September 08, 2004 —
|
Photo by Irene
Fertik
Chris Kyriakakis in his sound studio |
Engineers at the University of Southern California developing entertainment technologies
to bring Hollywood's boldest visions to the screen are participating in this week’s
“Frontiers of Engineering” symposium in Irvine, Calif.
The three-day symposium, being held Sept. 9 – 11, is sponsored by the National
Academy of Engineering and brings together young engineers in industry, academia
and government who are performing cutting-edge engineering research and technical
work in a variety of disciplines. Three of the more than 100 participants are
USC engineers.
“Engineering and Entertainment,” one of three main sessions, was co-organized
by Chris Kyriakakis, associate professor in the Viterbi School’s Integrated Media
Systems Center (IMSC) and director of the Immersive Audio Laboratory. The session
focuses on three areas of innovation in entertainment: picture, sound and actors.
"New audio and video technologies are emerging that will dramatically change
the entertainment experience from a passive spectator event to one that is fully
immersive and puts people in the experience,” Kyriakakis said. “Technologies
under development at the Viterbi School of Engineering, such as 10.2 channel immersive
audio and Remote Media Immersion will help fuel this change."
“Anyone who has seen one of the summer blockbuster movies has witnessed the dramatic
increases in computer-generated realism in recent years,” added Paul Debevec,
executive producer of graphics research at USC’s Institute of Creative Technologies
and a participant in the session. “Visual effects supervisors now report that
bringing even the most challenging visions of film directors to the screen is
no longer a question of what’s possible. With today’s techniques, it is only a
matter of time and cost. “
Computer graphics techniques for simulating how light reflects off of and through
surfaces have been the driving force in this movement to improve the realism in
movies. According to Debevec, computer graphics artists, who have found ways
to channel the power of these new tools, are applying these techniques to the
visual effects process.
In his presentation, entitled “Capturing and Simulating Physically Accurate Illumination
in Computer Graphics,” Debevec will discuss new techniques that can bring unimaginable
realism to visual elements, making them nearly indistinguishable from reality.
Elaine Chew, assistant professor in the Viterbi School's Epstein Industrial and
Systems Engineering Department and a senior investigator at IMSC, is also attending
the conference.
Chew is a computational scientist and contemporary music pianist studying engineering
approaches to music performance and analysis. Her work is highly interdisciplinary
and centers on building computer models to extract musical features and create
visualizations.
In a related project, Chew is also working to create technologies that will allow
musicians in different locations to perform together over the Internet.
“Frontiers of Engineering” is being held at the National Academies' Arnold and
Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine and is exploring topics in multiscale modeling,
designer materials, engineering for extreme environments, and engineering and
entertainment. Film and television director Alex Singer is the featured speaker.
His credits include episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lou Grant and
Hill Street Blues.
For conference details, visit the National Academy of Engineering website at
http://www.nae.edu/nae/naefoe.nsf.
--Diane Ainsworth