News

The ACM SIGGRAPH Nominating Committee has proposed the following candidates for the 2019 ACM SIGGRAPH election which will commence on 14 June 2019:

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

In accordance with the ACM SIGGRAPH Bylaws, additional candidates may be placed on the ballot by petition.  All candidates must be ACM Professional Members as well as members of ACM SIGGRAPH. Anyone interested in petitioning must inform ACM Headquarters, Pat Ryan (ryanp@hq.acm.org), of their intent to petition by 2 April 2019.  Petitions must be submitted to ACM Headquarters for verification by 18 April 2019.

The Nominating Committee

• Rebecca Strzelec, Nominating Committee Chair
• Scott Owen
• KangKang Yin
• Mark Elendt
• Paula Gaetano-Adi
• Ladislav Kavan  

The 18th annual Symposium on Computer Animation (SCA) will take place in sunny Los Angeles, California from July 26 to July 28, 2019, immediately before SIGGRAPH. For almost two decades now, SCA has been the premier forum for presenting innovations in the theory and practice of computer animation. Bringing together academic and industrial researchers and practitioners working in all aspects of time-based phenomena, SCA provides an intimate setting that encourages community interaction, promotes the exchange of research results, inspires future ideas, and establishes new collaborations. Conditionally accepted regular papers will undergo a second round of revision and will, upon approval, appear in the new journal Proceedings of the ACM on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (PACMCGIT). Best Paper Awards will be given to excellent submissions that push the leading edge. New this year, we are also excited to introduce SCA Sketches, which provides a forum to present and discuss your late-breaking, innovative, and thought-provoking animation ideas and work-in-progress at SCA.

SCA 2019 will also feature an exciting lineup of keynote and invited speakers, which so far includes:

• Uri Ascher, UBC (Keynote)
• Etienne Vouga, UT Austin
• Melina Skouras, Inria Grenoble Rhône-Alpes
• Mridul Aanjaneya, Rutgers
• Chenfanfu Jiang, University of Pennsylvania
• Steve Tonneau, University of Edinburgh

We invite work on a broad range of animation topics, including:

• 2D, 3D, and N-D animation systems
• Autonomous characters
• Clothing and hair animation and simulation
• Expressive motion / communication
• Facial animation
• Fabrication of dynamic objects and characters
• Group and crowd behavior
• Intuitive interfaces for creating and editing animations
• Mathematical foundations of animation
• Methods of control and artistic direction of simulations
• Nature in motion (natural phenomena, plants, clouds, …)
• New time-based art forms on the computer
• Novel time-varying phenomena
• Perceptual foundations and metrics for animation
• Physical realism / measuring the real world for animation
• Physical simulation
• Fluid animation
• Planning / learning / optimization for animation
• Real-time and interactive methods
• Camera control methods for computer animation
• Sound and speech for animation
• as well as related problems and techniques in robotics, game development, human-computer interaction, simulation, visualization, computer vision, and beyond.
•  

Regular Papers:
We invite submissions of original, high-quality papers on computer animation, broadly defined as computation dealing with time-varying phenomena. Each submission should be 7-10 pages in length (excluding references) and will be reviewed by an international program committee for technical quality, novelty, significance, and clarity. All conditionally accepted regular papers will be guaranteed a presentation slot and to appear in the SCA proceedings. They will then undergo a thorough second round of revision and review, and (conditional on final acceptance) be published in the new journal Proceedings of the ACM in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (PACMCGIT). In the case that a paper fails to pass the second review round, authors retain the option to withdraw the paper or exclude it from the conference/proceedings, if requested.

Posters:
As in previous years, the poster (1-2 pages) session will be an integral part of the SCA program. The poster session will be held prior to the reception Friday evening and will follow a posters fast-forward session during which all presenters will have the opportunity to give a one-minute description of their work. Posters will be included in the conference proceedings and the ACM and EG digital libraries.

Sketches (NEW!):
We also invite sketch submissions (in 2-4 pages) for quick dissemination of fresh, compact ideas. These submissions will also undergo a full review by the program committee, but with greater emphasis placed on novelty and potential future impact over polish or completeness. Accepted submissions will be presented during the symposium. Sketches can be freely published in other venues because they will not be archived in any journal, conference proceedings, or digital libraries. We hope that feedback from reviewers and attendees will help to improve your work for a future paper submission!

