Technical Papers

Please use the Technical Papers Online Submission Form to submit your paper before the submission deadline (11 May 2010, 23:59 UTC/GMT).

General Information

1. Submissions will be administratively rejected without review if it is found that:

a. The submission violates the ACM Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism.

b. The submission is a dual submission; that is, if the submission is simultaneously under review for any other conference or publication. For more details, see the Policy on Previous Publication and the Double Submissions section of the Frequently Asked Questions.

c. Electronic files have been submitted that include side effects other than presenting the submitted work to reviewers and committee members (for example, a "phone home" script).

2. All fields on the submission form except for the final file upload must be completed by 11 May 2010. When you begin the form, your submission will be assigned a unique paper_ID. A paper_ID is required for each submission. You must include the paper_ID at the top of the first page of your submitted paper, so you should complete the submission form prior to finalizing and uploading your paper. NO PAPER_IDs WILL BE ISSUED after 11 May 2010, 23:59 UTC/GMT. See Important Dates.

3. See Publication Requirements and the Other Questions About Submissions section of Frequently Asked Questions for information on preparing documents and supplemental materials (including information on anonymity, length, etc.). See the Deadlines section of Frequently Asked Questions for more details about submission deadlines.

Information for Submission of Papers and Electronic Supplemental Materials

1. As stated above, all fields on the online submission form must be completed by 11 May 2010, 23:59 UTC/GMT. See Important Dates.

2. You must upload a PDF file of your paper and all supplemental files by 11 May 2010, 23:59 UTC/GMT. See Important Dates. If you find that uploading is slow and you are concerned about meeting the deadline, you may first upload MD5 checksums for your files (by 11 May, 23:59 UTC/GMT) and then upload the files that match this checksum by 12 May 2010, 23:59 UTC/GMT. To ensure that MD5 checksums can be uploaded prior to the deadline, uploading of papers and supplemental files may be disabled during the hours immediately before the deadline. Please be prepared to upload checksums during this period. Papers or materials emailed to the Papers Chair or Papers Advisory committee are not considered to have been submitted; you must use the online submission system.

English Review Service
Non-native English speakers may use the English Review Service to help with the text of submissions. Please note that this takes time, so your submission should be sent to the English Review Service well before the final Technical Papers deadline. There is no guarantee on turnaround time for this service.

Why is the abstract due by the 11 May 2010 deadline?
The "paper sort" process of assigning papers to committee members begins immediately after the 11 May 2010 deadline. It is useful to have the abstract, as well as the other submission form details, at this time, so that material for the paper sort can be prepared. Your paper will be assigned to committee members based on the abstract and the keywords you select.

What is the deal with MD5 checksums?
If you upload all of your files by 11 May 2010, 23:59 UTC/GMT, you can ignore the MD5 checksums. The system will, however, compute and report the MD5 checksum for any file you upload, once the uploaded file has been completely received by the submissions server. You may find this useful if you want to check that your file has been uploaded without corruption. Just compare the MD5 checksum you compute for your file with the checksum computed by the submission system.

If you are uploading in the last couple of days before the deadline, server response may be slow. To be sure of meeting the deadline, you may initially upload just the MD5 checksum for each of your files. If the MD5 checksum for a file is received by 11 May 2010, 23:59 UTC/GMT, you will have 24 hours to complete the upload of that (unchanged, and therefore identical) file. That is, you will have until 12 May 2010, 23:59 UTC/GMT, to upload files for which MD5 checksums have been entered. Visit the MD5 Homepage (unofficial) for pointers to various MD5 implementations. To calculate a checksum, you must use an MD5 calculator. We have tested the following MD5 calculators:

Linux: md5sum command
Windows98\Me\NT\2000\XP: FastSum v1.3
Mac OS/X: "md5" command in Terminal.

Physical Submission of Supplemental Materials
We encourage electronic submission of videos and other supplementary materials, since they are easier to distribute to reviewers than physical media. However, if you believe reviewers of your paper need to see physical supplementary materials, you may mail or ship six copies, to arrive by (not be postmarked or sent by) 11 May 2010, 23:59 UTC/GMT at this address:

George Drettakis
SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 Technical Papers Chair
Koelnmesse Pte Ltd
152 Beach Road
#25-05 Gateway East
Singapore 189721
+65.6500.6723

All complete submissions received by the deadline will be acknowledged by email. For this purpose, a submission is complete if a paper_ID has been assigned and a PDF file of the paper has been successfully uploaded. Such submissions will be reviewed unless they are withdrawn by the author.

New requirement: All submitters must complete the Submission and Authorization Agreement (formerly the Acceptance Agreement) before the submission deadline. Incomplete submissions will not be reviewed or accepted.

Technical Papers Review Process
The Technical Papers Committee and a set of external reviewers, both consisting of recognized experts, will review submitted papers. Then, at their meeting (23-24 July 2010, in Los Angeles), the committee will select those papers to be presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 and published in a special issue of ACM Transactions on Graphics.

SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 is an ACM SIGGRAPH conference. It is distinct from the long and ongoing series of SIGGRAPH conferences that have been held in the United States, but the process is very closely patterned on the review processes of previous SIGGRAPH conferences.

