News

Registration is now open for the 2019 Symposium on Computer Animation, which will be held at UCLA on July 26-28, 2019 (i.e., immediately preceding SIGGRAPH). Early-bird registration ends June 26, 2019 so register soon to take advantage.

Registration Information:
https://sca2019.kaist.ac.kr/data/siggraph/websites/siggraph.org/public_html/registration-2/

The full program for the symposium has also recently been announced. In addition to a full complement of 18 regular papers and 5 invited journal papers, there will be a sketch session, a poster reception, a conference dinner, and a tremendous lineup of invited speakers:

Keynote Speakers: 
-Uri Ascher (UBC)
-L. Mahadevan (Harvard)

Invited Speakers: 
-Mridul Aanjaneya (Rutgers University)
-Chenfanfu Jiang, (University of Pennsylvania)
-Sophie Jörg, (Clemson University )
-Mélina Skouras, (Inria Grenoble Rhône-Alpes)
-Steve Tonneau, (University of Edinburgh)
-Etienne Vouga, (UT Austin)

Conference Program:
https://sca2019.kaist.ac.kr/data/siggraph/websites/siggraph.org/public_html/program/

Additional details about the conference can be found on the website: https://sca2019.kaist.ac.kr
Hope to see you in Los Angeles!

EGSR 2019 Call for Participation

The program of the Eurographics Symposium on Rendering (EGSR) 2019 is now online: 

This year’s program gathers research papers in 

• Materials & Reflectance
• High-Performance Rendering
• Spectral Effects
• Light Transport
• Sampling
• Interactive & Real Time Rendering 
• Deep Learning

as well as an industry session. 
Three keynotes will structure the event, given by:

• Jaakko Lehtinen from Aalto University & NVIDIA  
• Natalya Tatarchuk from Unity  
• Ali Eslami from Google DeepMind  

Come join the rendering research community in Strasbourg, France, July 10th-12th, 2019

The ACM SIGGRAPH Nominating Committee has proposed the following candidates for the 2019 ACM SIGGRAPH election and voting will begin on 14 June 2019 for all members in good standing:

DIRECTOR A:     

• Adam Finkelstein, Princeton, University
• Paul Kry, McGill University

DIRECTOR B:   

• Elizabeth Baron, Founder of Immersionary Enterprises (formerly Immersive Realities Technical Specialist, Ford Motor Company)
• Mona Kasra, University of Virginia

DIRECTOR C:

• Adam Bargteil, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
• Joaquim Jorge, INESC-ID / University Lisboa

To be a member in good standing, a person needs to be an ACM SIGGRAPH Member as of 31 May 2019.  Membership to ACM SIGGRAPH can be obtained online and through the myACM portal.

This is the first voting cycle for the new bylaw changes voted in by the ACM SIGGRAPH Membership last year.  Those new bylaw changes are as follows:

• All elected positions will be director positions and ACM SIGGRAPH officers will no longer be elected to specific positions through member elections. Every year, after the new Executive Committee (EC) takes office, it will select new officers from within the EC to serve one-year terms. Those officer positions will be Chair, Chair-Elect, Treasurer, and Treasurer-Elect. The Chair-Elect will become the Chair and the Treasurer-Elect will become the Treasurer after the next election. Electing officers to Chair, Chair-Elect, etc., will go into effect after the current president, Jessica Hodgins, completes her term on August 31, 2020.

• The EC can now appoint up to three voting members to its rank. This change allows the EC to increase representation from core constituencies, as needed, and allows key volunteers to make decisions for the organization. Marc Barr, the current Conference Advisory Group Chair, was appointed to one of these slots and now has full participation on the EC to better reflect his role in the organization.

• Finally, the third major change, enables members to elect directors to specific positions. For example, if three director positions are open in a given election — as is the case this year — the voters are to be presented with at least two candidates for each position, i.e., position A, position B, and position C. This change helps the Nominating Committee to achieve increased diversity in skillset, area of expertise, and geography.

Morgan & Claypool is pleased to announce the latest title in their series on Visualization:

Diversity in Visualization
Ron Metoyer, University of Notre Dame
Kelly Gaither, University of Texas at Austin

Paperback ISBN: 9781681734934
eBook ISBN: 9781681734941
Hardcover ISBN: 9781681734958

March 2019, 127 pages
http://www.morganclaypoolpublishers.com/catalog_Orig/product_info.php?products_id=1377

Abstract:

At the 2016 IEEE VIS Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, a panel of experts from the Scientific Visualization (SciVis) community gathered to discuss why the SciVis component of the conference had been shrinking significantly for over a decade. As the panelists concluded and opened the session to questions from the audience, Annie Preston, a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Davis, asked whether the panelists thought diversity or, more specifically, the lack of diversity was a factor.

This comment ignited a lively discussion of diversity: not only its impact on Scientific Visualization, but also its role in the visualization community at large. The goal of this book is to expand and organize the conversation. In particular, this book seeks to frame the diversity and inclusion topic within the Visualization community, illuminate the issues, and serve as a starting point to address how to make this community more diverse and inclusive. This book acknowledges that diversity is a broad topic with many possible meanings. Expanded definitions of diversity that are relevant to the Visualization community and to computing at large are considered. The broader conversation of inclusion and diversity is framed within the broader sociological context in which it must be considered. Solutions to recruit and retain a diverse research community and strategies for supporting inclusion efforts are presented. Additionally, community members present short stories detailing their “non-inclusive” experiences in an effort to facilitate a community-wide conversation surrounding very difficult situations.

It is important to note that this is by no means intended to be a comprehensive, authoritative statement on the topic. Rather, this book is intended to open the conversation and begin to build a framework for diversity and inclusion in this specific research community. While intended for the Visualization community, ideally, this book will provide guidance for any computing community struggling with similar issues and looking for solutions.

• Table of Contents:
  • Editor’s Note
  • Preface
  • Acknowledgments
  • Framing the Conversation
  • Diversity: A Sociological Perspective
  • Factors Hindering Diversity
  • Case Studies
  • Community On-Ramps
  • Retention
  • Building
  • Inclusive Communities
  • Marshaling the Many Facets of Diversity
  • Future of Diversity in Vis
  • Bibliography
  • Authors’ Biographies

Series: Synthesis Lectures on Visualization
Series Editors: David Ebert, Purdue University
Niklas Elmqvist, University of Maryland