The Beautiful City of Bath played host to this year’s annual conference, the ‘CDE Celebration Event’. The aim was to open the Centre for Digital Entertainment up to the world, offering something different and exciting, bringing together students, academics and industry partners to share experiences and celebrate all things CDE. And what better place to do this than in the magnificent Assembly Rooms in Bath, used in the eighteenth century for social occasions and still as grand and as welcoming as ever.

CDE is an EPSRC Doctoral Training Centre, funding research engineer students working in companies that specialise in computer games, animation and visual effects to name but a few.

The Student Exhibition was the perfect platform to showcase the fantastic research by our engineers, giving them the opportunity to network with some very high profile industry members and leaders. Delegates could experience first-hand, the diverse range of research projects in progress, including an interactive Punch and Judy Show, ‘Future Interactive Living Rooms’ and ‘Virtual Eye Tracking Systems’. Guests even had the chance to control a robotic arm using an ‘eye-gaze’ system and take part in a simulation to help brain injury patients relearn social skills. The atmosphere within the Student Exhibition was electrifying, with industry members, research engineers and academics all sharing knowledge and highlighting the potential impact and social importance these projects may have in the future.

It was a privilege to welcome a number of industry guest speakers to help CDE celebrate in style.

Hans-Peter Seidel from Max Planck Institute for Computer Science and Saarland University engaged the audience with his talk on ‘3D image Analysis and Synthesis – The world inside the computer’.

Steffen P Walz from University of RMIT in Melbourne, Australia, discussed ‘How to Play in the Gameful World: Researching the Potentials and Pitfalls of a Ludic Age’

Andrew Vidler from Ninja Theory, Marco Romeo from Moving Picture Company and Andy Gibb from the BBC, also enthralled guests with details of past, present and future projects the challenges faced and the future of the industry.

Phil Willis – Centre Director CDE project (Bath and Bournemouth) said “It was a real delight to see 170 people come together at the Bath Assembly Rooms for two days of CDE Celebration. With the Major of Bath in attendance, the mix of 50 CDE Research Engineers, academics from Bath and Bournemouth Universities, six senior Research Council staff from EPSRC and AHRC, national and international research laboratory Directors and representatives of some of the most vigorous, exciting and fun companies in the digital entertainment sector generated a lively and hugely enjoyable event. I think everyone enjoyed our many student exhibits, the networking sessions and the presentations. We hope many others will want to join our growing CDE family!”

All of this, combined with an inspirational showcase of the two Universities’ academic staff research, provided two days of high energy, interactive content and it proved to be the Centre for Digital Entertainment’s biggest and best event yet.

*50 students. 40 companies. £20 million of investment. See it all on our new web site: www.digital-entertainment.org *