The Technical Papers Committee
The Technical Papers review process will be conducted by (1) the Technical Papers Chair, George Drettakis, who was chosen by the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 Conference Chair and approved by the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee and its SIGGRAPH Asia Conference Advisory Group; (2) the Technical Papers Advisory Board, selected by the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 Technical Papers Chair, which consists of John Hughes, Holly Rushmeier, Eugene Fiume, Michael Cohen, Nelson Max (SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 Technical Papers Chair) and Tony DeRose (SIGGRAPH 2010 Technical Papers Chair); and 3) the Technical Papers Committee, chosen by the Technical Papers Chair with the assistance of the members of the Technical Papers Advisory Board, and consisting of about 35 people whose expertise spans the entire field.

The Review Process
1. On the weekend following the submission deadline, the Technical Papers Chair and several other volunteers chosen by the chair will conduct the papers sort. During this meeting, they will assign papers to the two senior reviewers, called the primary and secondary reviewers, who are members of the Technical Papers Committee. The Technical Papers Chair does not review papers. Papers that are inappropriate may be rejected during this assignment process, without being sent to any senior reviewers. Papers will normally be rejected at this stage only if they are clearly off-topic for SIGGRAPH Asia 2010, or if they are discovered to have been published previously or to have been submitted simultaneously to another conference or journal. For more details, see Prior Art & Public Disclosure and the Double Submissions section of Frequently Asked Questions.

2. The two assigned senior reviewers may, upon conferring with each other and the Technical Papers Chair, recommend that a paper be rejected without additional review. A paper will normally be rejected at this stage only if it falls into one of the categories listed in phase one, but this fact was not detected during the papers sort. It is possible, although unlikely, that a paper may also be rejected at this stage if it solves a problem that is known to be already solved; or if it does not cite (and the authors seem unaware of) important prior work on the same problem and doesn't address how it is different; or if it has no evaluation via proof, experiment, or analysis; or if it is solving a problem sufficiently minor that the senior reviewers do not believe that it belongs in the program.

3. Each paper is distributed to three or more additional experts, called tertiary reviewers. Two of them are selected by the primary senior reviewer of that paper, and the third is selected by the secondary senior reviewer. The primary, secondary, and tertiary reviewers all write full reviews. A copy of the review form can be found here and reviewer instructions here. Thus, at least five reviews are written for each paper that has not been rejected during phases one and two. The senior reviewers know the identities of the authors of the papers, but the tertiary reviewers do not. In unusual cases, such as when a tertiary reviewer fails to deliver a review on time, papers may receive only four reviews. For more details, see the Review Process section of Frequently Asked Questions.

4. After all reviews are complete, the review system allows the authors access to the reviews and scores for their papers. The authors have five days, from 7 July 2010 through 11 July 2010, to enter rebuttals if they feel that the reviewers have made substantive errors, or to answer specific questions posed by the reviewers. The rebuttal is confined to 2,000 words in length. The rebuttal period is for addressing factual errors in the reviews, not for getting revised text or new results into the review process. Any such novel material will be ignored by the senior reviewers. For more details see the Rebuttal Process section of Frequently Asked Questionss.

5. After the rebuttal is submitted, or beginning on 11 July if no rebuttal was received, the senior reviewers will read the author rebuttals, confer intensively about the paper, and prepare by 17 July a recommendation for the committee meeting. The three tertiary reviewers will see the author rebuttals and will participate in the discussion of the paper. Since the three tertiary reviewers do not know the names of the authors, the authors should maintain anonymity in their rebuttals. In addition, the tertiary reviewers don't know each other's identities, so they too must maintain anonymity during the discussion. The preliminary recommendation agreed on at this stage will be either accept, reject, or refer to ACM Transactions on Graphics. If an agreement on the recommendation cannot be reached, a fourth option is to table the paper, for further review and discussion.

6. If a paper is tabled, the senior reviewers will select one or more other members of the papers committee to write extra reviews of the paper, and be prepared to discuss it in detail at the meeting. The extra reviews will be written during the week before the committee meeting. If consensus still cannot be reached, it is possible that extra reviews will be assigned during the meeting itself. Any extra reviews will be returned to the authors after the meeting.

7. The full Technical Papers Committee meets on 23-24 July 2010 to determine acceptance or rejection of each paper. In cases where a consensus on a paper was not reached during the pre-meeting discussion phase, additional committee members may read the paper, and their evaluations will be taken into account in the decision.

Although the senior reviewers of a paper know the identities of its authors, they normally do not disclose these identities during the meeting. In advance of the paper sort, the papers committee members specify with which paper authors they have conflicts of interest, due to institutional, professional or student/teacher relationships. They leave the room when papers for which they have conflicts are discussed. Papers are judged solely on their merit, as determined by the reviews. Although the acceptance rate of SIGGRAPH papers has remained nearly constant in the range of 15% to 25%, there is no quota for the number of papers that should be accepted by the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 Technical Papers committee; this number will arise organically from the actions of the committee.

Possible Outcomes for a Paper
Email notifications of the papers committee's decisions should be sent by 23:59 UTC/GMT on 26 July 2010. The notifications will place each paper in one of the following three categories:

1. Rejected

2. Conditionally accepted for presentation at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010. Conditionally accepted papers undergo a second reviewing process, in which a referee (a member of the Technical Papers Committee) verifies that the final version of the paper is acceptable (that any required changes have been made, and that other changes made by the authors, perhaps in response to reviewer comments, have not compromised the paper in any way). This second and final stage determines the final acceptance status of all papers. The referees' decisions are final. Papers that do not satisfy the referees in the second stage of reviewing and/or that are not uploaded in final form by the final deadline of 12 September 2010, together with the original or revised versions of the submitted supplementary material, will be rejected. Accepted papers will appear in the conference proceedings, which will continue to be published as a special issue of ACM Transactions on Graphics. One author of the paper must commit to presenting the paper in person.

