Technical Papers: Publication Requirements
Authors of technical papers should prepare their documents according to the ACM SIGGRAPH publication guidelines (PDF) and use the acmsiggraphac LaTeX class files. Please pay particular attention to the citation format for prior ACM SIGGRAPH conference papers, as specified in the ACM SIGGRAPH publication guidelines, because the proper format varies depending on the year of publication.
Authors are required to submit fully formatted papers, with graphs, images, and other special areas arranged as intended for final publication, using the ACM SIGGRAPH paper preparation guidelines. Be sure that all pages are numbered and that the first page contains your paper's ID number, in the place where authors' names normally go (below the paper title). You should obtain this paper ID by completing the Online Submission Form before finalizing your paper. If your paper is accepted, you will receive instructions for formatting the final version, which will be different, because, among other things, the authors' names and affiliations will be included, and the pages will not be numbered.
For SIGGRAPH Asia 2009, authors must submit their papers electronically. The only allowable format is Adobe PDF. We prefer that authors upload supplemental materials (anything except the paper) electronically, but physical submission is also possible. If there is some reason why electronic submission is impossible for you, please contact contact us via the SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 email contact form well before the deadline. See Detailed Instructions for more information. For videos, we strongly encourage QuickTime MPEG-4 or DivX Version 6, and for still images, we strongly encourage TIFF, JPG, or PNG. If you use another format, you are not guaranteed that reviewers will view them. In preparing videos, please choose a reasonable frame size and rate, but be prepared to submit higher-resolution video if a section of your video is selected for the Papers Preview section of the Electronic Theater (see Detailed Instructions). If your supplemental materials amount to more than 100 MB of data, you are not guaranteed that reviewers will download and view them. If you need larger files than this, consider the shipping option described in the Other Questions About Submissions section of Frequently Asked Questions.
Anonymity
Remove any information from your submission materials (paper, video, images, etc.) that identifies you or any of the other authors, or any of your institutions or places of work. If you are a well-known author, don't narrate your video; get someone else to do it. You must reference all relevant work completely, however, including your own and that of the other authors. In the paper, refer to your own published or otherwise widely known work, and to that of the other authors, in the third person (for example: his work, her work, their work). Reference as "anonymous" only work that you or the other authors have submitted for publication, but that has not yet been published.
Do not include URLs referring to web sites that contain vital material for your submission. Such material won't be considered, since reviewers cannot access it without endangering the anonymity of the reviewing process.
Please keep the PDF version anonymous; in particular, note that under some operating systems the "properties" of a PDF file may contain the creator's name. Also, Version 7 PDF files allow inclusion of a script that will contact the author each time the file is opened. Do not include this script in your PDF file; if we find it, we will reject your paper without review.
Public dissemination of submitted papers, whether by posting them online or by delivering them as talks, is strongly discouraged, in so far as it may destroy your anonymity. However, we recognize that PhD students looking for jobs must give job talks, and they often wish to include their submitted papers on their web pages. We also recognize that laboratories looking for funding need to publicize their latest research. Therefore, we merely ask that authors use restraint whenever possible. Be aware that reviewers are human, and they may become annoyed if they see blatant or unjustified violations of anonymity. To reiterate the main point, do not identify the authors by name or affiliation anywhere within your submitted paper or supplemental materials. For more information, see the Anonymity section of Frequently Asked Questions.
Paper Length
There is no arbitrary maximum length imposed on papers. However, reviewers will be instructed to weigh the contribution of a paper relative to its length. For example, a useful idea presented completely in four pages is more likely to be accepted than the same idea presented in eight pages. Papers longer than 8-10 pages must make a very significant contribution to be accepted. Papers of four or fewer pages will be held to a less strict standard of citation and description of related work: comparison to the strongest alternative techniques is still important, but an exhaustive review is not necessary. You must declare the page length of your paper on the Technical Papers Submission Form when you submit your abstract. You may change this declaration as often as you like until the 12 May 2009 submission deadline, when it becomes final. The page length need not be an even number.
Once the Technical Papers submission deadline has passed, it is expected that if your paper is accepted, its final length will be equal to the length you have declared. If you wish to substantially change this length during the revision cycle, or if you wish to add any pages to the length of your paper, you must first obtain permission from your referee. Referees will typical deny such requests unless the terms of conditional acceptance of the paper can reasonably be understood to require it.
