The World's Largest Marketplace of Graphic Design and Interactive Techniques hails from San Diego, California this year. The world's top graphic design and visual effects companies and new technologies are showcased at this annual conference. The world's best computer animations are featured in the Computer Animation Festival. The exhibition runs from July 29-31 and the conference from July 27-31.

The main part of SIGGRAPH is the Exhibition, where such companies as Discreet, softImage, Adobe, nVidia, ATI, and Pixar showcase their softwares or contributions to the field of computer graphics. Other side exhibits include:

The Web Expo - A showcase of the best web design of 2003
Computer Animation Festival - Daily screenings of the top computer animations from around the world.
Emerging Technologies - A showcase of new visual technologies from around the world.

The Conference portion of SIGGRAPH are lectures and workshops from the industry leaders, and runs the whole week.

Much of the information is located at their website. Anyone who is interested in the field of computer graphics should definitely make the trip.

* Here's a little tip: RUN to the Pixar booth as soon you're there. They always give out amazing posters. The two times I've been to SIGGRAPH they gave out a panoramic Toy Story 2 poster and a huge Monsters Inc. poster. Seeing as how Finding Nemo is the most recent Pixar film, expect to get a really nice poster if you get there early.