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| SIGGRAPH E-Tech | |
|---|---|
| Name | SIGGRAPH E-Tech |
| Status | Active |
| Genre | Technology demonstration |
| Venue | Various |
| Location | Various |
| Country | International |
| First | 1990s |
| Organizer | Association for Computing Machinery |
SIGGRAPH E-Tech SIGGRAPH E-Tech is an annual demonstration program held alongside the SIGGRAPH conference that showcases cutting-edge computer graphics and interactive techniques from industry and academia. The program highlights innovations presented at venues like Los Angeles Convention Center, Vancouver, Baltimore, and Anaheim and attracts participants from institutions such as MIT, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, and corporations like NVIDIA, Intel, Microsoft Research, Sony, and Adobe Systems. Presentations often bridge advancements reported at conferences such as CHI, NeurIPS, ICCV, CVPR, and Eurographics.
E-Tech traces roots to early demo programs associated with ACM SIGGRAPH in the 1990s and grew amid parallel developments at Eurographics and the IEEE Computer Society. Early showcases featured prototypes from laboratories including Xerox PARC, Bell Labs, Apple Computer, and Pixar Animation Studios and paralleled milestones like the debut of RenderMan, the rise of OpenGL, and the proliferation of GPU acceleration technologies from ATI Technologies and NVIDIA. The program evolved alongside exhibitions at trade shows such as COMDEX, CES, and SIGGRAPH's own Computer Animation Festival, absorbing influences from events like the World Wide Web Conference and IETF-related demonstrations. Over time, collaborations with research bodies such as NSF, DARPA, European Research Council, and companies participating in W3C working groups shaped the content and selection strategy.
E-Tech aims to spotlight prototype systems, experimental hardware, and novel software from entities including Google Research, Facebook Reality Labs, Amazon Web Services, Apple Inc., IBM Research, and research groups at Cornell University, Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, and University of Toronto. The scope spans areas represented in journals and conferences like ACM Transactions on Graphics, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, SIGGRAPH Asia, ICLR, SIGCHI, SCA, and Eurographics Symposium on Rendering. E-Tech serves practitioners from studios such as Industrial Light & Magic, Weta Digital, DreamWorks Animation, Blue Sky Studios, and Laika, while engaging standards bodies like Khronos Group and initiatives such as OpenXR.
E-Tech presentations take varied formats familiar to attendees of SIGGRAPH, TED, Strata Data Conference, and GTC: live demos, poster-like kiosks, staged performances, and lightning talks. Contributors from labs like Microsoft Research Redmond, Google DeepMind, Adobe Research, Unity Technologies, and Epic Games present alongside startups incubated at Y Combinator, Techstars, and Plug and Play Tech Center. Demonstration types encompass hardware prototypes from firms such as Qualcomm, ARM Holdings, Razer, and HTC VIVE; software showcases leveraging frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, Keras, Unity, and Unreal Engine; and multidisciplinary installations involving collaborators from Smithsonian Institution, Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and The Getty.
Historic E-Tech exhibits have previewed innovations comparable to breakthroughs from Pixar, Lucasfilm, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and Industrial Light & Magic including real-time ray tracing akin to Path Tracing demonstrations, novel display systems reminiscent of projects from MIT Media Lab, Hasso Plattner Institute, and Fraunhofer Society, and haptics work reflecting advances at SRI International and Boston Dynamics. Noteworthy demos have featured volumetric capture systems comparable to those at Microsoft Research and Disney Research, machine-learning-driven animation techniques seen in publications at SIGGRAPH Asia and NeurIPS, and augmented-reality applications related to Magic Leap, HoloLens, and Google Glass. Other spotlighted technologies echo research from Brown University, University of Washington, ETH Zurich, Max Planck Institute for Informatics, and Tohoku University.
The program is curated by committees appointed by ACM SIGGRAPH and involves reviewers drawn from schools and companies like University of Southern California, Georgia Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Oracle, SAP, Facebook AI Research, and Apple Labs. Submissions are evaluated using criteria paralleling peer review at venues such as ACM SIGGRAPH Papers, Eurographics Papers, and CHI Papers, with attention to novelty found in work from MIT CSAIL, Berkeley AI Research, Princeton Robotics, and Caltech. Sponsors and partners including Intel Labs, NVIDIA Research, AMD, and Google Cloud often support logistics and infrastructure for demonstrations.
E-Tech has influenced product roadmaps and academic directions in ways comparable to impacts attributed to RenderMan adoption, CUDA proliferation, and OpenGL evolution, informing work at companies like Autodesk, Foundry, SideFX, and Adobe. Technologies previewed at E-Tech have seeded collaborations between institutions such as MIT Media Lab and firms like Epic Games, catalyzed startup formation akin to trajectories seen with Magic Leap and Oculus VR, and informed standards efforts at Khronos Group and W3C. The program also fosters cross-pollination with applied research programs funded by agencies like National Science Foundation and industry consortia including MIPI Alliance and IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee.
While E-Tech itself is primarily a demonstration venue, participating projects and contributors often receive honors at peer venues such as the SIGGRAPH Awards, ACM SIGGRAPH Significant New Researcher Award, ACM Fellowships, IEEE Fellow, BAFTA, Academy Awards, Emmy Awards, and recognition at festivals like Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and SXSW. Companies and labs represented at E-Tech have been lauded by organizations including Fast Company, Wired, Nature, Science (journal), and The New York Times for innovations first previewed in demonstration programs.
Category:Computer graphics events Category:ACM SIGGRAPH