Registration page is here.

Me, I wouldn’t rate SIGGRAPH the premier interactive rendering research conference any more: I3D or HPG publish far more relevant results overall. SIGGRAPH still has a lot of other great stuff going on, and there are enough things of interest to me this year that I’m happy to be attending:

• I guess the courses are the main draw for me right now, and some of these have become informal venues for interactive rendering R&D presentations (e.g. the Advances course).
• SIGGRAPH Mobile could be interesting. Given the huge profit margins of GPUs for mobile vs. PCs, it’s where the market has moved. It feels a little “back to the future”, with GPU speeds getting reset about a decade vs. PC performance, but there’s some interesting research being done, e.g. this paper (not at SIGGRAPH but at HPG, I noticed it today on Morgan McGuire’s Twitter feed and thought it was fascinating).
• I was thinking of arriving Sunday afternoon, but then noticed some interesting talks in the Game Worlds talks on Sunday, 2-3:30 pm.
• Other talks will be of interest, I’ll need to wade through the list.
• Emerging Technologies and the Exhibition Floor usually have something that grabs my attention (if nothing else, I can browse through new books), and I maybe should give Real Time Live a visit.
• And, meeting people, of course – it’s inspiring and fun to hear what others are up to. Sometimes a little chance conversation will later have great value.

Entirely gratuitous image follows, a voxelized and 3d printed you-know-what (from here):

• First, if you’re going to HPG 2011, I’ll save you five minutes of searching for where it is: it’s at the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Google map here. Note also that things don’t start until 1:30 on Friday.
• SIGGRAPH parties? I know nothing, except that the official SIGGRAPH reception is 9 to 11 PM Monday at the convention center, and the ACM SIGGRAPH Chapters Party is 8:30 PM to 2 AM on, oh, Monday again. Odd scheduling.
• Timothy Lottes cannot be stopped: FXAA 3.11 is out (with improvements for thin lines), and 3.12 will soon appear. Note that the shader has a signature change, so your calling shader code will have to change, too.
• At the Motorola developer site there’s a quick summary of various image compression types used for mobile phones and PCs.
• Sebastien Hillaire implement the God Rays effect from GPU Gems 3, showing results and problems. Code and executable available for download.
• I’ve been enjoying some worthwhile articles on patents and copyrights lately, both new and old. Worth a mention: Myrhvold madness; a comic (a bit old but useful) on copyright – a good overview; The Public Domain, a free book by a law professor who helped establish Creative Commons; the July 2011 CACM (behind the paywall, though) had a nice article on why the U.S. dropped “opt-in” copyright back in 1989 (blame Europe). Best idea gleaned, from The Public Domain: the length of copyright is meant to motivate people to create works for payment, so a retroactive increase in the length of copyright  (e.g., to protect Mickey Mouse) makes no sense – it creates no motivation for works already created.
• Polygon Pictures’ office corridor would be a bad place to be if you worked way too many hours. Otherwise, nice!

Me, I went with the Empire Landmark Hotel, as it was a good balance between price and distance (location also sounded good). The YWCA was very tempting, though – really, if you’re traveling alone (I’m with 2 others), it’s an incredible bargain ($99 a night) for a single person and has a noticeably higher rating than the Empire Landmark on TripAdvisor.

Oh, also, if you’re an interactive rendering type of person, don’t forget that HPG 2011 is colocated with SIGGRAPH 2011 and starts on August 5 (a Friday), so you might want to book from August 4^th on. You can always carve off days from your reservation later. That said, choosing August 4^th does trim down the available hotels a bit. For me, HPG is a must-attend; when it was colocated with SIGGRAPH in 2009 (it alternates between SIGGRAPH in North America and EGSR in Europe) I found it offered more relevant papers than all of SIGGRAPH itself.

Introduction

We are pleased to announce High-Performance Graphics 2011. High Performance Graphics is the leading international forum for performance-oriented graphics systems research including innovative algorithms, efficient implementations, and hardware architecture. The conference brings together researchers, engineers, and architects to discuss the complex interactions of massively parallel hardware, novel programming models, efficient graphics algorithms, and innovative applications. High Performance Graphics was founded in 2009 to synthesize and expand on two important and well-respected conferences in computer graphics: Graphics Hardware: an annual conference focusing on graphics hardware, architecture, and systems since 1986; and Interactive Ray Tracing: an innovative symposium begun in 2006 focusing on the emerging field of interactive ray tracing and global illumination techniques.

