Papers Presentations

Sanjay G. Mavinkurve
25 July 2002

For many, the research papers and panels at SIGGRAPH represent the heart of the conference. Indeed, publication in the SIGGRAPH proceedings is recognized around the world as the pinnacle of research excellence in the field of computer graphics and interactive techniques. SIGGRAPH also includes papers from peripheral fields that sometimes overlap with computer graphics, such as computer vision, cognitive and behavioral modeling, computer games, robotics, audio, visualization, and applications of computer graphics. The ground-breaking research revealed at SIGGRAPH often provides the computer graphics industry—including graphics hardware designers, animation and modeling software developers, and special effects shops—with a foundation of ideas on which to build their next generation of products. And sometimes the opposite occurs—technological advances in the computer graphics industry are often so revolutionary that they end up as SIGGRAPH papers.

SIGGRAPH insists that the research presented remain cutting-edge at the time of the conference. A field as fast-paced as computer graphics demands that research be presented as with minimum delay, and so, to SIGGRAPH, speed is critical. Papers are submitted less than 30 weeks before the final proceedings are distributed! This gives reviewers very little time to communicate at length with the authors of the papers during the selection process. Also, unlike some other conferences, SIGGRAPH does not accept papers of works-in-progress. All the papers presented at SIGGRAPH are of extremely high in quality and are complete works with a full set of results. After the selection process, less than a quarter of the papers submitted find their way into the proceedings.

The SIGGRAPH papers, after selection, are grouped into several topic categories. This year, the topic categories were a total of fifteen categories: Images and Video, Modeling and Simulation, Geometry, Parameterization and Meshes, Character Animation, 3D Acquisition and Image-Based Rendering, Animation from Motion Capture, Lighting and Appearance, Shadows, Translucency, and Visibility, Soft Things, Humans and Animals, Texture Synthesis, Graphics Hardware, Fluids and Fire, and Painting and Non-Photorealistic Rendering.

This year, the papers were presented over a course of three days, from Tuesday, July 23, to Friday, July 26. One of the most exciting aspects of the paper presentations is that the research is presented and explained by the very researchers who created it. After each half-hour presentation, members of the audience are given a chance to ask questions to the presenters.

For more information, including links to this year's papers on the web, see http://www.cs.brown.edu/~tor/sig2002.html.