What Display Daily thinks: We have been at Siggraph 2023 in Los Angeles, California, all of this week, and will have more reports on relevant findings from the show. In the meantime, it’s worth noting how much of the show was consumed by the presence of Nvidia. While it may not be apparent at first, the focus on AI and the Ominverse, Nvidia’s development platform for metaverse-like applications, has possible ramifications for the display industry.
First, Nvidia is a powerful force that is carrying a lot of companies in its wake, whether it is in expanding the opportunities for digital content creation or creating more application opportunities for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). Simply, there is a general increase in interest in 3D graphics and AI in animation, design, and video production. That will translate into some momentum for 3D displays, whether in mobile, computing, or AR/VR devices.
Secondly, there is a distinctive arms race in AI in digital content creation that will be, and is, driving content and it means there is going to be more weird and wonderful stuff to see on digital displays. That is not only across devices, but in retail, digital signage, DOOH, and the enterprise. In other words, there is an upgraded visual language that is evolving, one that will increase the demand for digital displays to satiate the interest in exploring this new world of content.
Third, but not last, companies are being sold on the idea that they can digitize product promotion in such a way that it can adapt, on the fly, to tracked users. Whether that is in advertising, e-commerce, retail, or on any device that has user tracking (as most smartphones do). The best example of this was in a keynote speech given by Nvidia’s CEO, Jen Hsen Huang, where he showed an advertising agency using AI and more powerful graphics processing to create virtual scenes and placements of cars in what looked like real-world settings.
Everything points to the impact of AI in digital content creation enabling more impactful visuals. This is all stuff that has to be seen on big, bright, and bold displays. Display manufacturers should be aligning themselves with digital content creators, both for market positioning and as an exercise in branding. It’s not enough to throw up pretty images of flower fields, or popular consumer entertainment. Visual communication is changing. Apple is trying to talk up spatial computing, but you should think of it as more about aspirational computing where realism isn’t the ultimate goal, but realistically personalizing visual information becomes the best way to create engagement with users.
We can’t be sure that a very traditional display industry can play a role, but seeing as none of these concepts and ideas work without the display, there should be a greater sense of the opportunities available to the display industry, as well as the opportunities lost by not riding in the wake of companies like Nvidia.
Why do we never see a display brand aligned with Nvidia, for example, when almost everyone else in the computer industry, media, and advertising is making sure not to be left out of the conversation? Even if you think of AI as over-hyped, it’s not relevant to the excitement, and fear, that it engenders in the mind of creators and consumers alike. Fear alone is a great motivator not to miss out on what could be a meaningful change in the way information is created and distributed visually.
Nvidia Upgrades Omniverse With Generative AI and OpenUSD
At Siggraph 2023, Nvidia announced a major update to its Nvidia Omniverse platform, providing new foundation applications and services for developers and industrial enterprises. This update aims to optimize and enhance 3D pipelines using the OpenUSD framework and generative AI.
The Omniverse platform, designed to facilitate connection, description, and simulation across various 3D tools and applications, has now been enhanced for the creation of virtual worlds and industrial digitalization workflows. Companies like Cesium, Convai, Move AI, SideFX Houdini, and Wonder Dynamics have become connected to Omniverse through OpenUSD.
Among the key highlights of this update are advancements to Omniverse Kit, the engine for developing OpenUSD native applications and extensions, and improvements to the Nvidia Omniverse Audio2Face foundation app, as well as spatial-computing capabilities. Omniverse Kit now includes a new central repository, the Omniverse Kit Extension Registry, which allows developers to easily access, share, and manage over 600 core Omniverse extensions. This addition facilitates the process of toggling functionality on and off, thus simplifying custom app building.
Developers new to OpenUSD and Omniverse will benefit from new developer templates and resources that reduce coding efforts. Efficiency and user experience have also been boosted with new rendering optimizations that make full use of Nvidia’s Ada Lovelace architecture enhancements in Nvidia RTX GPUs. The Omniverse RTX Renderer now fully integrates DLSS 3 technology, and a new AI denoiser enables real-time 4K path tracing of large industrial scenes. The spatial integration powered by native RTX also has been enriched, with new extended-reality (XR) developer tools that offer flexibility in experiencing 3D projects and virtual worlds.
The platform updates are also visible in Omniverse foundation applications. The Omniverse USD Composer has been upgraded to facilitate the assembly of large-scale, OpenUSD-based scenes. Omniverse Audio2Face now provides access to generative AI APIs for realistic facial animations and gestures from an audio file alone.
