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| Image Credit: Charismatic and Eloquent Instructor Avatars With Scriptable Gesture © 2014. Jian Cui, Nicoletta Adamo-Villani, Voicu Popescu, Purdue University |
Every
year, teachers and students look forward to the in-depth educators sessions at
SIGGRAPH. This year’s program includes student-run pipeline productions,
augmented reality in education, animatronics, strategies and tools for teaching online, WebGL, and virtual worlds for therapy. And, on Sunday (10 August), the SIGGRAPH Education
Committee presents an all-day training course on Unity3D just for educators.
Meet with educators over coffee during the Morning Meet and Greet on Monday and Tuesday from 8:00 A.M - 9:00 A.M. then stay for presentations
and discussions during Birds of a Feather sessions on topics including:
- Augmented Reality in Informal and Formal Education
- Collaborative Content Creation in 3D Digital Design
- Scientific Visualization Using 3D Printing
- Strengthening the School-Industry Continuum
- Teaching intro and Advanced Graphics
with WebGL
- The Dyslexic Advantage in Computer Graphics
- The Zen of Collaboration
Courses,
Panels, Studio Projects and Talks are offered every day of the week at SIGGRAPH
2014, and all include topics with an education focus. Here is just a sampling:
Courses
Creating
Next-Gen 3D Interactive Apps With Motion Control and Unity3D
Through
a series of live-coded examples, this course grounds attendees in the
fundamentals of using the Unity3D engine for game and application development,
integrating the Leap Motion Controller into an application, and designing and
developing a next-generation 3D interactive application with motion control.
Presenters: Elizabeth Ruscitto, David Holz and Daniel Plemmons, Leap Motion, Inc.
Introduction to
3D Gestural Interfaces
With
the proliferation of inexpensive motion-sensing technology, 3D gestural interfaces
are becoming common in applications such as video games and mobile computing.
This course provides an introduction to design and development of 3D gestural
interfaces, covering topics from user tracking to gesture recognition and
evaluation.
Presenter: Joseph LaViola, University of Central Florida
Panels
An Evaluation of
University Education as it Relates to the VFX, Animation, and Game
Industries
This
ever-changing digital age requires individuals with different perspectives to
coalesce around ideas to create new techniques and paradigms that enable both
academia and industry to thrive. This intelligent, spirited, creative panel
will examine how education and industry can work together to unite their
visions in an era of profound change.
Speakers: Margaret Lomas Carpenter, Texas A&M University; Frederic Parke, Texas A&M University; Donald House, Clemson University; Jerry Tessendorf, Clemson University; Dave Walvoord, DreamWorks Animation Studios; David Parrish, Reel FX Creative Studios; Jack Stenner, University of Florida; Gracie Arenas Strittmatter, BioWare; Michelle Robinson, Walt Disney Animation Studios
Cultivating
Creative Thinking Across Disciplines: Stories From the Field
Creative
thinking across disciplines is what distinguishes the perfunctory from the
inspired. Hear reflections from renowned individuals whose work depends on
successful integration of art and science in different ways. Speakers,
representing industry and academia, share lessons learned in establishing
creative environments for effective productivity and educational
transformation.
Moderators: Ginger Alford, Trinity Valley School and Fort Worth Museum of Science and History
Panelists: Paul Dietz, Microsoft Research; Mk Haley, Disney Research; Roger Malina, University of Texas at Dallas; Ramesh Raskar, MIT Media Labs
Studio Projects
Arduino Drawing
Machines
Participants
design, program, and build drawing machines that will be showcased in a live
crowd-sourced voting event.
Presenter: Erik Brunvand, Paul Stout, University of Utah
Talks
Stina and the
Wolf – Feature Film Production in Education
Staff
from the University of Portsmouth review the making of “Stina and the Wolf”, a
feature length CGI film driven by performance capture and discuss how this
novel approach in higher education is giving their students that extra edge.
Presenters: Alexander Counsell and Paul Charisse, University of Portsmouth
The Making of
“Owned”: A Student-Built Iterative Pipeline
A
large group of Brigham Young University students created a short animated film
in two-thirds the time required for previous BYU animations yet with more time
to focus on artistic quality. The main factor in this improvement was
student-generated pipeline that allowed all departments to work in parallel and
iterate quickly.
Presenters: Seth
Holladay, Brigham
Young University; Brent
Adams, Brian
Kingery, Daniel
Clark, Carson
Crawford, Kaleb
Goulding, Jeff
Raines, Evan
Roberts, Susan
Hatton, and Andrew
Rasmussen, Brigham
Young University Center for Animation
Development of
Communication Assistant Application with Blinking for Physically Handicapped
Children and Elderly People
Two new communication applications, Eye Talk and Eye Tell, were
developed to help physically handicapped children and elderly people who cannot
speak communicate with others. The apps are operated with eye-blinks to detect
letters or symbols and translate them into sound.
Presenters: Ippei Torii and and Kaoruko Ohtani, Aichi Institute of Technology
Virtual Dog Head:
Using 3D Models to Teach Complex Veterinary Anatomy
A new method of interactive learning through incorporation of 3D
computed tomography (CT) scan-generated models of the larynx and hyoid
apparatus in dogs using OpenGL and the Oculus Rift.
Presenters: Matt Viehdorfer, Sarah Nemanic, Serena Mills, and Mike Bailey, Oregon State University
Charismatic and
Eloquent Instructor Avatars With Scriptable Gesture
Introducing a new approach that allows users to create animation stimuli
for research on instructor gesture without the prerequisites of artistic talent
or programming expertise. The approach has been used to support experiments
that investigate the benefits of instructor gesture in the context of
mathematical equivalence learning.
Presenters: Jian Cui, Nicoletta Adamo-Villani, and Voicu Popescu, Purdue University
