Thank you ACM SIGGRAPH Community!
It has been quite a ride for the ACM SIGGRAPH Community over the last year. We are back! Over the last year there has been a lot of uncertainty as we navigated back to in-person events. Throughout the year, we held many gatherings in-person, culminating in our ACM SIGGRAPH Conference in Vancouver in August, 2022. The Conference was a resounding success!
The Conference was a success due to the hard work and dedication of the ACM SIGGRAPH Community. Led by Munkhtsetseg Nandigjav, the 2022 SIGGRAPH Conference Chair, she journeyed onward into unknown territory. She made strategic decisions that benefited us all. A big shout out to Mikki Rose, our Conference Advisory Group Chair, who shepherds multiple conferences in various stages of planning. It is due to her steady leadership and the fantastic Conference committees that we were able to prosper.
Since the ACM SIGGRAPH community is a global nonprofit organization serving the evolution of computer graphics and interactive techniques, we are in it together. With thousands of members across the world, the researchers, artists, developers, filmmakers, scientists, and enterprise business professionals of ACM SIGGRAPH are building the future we experience every day.
ACM SIGGRAPH is of course about the annual conferences, two main gatherings each year. SIGGRAPH is also about the Professional and Student Chapters community, the Digital Arts Community, Digital Twins, and more. Our mission is to nurture, champion, and connect researchers and practitioners of Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. SIGGRAPH has had a longstanding vision, Enabling Everyone to Tell Their Stories. This is as true now as it was five years ago when it was developed.
SIGGRAPH is for Everyone. We serve our traditional audiences of professional movie, animation, and game makers. We serve engineers, designers, scientists, artists, and more. We serve everyone with a story to tell. That story can be of a product in development, a cinematic experience, or somewhere in between, and the mechanism by which the story is experienced, the interactive techniques, is key to delivering an impactful message. Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, that’s what we do and who we are. We enable each person to learn from the best of the best, enhanced by the fantastic sources of knowledge available throughout the SIGGRAPH community.
We are the Premier Source for Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques. We have broadened how content is delivered. Both the 2020 and 2021 SIGGRAPH Conferences were fully virtual. For the 2022 Conference, the content was delivered in a hybrid approach, both in-person and through a virtual platform. In-person content enables people to experience media on traditional screens or through extended reality, or potentially with new forms of interactive sensory experiences not yet invented. The virtual platform will allow flexibility and accessibility. Together, this is a powerful platform to provide content for all.
We have broadened the avenues for contribution to the SIGGRAPH Community. Starting at the SIGGRAPH 2022 Conference, a new Conference Track of the Technical Papers program was formed. This provided a high-quality publication venue that brought the workload of publishing a graphics and interactive techniques paper in line with other top-quality conferences, while diversifying the topics SIGGRAPH publishes in computer graphics and interactive techniques. The Technical Papers now has two tracks, Journal Papers (the existing program) and Conference Papers (the new program).
The most significant difference is that journal articles will continue to be published in ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) and in the ACM Digital Library, while the new Conference Papers will be published as conference papers in the form of “SIGGRAPH Conference Proceedings” solely in the ACM Digital Library. The new Conference Papers will be held to the same high standard for novelty and/or robust contribution, scientific rigor, and technical soundness as Journal Papers. Both Conference Papers and Journal Papers will be reviewed with the same rigorous technical process.
Through the multitude of choices content may be delivered in, SIGGRAPH content runs the gamut in from abstract to literal, from experiential to educational to scientific. Content may be purely digital or may be married to the physical world in a manner that enhances believability and presence. The content could be purely academic, as with Technical Papers. One thing remains, SIGGRAPH is the premier organization for disseminating new scholarly work, where scientists and researchers present and publish the latest industry advancements that inspire new ideas, ignite memorable discussions, and propel us forward.
SIGGRAPH’s Strategic Direction
The dedicated people who lead SIGGRAPH form the Executive Committee. The “EC” provides the operational structure and strategy for the coming years. It provides consistency and sets the high bar for content. The team works to allow our members to realize the benefits of research, education, and to put theory into practice for industry. They give their time and talent to enrich our SIGGRAPH community. The EC is grateful for the leadership of those who served on the Executive Committees over the past 49 years. This EC stands on the shoulders of giants!
ACM SIGGRAPH’s strategy is focused on three pillars, which lay the foundation for future growth while sustaining our quality content. These pillars focus on membership, volunteerism and online events.
- Continuing on the success of the virtual and hybrid conferences, ACM SIGGRAPH will build more content including events and educational subjects. Members can be engaged in ACM SIGGRAPH all year round and leverage multiple sources from our community to achieve high-quality delivery. Once structured, ACM SIGGRAPH will maintain a database of organization and community events, and enable our existing communication channels to effectively bolster more engagement from the membership and community at large.
- Regarding membership in ACM SIGGRAPH, the value proposition for membership is being strengthened with the goal to clarify existing benefits at every level of membership. An increase in year-round activities will further enhance the value to the community, with a specific focus on bolstering the value of long-term membership for students.
- Volunteers are at the heart of ACM SIGGRAPH. As a strategic pillar, a newly formed Volunteer Development Committee will apply the broad enthusiasm, energy, and talent available among our volunteer community to support and enhance the goals and events of ACM SIGGRAPH. This includes volunteer onboarding and ongoing support, mentorship, and leadership development for SIGGRAPH volunteers in their roles within the organization. There will be a path to support volunteers throughout their service and career.
These three pillars provide ACM SIGGRAPH with a solid foundation, to grow and thrive in the future. SIGGRAPH will continue to be a place to realize creativity and passion, to discover the art of the impossible. The SIGGRAPH Organization has many Standing Committees, strategy groups, advisory boards, and community groups which provide continued access to the latest CG&IT information throughout the year.
The SIGGRAPH Organization is where content lives year-round. The “Org” keeps the momentum going the other 51 weeks of the year. The Organization advocates for and supports knowledge sharing of advancements in computer graphics, digital art, animation, visual effects, machine learning, artificial intelligence, immersive and mixed realities, scientific visualization, and more.
And one more shout-out for the SIGGRAPH Conference…congratulations on your retirement Cindy Stark! Cindy has been a driving force behind the SIGGRAPH Conference for 41, yes 41, years! She is a dynamo and a treasure. Our SIGGRAPH Community will surely miss her.
Thank you all for being a part of our ACM SIGGRAPH community!
Elizabeth Baron
Chair
ACM SIGGRAPH