zillions of simulated bubbles fizz in simulated 7 UP, or a new way to make simulated hair drape itself on simulated skin. These techniques are fascinating to specialists in the field, but they're at best sideshows for the rest of us.

SIGGRAPH 2004's total exhibition area was smaller than the hallowed days of yore, composed mostly of software companies, some boutique specialty hardware outfits, schools, and graphics board manufacturers. Walking the show's exhibit floor provides ample evidence that the industry's major players have changed in recent years. Where once SGI's purple, blue, and fuchsia workstations were literally ubiquitous on a vast show floor, this year they occupied only a small booth (last year they weren't even on the show floor, exhibiting in a hotel room across the street). Graphics card makers NVIDIA and ATI have replaced SGI as the 800 pound gorillas of the industry.

Industry Consolidation

One reason the show floor's smaller is that there's been considerable consolidation in both the hardware and software graphics industries over the last few years.

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