Computer graphics and economic transformations

intertwined with the patterns of economic change. The technologies of SIGGRAPH are understandable. The economic environment in which they thrive is not. The opportunities of the future are connected to our technological legacy. But forces more biological than mechanical are beginning to shape business and economic methods. These forces affect the diffusion of computer graphics and other advanced technologies into the commercial landscape. They are radically changing competitive and social environments. Businesses are struggling to find and create markets for a technology with staggering potential. Society is undergoing yet another transformation of communications as well as personal habits and tastes. This panel will try to make sense out of some of the elements that make up this energetic and complex economic arena. A historian of American technology and business will review the continuum in which invention and innovation continues to flourish. An economic model more suited to the “information age” will be introduced to SIGGRAPH at this panel. Against this background is an entrepreneur’s view of turning innovations into economic effect by giving them life in today’s market place. Finally, without invention all of this would be meaningless. A researcher’s view of the impact of these elements on pre-competitive computer graphics-based products concludes the panel. A new economic perspective on computer graphics-based technologies is additional way to identify opportunity. These fresh and diverse views will try to establish that perspective.