Van,
It is good to hear from you again. I hope things are going well for you and your family.

I wanted to respond to you as soon as possible regarding the recent U.S. Patent award to Yamaha of Japan. Though
it has been quite a few years since we worked together on the "Sound Into Graphics" project, I have often thought of it
as a cooperative effort of which I am particularly proud. In addition to the Winamp media player you mentioned below,
the use of the bars and waves visualization in Windows Media Player also reminds me of our project.

As I recall, "Sound Into Graphics" was, at the time, the first SIGGRAPH demonstration of the technique of using spectral
analysis of audio signals to drive time-related visualizations or animations. I'm very happy to have participated in this effort
and to have worked with both you and Pat on this project. Though I don't recall Mr. Hamilton being part of this project, I do
remember him as one of the folks associated with other projects we were working on at the time - and I would not be surprised
to hear you state that you had had discussions with him related to this project.

I can't remember the exact day, but I do I recall your enthusiastic observations after seeing the Van Cliburn competition, and
discussing this with you. As we started to become more serious about the possibilities, I recall further discussions related to
sample rate and depth, digitization of the sound/music material, selection of the particular piece of music, possible use of the
Synclavier in the UI School of Music to generate the audio data, computing resources required to analyze the audio data, the
size of the analysis buffers in relation to frame rate, how to insure a consistent spectral analysis using a constant fundamental,
visual side-effects related to the harmonic content of the piano sound, and the file formats and data translations required to
associate the spectral data resulting from the audio analysis to drive spatial and color parameters in each frame of the film.

Thank you for informing me of this situation - I think your description is a good one. Further, I agree with your and Pat's
assessment of Yamaha's action. It would seem that a thorough patent search would have uncovered the prior art and a technical
review of Yamaha's disclosure would have uncovered the likeness to it. If there is anything more I can do to support or
substantiate your (our) position concerning this, please let me know.

Again, it is good to hear from you. Please keep me informed.
Jim

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Jim Bozek

6/20/2005