3. Conditionally accepted for publication in ACM Transactions on Graphics, pending major revisions. At the authors' discretion, these papers undergo a second reviewing process, in which an Associate Editor of ACM Transactions on Graphics works with the authors to produce an acceptable final version of their papers. The TOG reviewers will have access to the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 reviews, and to the extent possible, the paper will be assigned to the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 reviewers, so that there is consistency in the requested changes. Accepted papers will be published in regular issues of ACM Transactions on Graphics and may be presented at a later SIGGRAPH or SIGGRAPH Asia conference.


Upon First-Stage Acceptance for SIGGRAPH Asia 2010
Authors of papers conditionally accepted by the committee must prepare an electronic, camera-ready version of their papers in ACM-standard format for the second reviewing process, and then for eventual publication in a special issue of ACM Transactions on Graphics. SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 will also produce a DVD-ROM of all the accepted papers. For detailed instructions for preparation of papers, see ACM SIGGRAPH paper preparation guidelines.

By 26 July 2010 (23:59 UTC/GMT), notification of conditional acceptances and rejections will be sent to authors, along with any extra reviews and perhaps a list of required changes. Members of the Technical Papers committee, typically the primary and secondary reviewers, will be assigned as referees for the revision cycle.

A few days after notification, any changes to the paper title, list of authors, or 30-word paper summary will be due back to your referee. Changes to the paper title must be approved by your referee. Also, if you wish to substantially change the length of your paper, or if you wish to add any pages to the length of your paper, you must first obtain permission from your referee. Extensions of more than one page are unlikely to be granted.

The revised version of your paper is due on 4 September 2010. The final PDF file is due on 12 September 2010. During the week between these two dates, the reviewers and authors will communicate via the SIS bulletin board process about the adequacy of the changes in the revisions. Sometimes, changes are not initially considered adequate, or introduce new problems, so further revision may be required. If the initial revised version is submitted earlier than 4 September, this will provide even more time for iterated revisions. It is hoped that all provisionally accepted papers will be accepted by the end of this process, but this is not guaranteed.

When writing successive revisions, the reviewers' jobs are easier if you use a different color for the added or revised text in each new version. (But please remember to remove these colors in the final version.) It also helps to describe the changes in the bulletin-board post to which you attach the revision.

Session Presentation, Room Set-Up, and Equipment
A complete summary of the resources available for presentation of your paper. Arrangements for equipment outside the standard set-up are the sole responsibility of the paper presenter. One author must commit to present the paper in person at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010.

Presenter Recognition
Information on how SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 will support your participation if your work is accepted.

Authorization for Use
Any material that supports a paper's acceptance for publication must be available as part of the final publication. Thus, all material uploaded for review in the "public materials that are considered part of the submission" section of the submission form, including supplementary text, images, and videos, will become ACM-copyrighted material upon acceptance, and the required permission forms must be sent to ACM with the submission. If it subsequently becomes apparent that the necessary permissions cannot be given for publication of material that is substantially similar to that submitted for review, acceptance of the paper will be withdrawn. The submitted supplementary material will be reproduced on the conference DVD-ROM and will also be available to subscribers to the ACM Digital Library via the web page associated with your ACM Transactions on Graphics paper. You must, for every non-publicly available supplementary file originally uploaded in the "public materials" category, upload either copies of the originally submitted material or updated versions of this material to the online submission system's final-versions page by the 12 September deadline.

A Papers Preview section of the Electronic Theater will be prepared from selected parts of the submitted videos. If a section of your video is selected, you may be asked to provide that section in 1080p resolution for maximum projection quality, but if that is not possible for you, the version you submitted will be used. If you submit video, please keep your software and input data files available, in case you are asked to re-render a video segment at higher resolution. The Papers Preview video may also be used to publicize the Technical Papers program elsewhere inside and outside the conference.

Double Submissions
Prior Art and Public Disclosure
Anonymity
Other Questions About Submissions
Deadlines
Review Process

 
Rebuttal Process
Presentations
Getting a Paper Accepted
Patents and Confidentiality
Volunteering for the Technical Papers Program

Double Submissions

I would like to submit my paper to conference X or journal Y as well as to SIGGRAPH Asia 2010.
You must submit to just SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 and await our response before submitting elsewhere (should your work not be accepted by SIGGRAPH Asia 2010). You will have a chance to see the reviews and scores during the rebuttal period starting on 7 July, 2010, and may withdraw your paper at that time (or at any other time) if you choose to do so. If you submit your paper to another conference or journal simultaneously, we will reject your paper without review. We will be in contact with the editors of several graphics journals, and chairs of other graphics-related conferences, swapping information. Several double submissions to SIGGRAPH have been found in recent years.

