From Earth’s Origins to Future of Digital Humans: A Peek at Sessions and Courses at SIGGRAPH

Learn how NVIDIA RTX is transforming creative and design workflows.
by Nicole Castro

Artists, designers, researchers and others from around the world will get a sneak peek at the latest innovations in computer graphics at the annual SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles, taking place July 28 – Aug 1.

NVIDIA will be there, in booths 1303 and 1313, showcasing the latest advances that NVIDIA RTX technology delivers, including AI-enhanced workflows and real-time ray tracing.

Talks and courses will dive deep into the newest methods and technologies driving the industry. From Academy Award winners to major production studios, industry experts will explain how NVIDIA RTX is accelerating workflows to power the future of content creation.

Here’s a preview of some sessions and courses not to be missed:

Take Designs to the Next Level with 3DEXPERIENCE CATIA and RTX

For designers and engineers, visualizing and interacting with 3D models allows them to bring complex designs to life. At the NVIDIA booth, Dassault Systèmes will show how 3DEXPERIENCE CATIA uses NVIDIA RTX technology to enhance the design review process. The demo, presented by Xavier Melkonian, CATIA Design portfolio director, will show a realistic 3D model of a Renault Dacia production car with physically correct geometry, materials and rendering accelerated by NVIDIA RTX technology.

Image courtesy of Dassault Systèmes.

See a New RTX-Powered Collaborative Tool for VFX and Animation

Get a closer look at PocketStudio, a next-generation collaborative editing tool that enables artists to create 3D animated feature films. Jean-Colas Prunier, CEO of PocketStudio, will present how this tool relies on NVIDIA RTX technology to provide real-time ray tracing in an easy-to-use interface. Learn how studios use PocketStudio to bring lightspeed, professional-grade GPU rendering into their workflows.

Explore the Future of Digital Humans

From creating digital actors to star in Hollywood films to providing care givers to those in need, the age of digital humans is upon us. Moderated by Danielle Costa (Marvel), this panel of industry luminaries features Doug Roble (Digital Domain), Vladimir Mastilovic (Epic Games) and Simon Yuen (NVIDIA) as they share the latest techniques and workflows for creating digital humans — from facial performance and human locomotion to the future of fully autonomous digital humans capable of two-way dialog and behavior modeling.

Watch Stunning Visualizations from Birth of Planet Earth

This year, the Electronic Theater will include exclusive clips from the movie Birth of Planet Earth, a documentary that uses cinematic-quality visualizations to tell the story of our planet’s origins. Come hear John Stone, senior research programmer at the University of Illinois, talk about the RTX-powered ray-tracing work that went into the fulldome show. Learn how Stone used a built-in ray-tracing engine he wrote using NVIDIA OptiX and CUDA, and how the power of NVIDIA GPU hardware and software platforms enabled the success of the entire project.

Get Familiar with the Adjoint Technique

For attendees looking for a more technical talk, graphics researcher and three-time Academy Award winner Jos Stam will deliver a presentation on the adjoint method — a general technique for computing gradients of a function or simulation. This method benefits all sorts of applications in optimization and machine learning. Stam will show how to apply this technique to control physical simulations like rigid bodies and fluids.

Learn About GPU-Accelerated Visualization in Architecture Design

At architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF), photoreal visualizations are an important element to the design process. KPF’s Cobus Bothma, director of applied research, and Paul Renner, visualization manager, explain how their designers use NVIDIA GPUs to create and visualize geometry and data for their designs, and the unique ways KPF uses NVIDIA CUDA-powered applications to accelerate their visualization workflows.

Keep Up with the Latest Research at NVIDIA’s Sponsored Sessions

Learn from NVIDIA Research experts as they present their latest findings in computer graphics. From Sunday to Wednesday, NVIDIA will have a full program of sponsored sessions covering:

  • Applications of Deep Learning to Content Creation
  • GPU Ray Tracing for Film and Design
  • Focus on Real-Time Ray Tracing
  • Updated Content from Ray Tracing Gems

Located in Room 501AB, these courses will get you up to speed on revolutionary computer graphics technology.

For more information about NVIDIA at SIGGRAPH, check out the full schedule of sessions on our SIGGRAPH schedule page.