WSCG'95

The Third International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics and Visualization 1995

Co-Chairs

Harold Santo, University of Lisabon, Lisabon, Portugal
Vaclav Skala, University of West Bohemia, Plzen, Czech Republic

In the beginning of this year, the town Pilsen and the University of West Bohemia (UWB) gave their contribution to the history of computer graphics in Czech Republic, as within February 14-18-th, 1995, the Third International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics and Visualization '95 was held here.

Organization duties were shared by V.Skala, I.Kolingerova, P.Lederbuch, B.Sup, P.Blaha, M.Vesela, M.Vanikova and P.Samec from the Department of Computer Science of UWB.. The conference was carried out also thanks to understanding of teachers and other employees of UWB.

The invitation to the conference was accepted by many outstanding specialists from significant universities and research centres all over the world. The importance of the conference is witnessed by the fact that about 120 experts from Czech and Slovak Republic, Austria, Germany, Great Britain, France, Russia and other countries took part. Some specialists came from very distant countries, e.g. Japan, Korea, Brasil, U.S.A., Israel, New Zealand.

The conference was held in a new university campus in Pilsen-Bory. The program was opened by the speech of dr.J.Holenda, the rector of UWB. On the conference, roughly 50 papers about new methods and last results of world graphical workplaces were presented. From this total, 88 per cent of papers were from abroad, so the participants had possibilities to compare their results, topics and conditions of their research with other groups.

The most often presented themes of papers were as follows : data visualization, computer animation, parallel methods in computer graphics and geometric modeling. Also some rare topics were presented, as usage of sound for shape percieving improvement, stereoscopic visualization, multimedia, recognistic characteristics of icons and so on.

Besides this highly special part of program, the conference included also books and computer products expositions and commercial presentations of firms. This part of program was open to public and highly popular. It was visited also by the Pilsen mayor, Mr.Z.Prosek.

Visitors had opportunity to see CAD and multimedial systems presented by Autodesk, Hewlett Packard, Cadis, IBM, Silicon Graphics, Expert Service, GRALL, Microsoft, Intergraph, SYSCAE, Technodat, 3E Engineering. The firms Wolfram Research, Waterloo MAPLE Software and Czech Software First showed possibilities of data visualization by the systems Mathematica and MAPLE and the firm OpenCAE animation package VERTIGO. Performance of virtual reality system by the British firm Superscape VR and Czech firm ARC Design recieved an extraordinary attention. People interested in non-fiction literature appreciated book exposition of the Academic Press, John Wiley & Sons, Computer Press and Proxima publishers. Compex Data Bohemia put on exposition also network cards and CD ROMs. Most of participating firms were also sponsors of the conference. For the next period, closer cooperation of these firms with Dept. of Informatics and Computer Science is supposed, especially in the spheres of computer graphics, CAD systems, data visualization, computer animation and virtual reality.

The conference also included open to public video show of computer animated films. It was a selection from Computer Animation '94 held in Geneva.

The participants of the conference could take part in social program, too. Those interested had an opportunity to get acquainted with Pilsen and Prague sights. The conference got social splendour also by an audience of its participants by the mayor of the town, Mr.Z.Prosek, in beautiful rooms of Pilsen renaissance town hall.

The last evening the participants dined out together and had a great fun in the Pilsen Brewaries, in the restaurant Na Spilce. The participants, drawn out in lottery, won vouchers for entrance, refreshment, jettons to Casino Happy Day and souveniers from the Pilsen Brewaries. One from voucher winners really won a small sum in the casino.

According to the responses of leaving guests can be judged, that their stay on the conference was for them contributing and pleasant and that they would like to participate in incidental future years, too. Finally, let's wish to organizers, let this extraordinary successful year of Winter School of Computer Graphics was not the last one and University of West Bohemia became a place of regular meetings on a good worldwide level not only of computer graphicians.

Last update: 23.07.2001