I would like to submit my paper to conference X. Their submission deadline is after SIGGRAPH Asia 2010's program committee meeting, but they require abstracts to be submitted before SIGGRAPH Asia 2010's program committee meeting. May I submit the abstract?
Yes. The prohibition against dual submission kicks in when a full paper substantially equivalent to your SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 paper is submitted elsewhere. For conferences that require extended abstracts or other formats, you should ask the Papers Chair before submitting, to avoid the possibility that your paper will be rejected by SIGGRAPH Asia 2010.

But I want my paper to be in SIGGRAPH Asia 2010. I promise that if it's accepted by SIGGRAPH Asia 2010, I'll withdraw it from the other conference or journal.
We appreciate your eagerness to have your paper published by SIGGRAPH Asia 2010. There is only one route to having this happen (see the previous paragraphs).

We've submitted a paper about a pilot study to conference X, and now we'd like to submit a paper about the full-blown user study to SIGGRAPH Asia 2010. How should we go about that to avoid the perception that it is a dual submission?
Cite the submitted paper in your SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submission with a note to the reviewers that either it will be accepted by conference X, or you will publish it as a tech report and make it freely available on the web. Send in an anonymous version with your SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submission. Then when you write the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 paper, treat the pilot study as already published. Don't repeat text or figures from that paper in the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 version.

I sent in a paper to workshop X with the understanding that it was for review purposes only, and the workshop would have no published proceedings. Now, four months later, they tell me that they're going to publish the proceedings and include it in the digital library. Unfortunately there is significant overlap between that paper and my submitted SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 paper. How should I handle this?
We realize that you didn't intend to do anything against the SIGGRAPH rules, but now that the workshop rules have changed, you should either withdraw the workshop paper from the proceedings or withdraw your SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submission.

Prior Publication

I am thinking about submitting a paper to SIGGRAPH Asia 2010, and I'm uncertain about the requirements. Specifically: "Your paper cannot have been previously published in an equivalent or similar form. A paper is considered published if it has appeared in a peer-reviewed
journal or in published meeting proceedings that are commercially available afterward to non-attendees, regardless of the language of that publication." Does this include abstract-reviewed published meeting proceedings (for example, SPIE proceedings)? Does your restriction apply to papers accepted for journal publication?
If the meeting proceedings are published in a form that is visibly, reliably, and permanently available afterward in print or electronic format to non-attendees (as in the case of SPIE proceedings), then it is not appropriate to submit a paper that has been so published to SIGGRAPH Asia 2010. If your work has been accepted for journal publication (or even submitted), it is not appropriate for submission to SIGGRAPH Asia 2010. For more details, see Prior Art & Public Disclosure.

How do I reference an ACM SIGGRAPH Sketch on the same topic as the paper that I am writing?
Depending on the year of presentation, the Sketch might appear in the ACM Digital Library. If it does, you should use the ACM Digital Library as a reference. If it is not archived, you may refer to the oral presentation at the conference or the abstract, if it appeared in one of the conference publications. If you were the author of a Sketch whose full text is no longer available to the public, then citation is not strictly necessary because presentation of a Sketch does not preclude publication of a full paper. If you were not the author of the Sketch, then you should cite the Sketch to respect the author's ideas. If the authors have published a subsequent paper, thesis, or tech report about their work, you should cite that instead of the Sketch because it will be a more useful pointer for your readers.

A month after submitting our paper, we obtained much better results. Can we withdraw our paper from review and submit it elsewhere (or wait until next year)?
SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submissions can be withdrawn at any time. However, authors should remember that the program chair and the senior reviewers on their paper know who they are, and may have already spent considerable effort reviewing their paper. Withdrawing a paper won't help your reputation with these reviewers. You will have a chance to see the reviews and scores during the rebuttal period starting on 7 July 2010, and if you withdraw your paper at that time to submit it elsewhere, the reviewers will probably not be upset. Your paper must be judged by your results at the time of submission, but if it is provisionally accepted, you will be able to replace results with your new results in the final publication version, subject to approval by the senior reviewers.

Anonymity

How do I include a reference to myself without identifying myself?
The general rule is to use the third person. For example, if Fred Brooks were to write a paper, he might say in his "related work" section: "Brooks et al. [12] discuss a system in which molecular visualizations are ... Our work builds on some of the ideas presented there, and on the ideas of Smith et al. [14] and the interaction techniques described by Wolford [18]." He would NOT say: "The authors, in prior work [12], discussed a system in which molecular visualization ... " The only case in which anonymous references are appropriate are unpublished manuscripts, in which case he might write: "The authors have also developed closely related techniques for molecular manipulation [15], but that work is outside the scope of this paper." Reference 15 would then read: "[15] Anonymous Authors. Molecular manipulations through computer graphics, submitted to CACM."

If there is any danger that reference [15] might be considered a dual submission, then you should submit it as supplemental material with your SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submission, along with a cover letter (also submitted as supplemental material) briefly explaining the differences between it and your SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submission. You do not need to anonymize the cover letter, and you do not necessarily need to anonymize the supplemental manuscript either.

However, if you believe it is important that all reviewers see that manuscript (for example, because it explains background concepts they might need in order to judge your SIGGRAPH Asia submission), then send in an anonymous version with your SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submission. This will allow it to be sent to tertiary reviewers. Be aware that even if you do not think the reference is important to the reviewers, some reviewers may want to see it, necessitating complicated efforts by the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 reviewers to help them obtain it anonymously. So please consider uploading anonymous versions of any anonymous references.

