East cost is calling

Dernier jour albuquerquien. On en profite pour faire un petit tour dans la vieille ville. Vieille ville qui n'a rien à envier à un Dysney Land ambiance mexicaine. Dans les boutiques pour touristes vous trouverez au choix: des t-shirts et aimants Breaking Bad ou Road 66, mais aussi des mexicaneries comme des têtes de mort et autres squellettes en tenue el-mariachesque, des panchos et bien sûr de l'artisanat local indien.

J'ai été à deux doigts d'acheter un livre de cuisine local, le premier livre sérieux plublié dans les années trentes sur le sujet. Mais après une semaine de burittos la pause s'impose. Et surtout le vendeur me faisait remarquer que les recettes sont assez similaires et comprennent chacune une base de graisse assez conséquente, un peu l'équivalent du choux au lard de nos campagnes d'antan tout ca.

Sinon très belle lumière naturelle, belle couleur jaune des murs, très beau ciel bleu, tout très saturé. Color tracking quand tu nous tiens.

Puis c'est le départ, avec mes acolytes du début de semaine dans le désert nous prenons un taxi pour l'aéroport. Les uns iront vers l'est et moi vers l'ouest. Mon vol ne passera pas par Denver mais par LA avant de bifurquer vers SF. Plus de chance que l'an dernier c'est à dire pas d'attente à LA et surtout un superbe survol de la ville de nuit comme dans les films tout ca.

Arrivée à SF en mode routine. Choper son bagage, aller au van shuttle sans réserver, attendre 2min, monter dans le van et être le premier déposé des 10 passagers déjà présents.

Il est à peine 20:43 que je sonne déjà chez mes hôtes de qualité supérieure dans la Noe.

Evening talk in ARTsLab UNM

First day of the scientific program of the 21th Color Imaging Conference and this year it's taking place in Albuquerque, NM. A very funny name to pronouce in french. But enought with the jokes and back to the serious business. Being involved in color science and immersive display I try to follow what people are doing in both fields all over the world. And going to conferences is always a good excuse to knock on the door of the local lab or research department. So this year I contacted some weeks in advance Jane Crayton which I did meet at the Imersa event in Denver three years ago.

After some e-mails exchanged it was planned for me to give a talk entilted "Color Science for Immersive Displays" at the ARTsLab. The ARTsLab (Arts, Research, Technology and Science Laborator and check the link below) is a nice research lab where people from various fields can meet and colaborate, and if you have read the lines above it may involved immersive display... One of their permanent installation is a digital dome of 6 to 7m (?) and a studio which can be used for various tasks.

I wish more people could have attended the talk, but quality is better than quantity. And I was served. The pre-meeting before the talk at a local restaurant was delicious and I could see that some people take their coffee seriously. Hoping to see again the already known contact and newly made here or there in the future.

Some links:
- ARTsLab
- Color Imaging Conference
- Imersa

Color Imaging Conference, first day and Short Course day

It is the third time that I'm able to join the Color Imaging Conference (CIC) after Los Angeles, CA last year and San Antonio, TX in 2010. This time I attend it without article, the one we submitted wasn't exactly finished and did not deserve to be accepted. It is always good to have your paper rejected from a good conference, it only pushes you to improve your work and you end up publishing later a better article. And enough of stating the obvious.

So this time I joined the conference as co-chair on the short course program, or short course session, I never know... Anyway this conference day offers - not for free - a panel of courses given by experts from academia or industry. As co-chair we had, based on last year program, to propose new courses and select submitted courses, they should reflect the latest development in a field and/or give an overview of a given topic (such as multi-spectral imaging or gamut mapping). Interesting and important to me, the courses are also showing connections between research and industry, basic and applied research.

I had the chance to attend three courses: "Normal and Defective Color Vision: from Theory to Simulation" given by Caterina Ripamonti from UCL Institute of Ophtalmology, "Color Grading and Color Management for Motion Pictures" given by Stefan Luka from Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Peter Postma from FilmLight and "What Color is 3D?" given by Matt Cowan from RealD.

The first course was very interesting, because before going to the point of simulating how people with defective color vision see color, state of the art was presented. But more important it shows how color and vision are treated depending of your field of study or depending of your application and which assumptions you are stating to build up your theories and explanations (e.g. which functions are used to approximate how a signal is captured by the eye). We are the border of physiology and computer color science.

The two other courses were related. And the instructors from the color management for motion picture joined the color and 3D lecture after giving their lecture, which ends up with an interesting discussion. A nice aspect of color science in the field of motion picture is the very applied nature of it: how do you capture light, how to process it, how to you compose, create with the various available tools and how do you reproduce and display your work.

And I end up having diner with "la crème de la crème" of color scientists based in UK, Australia, Spain and Germany. Fun fact, none of us four are working in our respective country (whatever it means). As usual, the minimum number of language talked per person was 2.4 . Take that narrow minded and obsessed with boundaries people.