"Interactive Storytelling: People, Stories, and Games" by Andrew Glassner and presented by Ronen Barzel.
Storytelling is a vital form of human communication. Games are a rewarding form of social interaction. These two important activities are fundamentally different and often require contradictory behavior from audiences and participants. In this talk Dr Glassner will show that there is hope for bringing them together in principled ways to create exciting new entertainments and art forms.
Dr. Andrew Glassner is a writer and consultant. He has worked in 3D computer graphics research for many years, most recently at Xerox PARC and Microsoft Research. He has written many articles and books on computer graphics for artists, designers, scientists, and researchers. He is currently a full-time novelist and screenwriter, and a part-time consultant to the entertainment industry.
Dr. Ronen Barzel is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Graphics Tools. He is currently on leave from Pixar, where he works as an "animation scientist". He has been there since 1993. He did assorted things for the first Toy Story movie, most notably building the "Slinky Dog" model and developing lighting technology. afterwards he spent many years in the software tools R&D group, mostly working on modeling and animation software design. most recently he has been working on the upcoming movie Finding Nemo.
He visited several times the Graphics Group of Brown University and University of Washington. He got a Ph.D. from Caltech. He is the author of the book "Physically-Based Modeling for Computer Graphics: A Structured Approach", Academic Press and of many papers on computer graphics.

"Reflections From A Hobby Horse - Tradition and Innovation in Virtual Worlds" by Paul Kafno.
Paul Kafno is a British Producer and the Managing Director of HD Thames. His productions have won international awards including the Prix Italia, Golden Gate Awards, and craft awards at BAFTA and the Royal Television Society. A pioneer of digital television, Paul has been responsible for a number of new technology projects, given papers at many international conferences, consulted for the EBU and the International Television Symposium, is an assessor for the UK's Link Project, and Professor of Production Planning at the International Academy of Broadcasting in Montreaux of which he is a founder.He has been recently appointed new President of IBC, the world's leading electronic media event, Widescreen Festival.

"Under Construction in Europe: Virtual and Mixed Reality for a Rich Media Experience" by Eric Badiqué and Pascal Jacques.
Mr Eric Badiqué and Mr. Pascal Jacques are respectively Action Line Coordinator and Head of the Sector Interactive Electronic Publishing at the European Commission.

"Synthetic Social Behavior: Building Autonomous Animated Characters Who Learn Social Relationships" by Bill Tomlinson.

Bill Tomlinson is currently a doctoral student in the Synthetic Characters Group at the MIT Media Lab. His research focuses on simulating social behavior. Right now, he's working on an installation (tentatively titled "AlphaWolf") that will feature a pack of autonomous interactive animated wolves. Some of the problems that this project brings up are: How do virtual creatures think about each other? How do development, evolution, emotion and learning relate to social interaction? What does it mean for a virtual creature to be dominant or submissive, or to form alliances? How can interactions with virtual creatures change the ways that people conceive of their own social interactions?
A while before starting this project, Bill studied biology as an undergraduate at Harvard College. He then received an MFA from CalArts, in the Experimental Animation department. His thesis film, a stop-motion animation called "Shaft of Light", showed at the Sundance Film Festival and about 20 other film festivals internationally, played on Bravo and the Independent Film Channel, and was distributed by the Anti-Defamation League in their catalog of anti-oppression resources. He then came to the Media Lab, where he learned to program and wrote a Master's thesis about interactive cinematography. Now, he's excited to have a chance to combine animal social behavior, animation and digital technology into the AlphaWolf project.

Commercial Demonstrations:

Elumens' VisionStation display system by Immersion.
With the VisionStation from Elumens, users can enter a simulated version of their models, without leaving their workstations. They can even bring colleagues and clients with them for an undeniably sensational experience.
The VisionStation hemispherical projection and display system integrates Elumens' patented TruTheta® imaging technology. TruTheta's fusion of proprietary optics, software and screen design envelops the user in 3-D graphics. Ideal for architectural design and space planning applications, this plug-and-play design solution integrates the operator and digital information.
Elumens produces an entire family of VisionStations - the Vision Series - that have room for up to 50 people. Elumens designed the workspace VisionStation for individual use, while its VisionStation 3 can engage up to five people gathered within its 3-meter hemisphere. Larger models allow dozens of viewers to experience the same simulated environment together.
With the VisionStation display system, architects can design work in 2-D that the VisionStation converts into 3-D. The VisionStation takes users to alternate environments, where their designs come to life. Its 180-degree perspective engulfs users in a 3-D digital world. Seamless projected images, uniformly bright, always in focus and stunningly realistic - come and experience the VisionStation.

Realviz products.
ImageModeler®:
Build 3D models directly from photosImageModeler® captures complex geometry and textures accurately and realistically. Very complex models can be created efficiently and cost-effectively with a small number of polygons. As a result, models built with ImageModeler® are both light and very real.
MatchMover®:
The most powerful matchmoving software available Using breakthrough technology, MatchMover® captures any live-action camera motion in 3-D (including zoom) by tracking 2-D features in an image sequence. MatchMover® is acknowledged as the most powerful 3-D camera tracker avaible on the market. Its complementarity with Imagemodeler makes it the ideal matchmoving solution both for high-end or corporate projects.
ReTimer®:
The effective way to change motion speed, or the length of image sequences in post-production ReTimer® is the best time warper on the market. Using a unique breakthrough technology, it slows down or accelerates sequences and creates motion shots from a series of stills in post-production.
Stitcher®:
Build up to 360°x180° panoramas from standard photos. Stitcher® combines horizontally and vertically overlapping photos into stunning wide-angle, high quality images for creating high impact web pages, definition mattes, environment maps, image sequences, and 3D models.

Scientific Talks:

Fourteen 30 minute papers have been selected by the international program committee.
The conference committee will award prizes to the best scientific paper and the best demo. See the What's Hot section for details !

Demonstrations:

Three demonstration sessions will be organized during the conference pauses. These sessions will last between 30 and 45 minutes. Moreover, presentations of commercial products such as the VisionStation display system (Elumens) or Realviz product line will be given by sponsors.