Please submit these supplementary materials (and any cover letter) electronically. The submission form provides separate areas for submitting supplementary materials intended to go to all reviewers versus supplementary materials intended to go only to the primary and secondary reviewer. Non-anonymized materials that would identify you as the author, including any cover letter, should go in the second area.

My SIGGRAPH Asia submission needs to cite a tech report or thesis that might be hard for reviewers to find. What should I do?
You are encouraged to submit that report or thesis as supplemental material. Cite it in the third person in your SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submission, even if you are one of its authors. This avoids the necessity of anonymizing it.

My SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submission needs to cite one of our own web pages, which can't easily be anonymized. Now what should I do?
If you can reasonably cite the web page in the third person, go ahead. Remember, however, that reviewers may be reluctant to visit cited web pages, since doing so could compromise their anonymity.

If for some reason you can't cite a web page in the third person, or if doing so would compromise your anonymity (for example, the same pictures appear in your submission and on the web page, or the web page includes a link to a paper by you that is cited in your SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submission as Anonymous Authors), then don't cite it; find another solution. If in this unusual case you're worried about a reviewer thinking that you've appropriated other people's work without proper citation, then submit as supplemental material a letter explaining the situation. You do not need to anonymize this letter. Of course, you can also upload as supplementary material your web page .html source, and any other files it points to.

My SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submission needs to cite another, concurrent SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submission by our group. Now what should I do?
Cite it as [16] Anonymous Authors, A grand unified theory of computer graphics, submitted to SIGGRAPH Asia 2010, and submit as supplemental material a letter telling us which paper_id you are referring to. As described above, it is a good idea to upload this anonymous reference as supplementary material, in case reviewers want to see it.

I know I am supposed to remove my name, company name, etc. from the document, but should I also remove names from the acknowledgements? If the paper is accepted, should I send another copy to you with this additional material?
You should not include an "acknowledgements" section in the submission. If your paper is accepted, you will submit a revised version that identifies you and your co-authors, your affiliations, and any acknowledgements that are appropriate (so consider the extra space that this will require when stating how may pages the paper will occupy).

Other Questions About Submissions

Where can I find a list of the Computing Reviews categories? Also, are we restricted to using keywords specified on the web site?

Yes, select one Computing Reviews primary topic area and one or more secondary topic areas that best describe your paper. These topic areas will help the paper sorters select appropriate senior reviewers for your paper. See ACM's Computing Classification System to determine the selection of keywords to describe your paper.

The Publication Requirements page says pages should be numbered, but the document preparation instructions say that page numbers should not be included. Which is correct?
You should number the pages. For the final version, if your paper is accepted, we'll ask that you not number the pages, but please number them for the submission. The sample documents in Document Preparation for Conference Proceedings all include page numbering.

I have video material I need to submit. May I submit it on a VHS tape or DVD-ROM?
The recommended procedure is to upload as supplementary material animations and videos in digital video files that can be easily downloaded and viewed by reviewers, rather than in physical media that are harder to handle and distribute. If you believe that the higher quality or resolution, or larger file size, allowed by a physical medium is necessary to evaluate your paper, you may use the shipping process described in the next answer below.

I have a hologram, a cloth sample, a page printed with non-standard inks, an auto-stereogram, or some other physical material that I need the reviewers to see, that I cannot supply electronically. What should I do?
You may mail or ship six copies of such supplementary materials to the Technical Papers Chair:

George Drettakis
SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 Technical Papers Chair
Koelnmesse Pte Ltd
152 Beach Road
#25-05 Gateway East
Singapore 189721
+65.6500.6723

Even if you ship physical versions of your paper itself, you must still upload a PDF version to the online submission system. In order to be considered for reviewing, all such supplementary material must arrive by the 11 May deadline. If your shipped material does not arrive by 11 May, and you upload a PDF paper by then, your submitted paper will be reviewed without the shipped material.

The details in my imagery are very subtle: I am concerned that the reviewers will not print my paper on a suitable printer or view my video with an appropriate codec.
You still need to submit your paper as a PDF file. Please be aware that the reader of your final version, if accepted, may have the same problem, and plan your figures accordingly. In particular, make sure line weights on diagrams and text labels and axis numbering on graphs have not been reduced to an illegible size. (Colored lines and text will suffer more in this regard than black and white.)

For images, you are encouraged to include enlargements of selected sections to show details. You may include larger images in supplementary materials, and/or add in your submitted PDF paper a note to reviewers to look at enlarged versions of certain figures on their monitors, but this is not appropriate for the final version, so please prepare a paper that can be appreciated in print.

You may also ship physical versions of the paper or of selected images, as described in the previous answer, but this is not encouraged for material that will be printed in the proceedings with the normal printing process. You may also ship your video on physical media if necessary.

Does the video submitted by 11 May have to be final quality? Or will people whose papers are accepted have the opportunity to prepare a more polished video?
You'll have the opportunity to prepare a more polished video. Of course, the better the submitted video looks, the more likely reviewers will be able to see the strength of your work, so early polishing is a good investment of time and energy. (But note the five-minute duration limit and 100 MB total file size limitations for supplementary material in the Publication Requirements).