By combining and expanding these two communities, we bring to authors and attendees the best of both fields and a conference covering a broad range of interactive 3D graphics systems and algorithm research.

Conference Info

Sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH and Eurographics (pending)

The program features three days of paper and industry presentations, with ample time for discussions during breaks, lunches, and the conference banquet.

The conference, which will take place on August 5—7, is co-located with ACM SIGGRAPH 2011 in Vancouver, Canada.

The conference website is located at http://www.highperformancegraphics.org/

Papers Track

We invite original and innovative performance-oriented contributions from all areas of graphics, including hardware architectures, rendering, physics, animation, AI, simulation, and data structures, with topics including (but not limited to):

• Interactive rendering pipelines (hardware or software)
  • Visibility algorithms (ray tracing, rasterization, transparency, anti-aliasing, …)
  • Shading architectures
  • Spatial acceleration data structures
  • Surface representations and tessellation algorithms
  • Reconfigurable rendering pipelines
  • Texturing and compression/decompression algorithms

• Interactive rendering algorithms (hardware or software)
  • Illumination algorithms (shadows, global illumination, …)
  • Adaptive rendering algorithms that robustly respond to dynamic scenes and reduce
  • content creation costs
  • Image sampling strategies and filtering techniques

• Graphics hardware and systems
  • Novel fixed-function hardware design
  • Graphics hardware simulation, optimization, and performance measurement
  • Novel display technologies

• Languages and compilation
  • Programming models and APIs for graphics
  • Shading language design and implementation
  • Run-time code generation for graphics
  • Compiling for massively parallel graphics architectures

• Parallel computing for graphics
  • Scalable algorithms for parallel rendering and large data visualization
  • Physics and animation
  • Computer vision
  • GPU computing

• Mobile graphics (new for 2011)
  • Hardware design for mobile, embedded, integrated, and low-power devices
  • Algorithms, rendering engines, and applications for mobile graphics
  • Innovative visual computing applications for mobile devices

Papers Length and Format

There is no fixed maximum length for a paper. However, the magnitude of the contribution must be proportional to the length of the paper. Papers longer than ten typeset pages in the final format must make a very significant contribution to be accepted. Papers of four or fewer pages will be held to a less strict standard of citation and description of related work (comparison to the strongest alternative techniques is still important, but an exhaustive review is not necessary). All accepted papers are treated equally, i.e., included in the proceedings and presented at the conference. At least one paper author must attend the conference to present an accepted paper. The proceedings will be published in full color and archived in the ACM and Eurographics Digital Libraries.

Paper Submission Info

Authors are invited to upload papers electronically in Adobe PDF format by visiting http://www.highperformancegraphics.org/submissions.html. Note that submissions are not anonymous, and authors should include their names on the papers. Video sequences in QuickTime, MPEG, or AVI format may be submitted using the electronic submission system. Dual submission is not allowed; any paper submitted to another venue and under consideration during the HPG review cycle will be rejected. Papers should conform to the style for “Conferences sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH” described in http://www.siggraph.org/publications/instructions; we recommend using the templates given there.

For further information please contact: papers@highperformancegraphics.org

Hot 3D Systems Track

We invite vendors in the graphics industry to present their latest and greatest 3D chips, high-performance software, and system designs.

Presentations should be 20 minutes long, should be technical rather than marketing-oriented, and should focus on real products. Hot 3D presentations are not considered archival publications for the purposes of future submission to peer-reviewed venues.

The deadline for Hot 3D applications will be in mid-June allowing submission of late-breaking work.

For further information please contact: hot3d@highperformancegraphics.org

Posters

We also invite the submission of posters describing on-going or late-breaking work. In addition to traditional posters, this year’s session will be enhanced to provide opportunities for paper authors to present implementation details or hands-on demonstrations.

Poster submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis, beginning Wednesday, 1 June and running through Friday, 1 July. Notification of acceptance will follow within 10-14 days of submission.

