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MillimeterCG Dream
Aug 1, 2004 12:00 PM, By Cynthia Wisehart, Editorial Director
One of the hardest things for CG to simulate is the human form. One of the hardest things for videoconferencing and distance learning to simulate is human interaction. At Siggraph, however, a compelling demo suggests that when CG is combined with videoconferencing and distance learning, the sum is potentially more human than the parts.
HP put on the demo to introduce its Remote Graphics Software, which is fundamentally a platform for collaboration. This deceptively simple breakthrough is based on the work HP Labs did to help the Mars Rover team collaborate across the universe. But, even with its pedigree in the outer limits of remote collaboration, the software is interesting because it also addresses obstacles to collaboration for people who may be separated by just a few feet.
This detail indicates a fundamental philosophy. HP seems to be onto something that is easy, relatively cheap, democratic, and nimble in the way that is more in keeping with how people use computers and networks today. It comes off as a logical extension of enterprise networking — and human nature — not as something complex or clunky. You don't have to change your brain and your relationships to conform to its technical parameters; it somehow feels familiar and natural.
Specifically, this early version of the software — currently in use at DreamWorks Animation and the Savannah College of Art and Design — allows any number of partners to view or work together on a piece of CG artwork as if they were sharing a single computer with a lot of very long mouse cables.
The basic topology is this: a “sender” computer can be accessed by “receiver” computers who then become virtual clones of the sender computer. Any workstation or laptop can be sender or receiver or both; any IP-enabled device can be a receiver. It's really just the familiar VPN model that enterprises already use, except the participants can share graphics and video files in realtime. No uploading, downloading, making QuickTime movies, or stumbling over incompatible versions of software. Every participant essentially has the same computer with the same imagery and same functionality. This is accomplished through an exchange of pixels rather than files, enabled by a proprietary DCT-based compression algorithm that appears to be incredibly fast and clear.
The implications for distance learning, training, and artistic collaboration seem irresistible. The demos I saw felt right for how humans collaborate and communicate — at least those humans with basic computer fluency. For those who find most current methods of videoconferencing and distance learning to be intimidating, inconvenient, uncomfortable, and even sometimes kind of condescending, this demo was refreshing. It seemed to support a sense of equality and two-way exchange. It raised the possibility that remote collaboration and distance learning could soon be more natural, casual, creative, and real.
For the generation growing up on instant messaging and multimedia cell phones, this will be the least that they expect. For those of us who thought FTP sites were a gift from God, this demo hinted at a CG dream come true, another stage of liberation from geography and the tyranny of airplane travel and net meetings.
Effective remote collaboration will not remove the need for — or value of — face-to-face communication, but it could make everybody a lot happier to see each other when they do get together. And it will allow people who cannot dream of meeting across the limits of geography to build a relationship that is more valuable and more human. Whether or not HP succeeds with widespread deployment of this latest innovation, it has certainly let a genie out of the bottle.