If your paper is accepted, you must submit your video or its revised version via the final upload page in the online submssion system, for inclusion in the conference DVD-ROM and the ACM Digital Library. Any such submitted videos will also be considered for inclusion in a Papers Preview section of the Electronic Theater program. If a specific section of your video is selected, you will be encouraged to produce a 1080p version of that section for this purpose, but if you do not, whatever version you have uploaded will be used.

Do we have to prepare the paper in the final format?
Yes, please do so. Seeing a paper in final format lets us verify the page count and allows us to compare it to other papers.

What is the page limit for papers?
There is no arbitrary maximum length imposed on papers. Rather, reviewers will be instructed to weigh the contribution of a paper relative to its length. Typical research papers are eight pages long. However, in any given year, it is common for papers to be accepted with as few as four pages and as many as 12 pages. See Publication Requirements for more details.

My submission is a revision of a paper I submitted to an earlier SIGGRAPH conference. Will the reviewers get to see the earlier reviews?
Not unless you authorize them to. There are two ways you can do this. You can submit the previous reviews yourself, by uploading them as supplementary material. In this case, it is a good idea to upload the previous submission also, so the reviews and your revisions in response to them can be placed in context.

You may also identify the previous paper on the submission form and authorize that the (anonymized) reviews, the previously submitted materials, and the BBS discussions, be transmitted to reviewers from the submission database for your previous submission. In this case, the previous reviewers' names will be transmitted to the paper sorters and the senior reviewers of your new submission. In this case, there is a good chance that the previous reviewers can be reassigned to your paper. See Publication Requirements for more details.

Hey, I know your REAL email address. Can I use that?
No, use the Technical Papers Email Contact Form. Why? First, I might be unavailable for several days. Second, during parts of the submission and review process, I will be buried in email. If you use the contact form, your email will go to the Technical Papers Chair and selected administrators. One of them may be able to answer your question, and they will often do so surprisingly promptly. If you have a question of extreme delicacy, or a question on which the Technical Papers Chair or a member of the Technical Papers Advisory Board might be conflicted, please contact the Technical Papers administrative support team via the contact form. Neither the Technical Papers Chair nor reviewers will receive such emails.

Deadlines

Can I submit after the deadline?
No. The deadline is absolute.

But I had a major life event (birth, death, divorce ...) just two days ago!
The deadline is absolute. You may, of course, submit the work in its current form by the deadline, even if it's not the paper that you'd like it to be.

But my fancy color printer stopped working at 4 pm, and the FedEx deadline is looming!

The deadline is absolute; plan accordingly and submit early. Equipment failures are common, and SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 cannot adapt its schedule to accommodate them. If you upload a PDF file by the deadline, your paper will be considered without the specially printed supplementary material you had hoped to ship.

I was unable to upload my submission on time. The system was overloaded, and halfway through uploading my submission the deadline passed.
The deadline is absolute. Submissions that are in progress when the 12 May delayed deadline passes, even if it's because our server has slowed down due to high load, will not be accepted. You should allow enough lead time to avoid this kind of problem. Please see the How to Submit for explanations of the MD5 checksum process and the meaning of the 11 May deadline and the 12 May delayed deadline.

Unfortunately, in our rush to meet the deadline, we incorrectly set our gamma during taping, so we sent a fairly poor-quality video. I have since corrected the problem. May I substitute new videos for the ones I submitted? The video is identical, except for the gamma correction.
No. The submission deadline is absolute. All materials must be submitted by the deadline. If your paper is accepted, you will have the opportunity to replace the video.

I'm using the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 English Review Service, and they didn't get back to me soon enough, so it's SIGGRAPH Asia 2010's fault that my paper isn't ready. Can I submit late?
The deadline is absolute. The English Review Service makes no guarantees about turnaround, and it's up to you to make contingency plans.

I'm not in Asia, and Customs can hold up submissions, so I have to send my physical supplemental materials off two weeks earlier than Asian researchers would. Can I send it by the deadline instead, and you'll receive it about two weeks late, after Customs has had a chance to process it?
The deadline is absolute. If your supplemental materials must pass through various hurdles to get here, you must plan in advance how to submit it early enough to ensure arrival on time. If the PDF file is uploaded by the deadline, we will review your paper without any shipped material that arrived late.

I gave my supplemental materials to Federal Express, and I have a receipt to prove that they promised delivery before the deadline, but there was a typhoon in Singapore, and Federal Express couldn't meet their promise.
If you can provide the receipt (and we'll ask for it), then we'll accept the materials whenever Federal Express delivers them, but cannot guarantee that they will reach reviewers in time to influence their reviews.

Review Process

I am submitting a paper on topic X, which I know is an area of expertise for committee member Y. Can I ask that Y be a senior reviewer of my paper?
No.

Am I allowed to ask for my paper to not be reviewed by someone from whom I do not expect a fair review?
It is our belief that the vast majority of reviewers in the SIGGRAPH community perform fair reviews. In addition, outlier reviews are always closely examined by the committee and discarded if appropriate. Nonetheless, if you have a specific and exceptional reason to believe that a specific person may not be in a position to judge your work fairly, you will have the ability to add a note to the chair and the advisory board with your submission explaining the reasons for this request. We will examine such requests, which we expect to be very rare, and decide whether to take them into consideration during the assignment of reviewers.