Companion Videos
Papers may be accompanied by a video that is five minutes or less in length. In recent years, well over half of the accepted papers were accompanied by some kind of video material. To the extent possible, accepted papers should stand on their own, with the video providing supplementary information or confirmation of results. However, it is fine to refer to the video in the paper, in which case the video should be submitted in the public areas of the supplementary materials form, as described below. Such a public video should not be included in a submission unless substantively similar footage can appear in the SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 Full Conference DVD-ROM, and in the ACM Digital Library. If your paper is accepted and you cannot comply with this requirement because of copyright or permission problems, your acceptance will be rescinded.
Supplemental Materials
Authors are invited, but not required, to include supplemental materials such as images, additional videos, related papers, more detailed explanations, derivations, or results, and previous SIGGRAPH reviews. These materials will be viewed only at the discretion of the reviewers, who are only obligated to read your paper itself. These materials should be anonymized if possible. Anonymous materials can be made available to all reviewers; materials whose authorship can be readily ascertained will be seen only by members of the Technical Papers Committee. If you send non-anonymous supplemental materials, please also send a cover letter indicating which material is non-anonymous, and explaining why you are sending it. There are three separate areas in the online submission form for uploading supplementary materials: a) public materials that are considered part of the submission, and that you are commiting to provide for the conference DVD-ROM and ACM Digital Library if your paper is accepted, b) anonymous materials that you are submtting to help in the review process, but do not plan to submit to the DVD-ROM and Digital Library, and c) non-anonymous materials that you do not plan to submit to the DVD-ROM and Digital Library.
If you have a related paper that is under review or in press elsewhere, we strongly recommend that you send a version of this paper as supplemental submission material. Because we check with other conferences and journals for duplicate submissions (which are summarily rejected), you may also wish to include a cover letter that outlines the differences between your SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 submission and the related paper. Related papers and cover letters need not be anonymous; if not, they will be used only by the members of the Technical Papers Committee to determine whether the submitted work is unique. For more information, see the Double Submissions section of Frequently Asked Questions.
Resubmissions
If your paper is a revision of a paper that has previously been
submitted to a
SIGGRAPH conference, we recommend (but do not require) that you include
copies of the reviews that it received, and of your responses to them.
Only
members of the Papers Committee will see these earlier reviews and
comments.
Note that simply responding to all earlier criticisms will not guarantee
acceptance. As a new possibility this year, there is also a place on the
submission form for you to give the year, SIGGRAPH conference name, and
paper
ID of a previously submitted version of your paper. If you choose to use
this
option, your paper might be assigned to some or all of the previous
reviewers, and all reviewers will have access to the materials of the
prior
submission (including anonymized reviews, PDFs, image files, videos, and
BBS
correspondence). We encourage you to choose this option, if you consider
the
paper to be derived from the previous version, even if the paper has
been
substantially rewritten and authors have been added, because it will
result
in more consistent reviews, and decrease the chance that a new reviewer
will
want completely different changes than those you made in response to the
reviews of your earlier submission. It will also reduce the burden on
the
volunteer reviewing community.
Permissions and Copyrights
You must have permission from the owner or copyright holder to use any images or video that you do not own in your submitted paper or supplementary material.
If your submission is accepted, you will be asked to provide a signed ACM Copyright Form, which is required by ACM before your paper can be published. The form must be downloaded, printed, completed, signed, and faxed to the ACM SIGGRAPH Director for Publications.
In addition, if your paper is accepted, you must review your permissions (part of your original online submission form) and complete the Acceptance Agreement by entering an electronic signature, within two weeks of your acceptance. You can already peruse and sign the agreement during the submission process. We strongly recommend this. You will still be able to make necessary changes within two weeks of your acceptance. If you do not complete your Acceptance Agreement with an electronic signature, your work cannot be presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2009.
You are also required to upload final versions of all supporting supplementary materials originally submitted as part of your paper in the section "Supplementary material for publication in ACM Digital Library and Conference DVD-ROM" of the online submission form. You will need to provide a signed ACM Copyright Form for each of these supplementary-material files.