Important Dates:

Regular Papers:

• Paper Submission: April 5, 2019 – 23:59 UTC
• Notification of Acceptance: May 2, 2019
• Paper Revised Version: May 23, 2019
• Paper Final Notification: June 7, 2019
• Camera-Ready Paper: June 12, 2019

Sketches & Posters:

• Sketch/Poster Submission: May 8, 2019 – 23:59 UTC
• Notification of Acceptance: May 23, 2019

Symposium: 

• July 26-28, 2019

Organization:

Conference Co-Chairs:

• Sung-Hee Lee, KAIST
• Craig Schroeder, UC Riverside

Program Co-Chairs:

• Christopher Batty, University of Waterloo
• Jin Huang, Zhejiang University

Posters Chair:

• Tamar Shinar, UC Riverside

SIGGRAPH Academy

This year we were pleased to announce the SIGGRAPH Academy at SIGGRAPH 2018 in Vancouver. The initial class of inductees was drawn from previous award winners. However, moving forward, our goal is to induct a broader range of individuals who have made substantial contributions to our field. To accomplish this, we need nominations for the Academy from across all of computer graphics. 

Here is the information you need to make a nomination:

Nominations for the ACM SIGGRAPH Academy may be submitted by contacting the SIGGRAPH Academy Award Chair before 31 January each year.

Eligibility Criteria:

• The criteria for election to the ACM SIGGRAPH Academy are
• Cumulative contributions to the field of computer graphics and interactive techniques
• Impact on the field through development of new research directions and/or innovations
• Influence on the work of others
• Reasonably active participant in the ACM SIGGRAPH community
• All accomplished members of the ACM SIGGRAPH  community will be eligible to be nominated including researchers, practitioners, technologists, artists, designers, and educators.

Nominations will require:

• A brief summary (in English, maximum one page) explaining how the nominee meets the criteria
• Supporting letters of exactly three endorsers. Endorsers should themselves have achieved distinction in the field. Endorsers will need to have personal knowledge of the candidate’s work. Endorsers will provide a brief endorsement statement giving their personal assessment of the candidate’s impact on the field.
• Nominator’s name, address, telephone number, and email address.

ACM SIGGRAPH Academy Committee

• Holly Rushmeier, Chair
• John Fujii
• Cynthia Beth Rubin
• Hugues Hoppe
• Nelson Max
• Hans-Peter Seidel

We look forward to receiving your nominations!

— Holly Rushmeier

Accepting Nominations for the International Resources Committee Chair

The mission of the International Resources Committee (IRC) is to extend the reach and influence of the ACM SIGGRAPH conferences and organization globally through language and intercultural support. The year-long activities of the committee include:

• Creation of multilingual audio guides (recorded translations) for the SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia programs: Emerging Technologies, VR Village, Art Gallery and Studio, with the aim of bridging the cultural and language gap between the many branches of the ACM SIGGRAPH organization and the rest of the world.
• Providing services of such as translations, international path-finding and networking.
• Bi-monthly media asset production of SIGGRAPH Spotlight episodes with interviews with professionals from around the world, as well as bi-monthly contributions to the ACM SIGGRAPH Blog.
• Promoting ACM SIGGRAPH, the SIGGRAPH conferences, and articles of general computer graphics interest worldwide through our social media channels.
• Hosting events of general and/or regional interest at the ACM SIGGRAPH Theatre during the SIGGRAPH conference and the SIGGRAPH Asia conference.
• Collaborate with other committees in terms of development (e.g. “Triviatron”, the IRC trivia game which is part of the SIGGRAPH VR game “ScavengAR”).

The Chair of the International Resources Committee interacts with the upper ACM SIGGRAPH management as well as Conference Committee Chairs. The Chair has a term of three years.

The responsibilities of the Chair include:

• Coordinate the creation of assets for the SIGGRAPH Spotlight (recorded interviews) and Blog articles
• Coordinate the creation of multilingual audio guides (translations and recordings) for SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia
• Coordinate the regular publications of ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH, SIGGRAPH and CG/Animation related news in the IRC social media channels
• Coordinate the creation of IRC graphics content like infographics, logos, booth graphics, and any other material that helps to brand the IRC
• Supervise the English Review Service for SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia
• Select and work together with the International Center Manager in the organization and curation of the ACM SIGGRAPH Theater presentations at SIGGRAPH, as well as the presentations at SIGGRAPH Asia.
• Find new ways to collaborate with other ACM SIGGRAPH Standing Committees
• Keep the team informed of the committee activities through newsletters

This list of activities is what constitutes the core of the work in the International Resources Committee. We expect the new Chair will continue or improve this set of activities in a way that creates greater impact to the organization and support to contributors and attendees at the conferences. We also recognize that no one individual can be expert in best practices across all of the constituencies of ACM SIGGRAPH and expect that the chair will rely heavily on their committee to supplement their own expertise.

The Chair of the International Resources Committee should expect to spend an average of 6-8 hours per week on committee business.

If you are interested in this position, please contact: Rebecca Strzelec.