Isn't the committee more likely to accept papers by committee members and other insiders? How do you prevent a conflict of interest?
Any paper on which a committee member has a conflict of interest will not be discussed while that committee member is in the room. While each committee member has a list of papers and the committee members who reviewed them, these lists are customized so that the names of the members who reviewed papers on which he have a conflict of interest will not be shown on my list. In general, the acceptance rate for papers by committee members has been slightly higher than the acceptance rate for those in the overall submission pool. But the acceptance rate for these same people has also been higher in years when they were not on the committee; they're invited to be on the committee, in part, because of their expertise in the field.

I'm a Technical Papers reviewer, and I'd like to show this paper to one of my students, who frankly knows more about the topic of this paper than I do. May I?
Yes. You may show a paper under review to a small number of people, normally one or two, providing that you: 1. List their name(s), title(s) (for example, "my PhD student"), and affiliation(s) in the private section of the review form, which goes only to the papers committee. 2. Clearly instruct them on the rules of confidentiality of the SIGGRAPH review process.

However, it is not appropriate for others to write the review for you. If this is your intention, then you must discuss it with the senior reviewer who assigned you the paper. At their discretion, they may officially reassign the paper to your student. In this case, you lose a free mug, and the student gains one!

Rebuttal Process

Reviewer #4 clearly didn't read my paper carefully enough. Either that or this reviewer doesn't know anything about the field! How should I respond during the rebuttal period?
We've all received SIGGRAPH reviews that made us mad, particularly on first reading. The rebuttal period is short and doesn't allow for the cooling-off period that authors have before they write a response to a journal review. As a result, authors need to be particularly careful to address only factual errors or reviewer questions in the rebuttals rather than letting their emotions show through. Please don't say: "If reviewer #4 had just taken the time to read my paper carefully, she would have realized that our algorithm was rotation invariant." Instead say: "Unfortunately, Section 4 must not have been as clear as we had hoped because Reviewer #4 didn't understand that our algorithm was rotation invariant and he was therefore skeptical about the general applicability of our approach. Here is a revised version of the second paragraph in Section 4, which should clear up this confusion."

Remember that your rebuttal gets sent to all the reviewers; you don't want to offend them. In particular, you want the two senior reviewers to come out of the rebuttal process sufficiently enthused about your paper to champion it at the committee meeting, and if the paper is accepted and needs revision, then you want them to feel sufficiently comfortable with you as an author that they are willing to "shepherd" the paper through the revision process.

Now that I've read the reviews of my paper, I see much better how to organize it so it will be clear to the reader. Can I do this reorganization and upload the new version during the rebuttal period?
No. The rebuttal period is for addressing factual errors in the reviews, not for getting revised text into the review process. The committee members will have only a short time in which to read and act on your rebuttal, and it must be short and to the point. Hence, it will be limited to 2,000 words. You will have the opportunity to reorganize it for publication if it is accepted, subject to referree approval.

Between May and late July, we've gotten some really cool new results for our paper. Can I upload those results during the rebuttal period? I'm sure that they will make the reviewers realize the importance of our approach.
No. The rebuttal period is for addressing factual errors in the reviews, not for getting new results into the review process.

Reviewer #2 says that our collision-detection algorithm won't work on concave objects. But it will, as we just demonstrated with the lid of the teapot. Can we upload a movie showing this new result?
No. Time is very precious at this stage in the review process, and you must keep your rebuttal short, or the reviewers and committee members will not have time to read it. No supplementary material may be uploaded during the rebuttal period, only 2,000 words of text.

I answered all reviewer criticisms during the rebuttal period, but no one responded, and now my paper is rejected. How can I be sure the reviewers received and actually read my rebuttal?
The reviewers and committee members will have only a short time in which to read and act on your rebuttal. You will not receive a response to your rebuttal. If you can view your rebuttal comments in the online review system, so can your reviewers. Rest assured that rebuttal information is considered and can be very helpful in the selection process.

Presentations

Are papers merely published in print, or is there a presentation as well?
There is a presentation, of about 20 minutes length, followed by five minutes of discussion and questions. One of the authors of the paper must commit to making this presentation, in Seoul at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010, for the paper to be accepted. Also, in addition to the print format, the paper will be available in electronic format in the ACM Digital Library and as part of the conference DVD-ROM.

Where can I get the ACM Copyright Form on the web? I need to show it to my employers before I submit.
ACM Copyright Form (PDF)

My paper was just accepted to SIGGRAPH Asia 2010, and I'm thrilled. But now my boss points out that I can't use Mickey Mouse as the example in my paper because I don't have the rights to use him. What do I do now?
The Permissions and Copyrights section of the Publication Requirements page explicitly states that you must have permissions for all the images in your paper and the footage on your videotape, CD-ROM, or DVD-ROM at the time of submission. You should immediately tell the Technical Papers Chair what you propose to use as a replacement. If the new images or footage are not substantially similar to that submitted for review in the judgment of the Chair and the Technical Papers Advisory Board, then acceptance of your paper will be rescinded. The archival record (Proceedings, DVD-ROM, and ACM Digital Library) must contain material that is equivalent to what the reviewers saw at the time of review.

Getting a Paper Accepted
What follows is not "official" SIGGRAPH policy, but rather the idiosyncratic impressions of former Technical Papers Chairs, based on many years of service on the Technical Papers Committee.

Is it important to submit a video with my paper?
There is a very strong correlation between submitting a video and getting accepted if the scientific content of the paper justifies this. An animation paper without a video is almost certain to be rejected.