To submit a poster, please:

• Prepare an extended abstract (one page maximum) that summarizes the work using the paper format described above.
• Prepare a high-quality version of the final poster.
• Send both items (in PDF format) to posters@highperformancegraphics.org

Additional information:

• Posters will be exhibited in the break areas throughout the conference. For each poster, we will attempt to make space available for interactive demonstrations (if necessary and only upon request).
• Poster authors will be responsible for printing the poster, bringing it to the conference, and putting it up. Easels will be provided.

For further information please contact: posters@highperformancegraphics.org

Important Dates

All deadlines are at 11:59 pm Pacific Daylight Time (GMT-7).

Friday, April 22: Deadline for OPTIONAL paper abstract submissions

Friday, April 29: Deadline for paper submissions

Sunday, May 29: Notification of paper acceptance

Sunday, June 5: Revised papers due

Friday, July 1: Deadline for poster and Hot3D submissions

Sunday, July 10: Notification of poster and Hot3D acceptance

Friday-Sunday, August 5-7: Conference

Best Paper Award

An award of $500 will be given to the authors of the most outstanding paper presented at the event. The award is based on the accuracy, originality, and importance of the technical concept, the quality and readability of the manuscript, as well as the content and delivery of the verbal presentation. To qualify for this award, one or more of the authors must attend the conference and present the paper. The winner will be chosen by the organizing committee based on audience feedback and will be announced at the end of the conference.

Demonstrations

Presenters and participants are invited to bring prototypes and products for demonstration at the event. Demonstrations will be held during breaks and before and after the sessions. We highly encourage paper authors and industry presenters to demonstrate their systems. Please contact the organizing committee by email at general@highperformancegraphics.org to arrange for space or electrical connections that may be required for your demonstration.

Organization

General Chairs:

John Owens (University of California at Davis, USA)

Matt Pharr (Intel)

Program Chairs:

Carsten Dachsbache (Universität des Landes Baden-Württemberg, Germany)

Bill Mark (Intel)

Jacopo Pantaleoni (NVIDIA)

Papers Chairs:

Kurt Akeley (Microsoft Research)

Aaron Lefohn (Intel)

David Luebke (NVIDIA)

Poster Chairs:

Christiaan Gribble (Grove City College, USA)

Jens Kruger (Universität des Saarlandes, Germany)

Local Arrangements Chair:

Alexandra Fedorova (Simon Fraser, Canada)

Justin Hensley (AMD)

Publicity Chair:

Josh Steinhurst (Bucknell University, USA)

Treasurer:

Anselmo Lastra (University of North Carolina, USA)

Steve Molnar (NVIDIA, USA)

• HPG has a CFP. In slow motion,  this means the High Performance Graphics conference, June 25-27 in Saarbrucken, Germany, has a call for participation. Naty talked about this conference in his post two months ago; now the HPG website and CFP are up. In case you don’t recognize the conference’s name, this is the combination of the Graphics Hardware and Interactive Ray Tracing symposia. HPG was fantastic last year, with more useful (to me) papers than SIGGRAPH (where it was co-located). Potential submitters please note: because HPG 2010 is co-located with EGSR this year, the deadlines are very tight after SIGGRAPH notification and quite rigid. In other words, if your SIGGRAPH submission is rejected, you will have a very short time to revise and submit to HPG (i.e., by April 2nd).
• NVIDIA has put up a list of talks at GDC in which it is participating, which will undoubtedly appear soon after on the web. In other NVIDIA news, there’s an interesting press release about NVIDIA and Avatar and how GPUs were used in precomputation of occlusion using ray tracing, for scenes with billions of polygons.
• A handy tool for showing frame rate and capturing screenshots and video that is worth a mention again (it’s buried on the Resources page): FRAPS. It’s been around forever, continues to improve, and the basic version is free.
• Crytek made an updated version of the famous Sponza model (used in many global illumination papers) available in OBJ and 3DS Max formats, along with textures. If you have the time, in theory 99 lines of code will make a picture for you.
• Stefan Gustavson has a nice little demo of using distance fields for “perfect” text rendering. This type of technique has been used for a number of years in various games, such as Valve’s Team Fortress 2. The demo unfortunately falls apart when you rotate the scene off-axis, but otherwise is lovely.
• SUBSTANCE is an application for making 3D evolutionary art. I really need more time on my hands to check this sort of tool out…
• Theory for the day: we don’t have fur because our skin can show our emotions, which we pick up with our improved color perception.

Update: the HPG website and CFP are up.