Why are good papers rejected?
Check out this article by Jim Kajiya, the Papers Chair for SIGGRAPH 93, for many excellent reasons. Although some of the details are dated, the general wisdom is timeless.

My paper was recommended for consideration with major revisions in a subsequent issue of ACM Transactions on Graphics. Does it have to appear there or can I submit it somewhere else?
SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 submissions can be withdrawn at any time. The offer to publish a revised version of the paper in an upcoming TOG issue is completely at the discretion of the author.

How do I decide whether to submit my work as a paper, a sketch, or a poster?
The Technical Papers program is the most competitive of these three. Technical Papers also give you a chance to work out your ideas at greater length. Finally, Technical Papers represent a citable archive, which is stored in the ACM Digital Library and elsewhere; beginning in 2008, SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia Sketches and Posters will not appear in the ACM Digital Library, and are therefore not citable as prior work by other papers.

Technical Sketches and Posters have a later submission date, 30 August 2010, allowing you to submit more recent work than the Technical Papers Program does. If you believe your work is sufficiently mature to be a paper, then submit it to the Technical Papers program.

How soon will my paper accepted with major revisions be published in ACM Transactions on Graphics?
The revisions will be verified by the original SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 reviewers, which greatly accelerates the refereeing process. If the revisions are made in a couple of months and found acceptable, the paper would likely appear in the April or October issue, which may give you the opportunity to present the paper at SIGGRAPH Asia 2011.

My paper was accepted with major revisions to ACM Transactions on Graphics. Great, but I want to submit it to another workshop, symposium, or conference first.
The offer to retain the original SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 reviewers evaporates the moment the paper is submitted anywhere else. The paper can always be submitted to TOG later, but it will be reviewed through the ordinary refereeing process, which may, but probably will not, include any of the original SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 reviewers.

Patents and Confidentiality

What about patents and confidentiality? Are the two senior reviewers and the three tertiary reviewers under a confidentiality agreement not to disclose the contents of the paper to others? Some organizations like IEEE have all reviewers sign a confidentiality agreement. It's very important that I know for sure, since my employer may want to apply for a patent, and it affects when I may submit the paper to the SIGGRAPH Asia conference. Can I, for example, get a written guarantee of confidentiality?
Reviewers are asked to keep confidential all materials sent to them for review, but they do not sign a confidentiality agreement. In general, there is wide respect for the confidentiality of submissions, but we cannot promise anything, or provide a written, legally valid guarantee.

It would not be wise for SIGGRAPH to give you legal counsel on the matter of patents and publication; we urge you to seek independent legal advice. The main issue is that in different jurisdictions (such as Europe), prior public disclosure could invalidate a patent application. The situation is different in North America, where you have one year after public disclosure (for example, publication) to file a patent. It is a common practice for authors to prepare a patent filing coincidentally with their SIGGRAPH publication. The publication date of the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 proceedings issue of ACM Transactions on Graphics will be 1 December 2010.

When will my paper be publicly available?
Technical Papers accepted for presentation at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 will be published in ACM Transactions on Graphics 29(5), a special fifth issue available in print and electronic format, on 1 December 2010. Brief descriptions of accepted papers will be published on the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 web site in September 2010.

Volunteering for the Technical Papers Program

I've volunteered to be on the committee for three years now, and I've never been chosen. What's up with that?
It may be that others are better qualified, that we already have committee members with expertise in your area, that the chairs do not feel that you've been in the field long enough to be an effective committee member, or any number of other reasons. The committee composition does change from year to year, though. Please keep offering your services.

Just what sort of workload is involved in being on the Technical Papers Committee?
You must review about 20 papers by early July. For about 10 papers, you must find two additional reviewers, and for the remaining papers you must find one additional reviewer. You must attend a Technical Papers Committee meeting in Los Angeles, 23-24 July 2010 (Friday and Saturday at the beginning of SIGGRAPH 2010), during which time you'll discuss papers, possibly be called on to provide additional reviews of a couple of papers, and be expected to listen carefully to a lot of discussion that has little to do with you.

Starting on 11 July, you must work with the other senior reviewers to come to a consensus recommendation for acceptance or rejection. If this consensus is not possible, the paper will be tabled, and you will need to select one or more other members of the Technical Papers Committee to review it. Thus you yourself may be asked to write a few extra reviews during the week before the meeting.

You may also be asked to act as a referee for a paper that's been conditionally accepted, to verify that the final version meets the requirements set for it. For papers that are not accepted for the conference, but recommended for ACM Transactions on Graphics, you may be asked to remain as a reviewer during the TOG review process.

Finally, you may be asked to chair a Technical Papers session at SIGGRAPH Asia 2010. See Evaluation for more details.

What do I get for all the work that I'll be doing as a committee member? In material terms, you get a 50% discount when registering for SIGGRAPH Asia 2010. You also receive the recognition of your colleagues, the gratitude of authors, and the sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing you've given something back to the organization that helps disseminate research in graphics.

All deadlines are 23:59 UTC/GMT.

11 May 2010
Submission deadline

7 July 2010
Reviews available

11 July 2010
Rebuttals due

26 July 2010
Decisions announced

4 September 2010
Revisions due

12 September 2010
Final version deadline

1 December 2010
Publication date

15-18 December 2010
SIGGRAPH Asia 2010