Fantasy Graphics League First Round Results for 2003

The Top Ten Lab Directors currently are:

Points  Name & Lab
=========================================================
252.57  Antoine McNamara, The Inverse Kinematics
223.00  Brian Curless, Ankle twisters
221.00  Brett Allen, The Search for the Holy Grail
206.00  C. Karen Liu, Nutcrackers
199.00  Xavier Granier, HWG
192.00  Ville Miettinen and Timo Aila, Puoli koppaa
188.57  Aaron Hertzmann, Battle Purple Sea Urchin!
177.57  Hugues Hoppe, Power in numbers
177.00  Piotr Piastucki, Nightmare Labs
177.00  Eitan Grinspun, The Shape Operators 

out of 96 contestants. The previous year's winner, Aaron Hertzmann, is in seventh place at this point. However, sketches remain to be judged, and each sketch author is worth 20 points, or if touching two or more edges, 20 vertices.

So what good's a database if you can't mine it for random stuff? Here's a breakdown of the most popular words used in SIGGRAPH paper titles this year:

Title words, by popularity
==========================
20 for
18 of
15 and
10 A
 8 Using
 7 on
 7 with
 7 the
 6 Hardware
 6 Graphics
 5 Texture
 5 Synthesis
 5 From
 5 Motion
 4 Light
 4 Image
 4 Human
 4 in
 4 Video
 4 Rendering
 4 Interactive
 4 Shadow
 3 Skin
 3 Modeling
 3 Maps
 3 Complex
 3 Mesh
 3 Character
 3 Parameterization
 3 Meshes
 3 3D
So one sweet-spot title for a paper for next year is: "Motion Synthesis from Texture using Graphics Hardware". Hmmm, that actually sounds tantalizing... Other, second-tier titles include (using the 4's), "Rendering Interactive Human Shadows in Video Light," and (using the 3's) "Complex Skin Modeling Maps for 3D Character Mesh Parameterization." These papers practically write themselves once you have their titles.

Speaking of popularity, here's which researchers were chosen by the most lab directors:

Authors, by popularity on teams
===============================
13 Zoran Popovic
13 Michael D. McCool
12 Jovan Popovic
12 Wolfgang Heidrich
11 Frédo Durand
11 Peter-Pike Sloan
 9 Ken Perlin
 9 Paul E. Debevec
 8 Henrik Wann Jensen
 7 Jan Kautz
 7 Pat Hanrahan
Were they worth it? Here are the ten highest payoffs for researchers that you could hire:
###  Value Cost Efficiency Name
===============================
602  85.00  100   0.8500   Zoran Popovic
281  75.00  200   0.3750   Jos Stam
 63  72.00  110   0.6545   Bruno Lévy
365  67.00   80   0.8375   Mathieu Desbrun
181  62.00   90   0.6889   Hans-Peter Seidel
428  60.57  260   0.2330   Pat Hanrahan
408  60.00   10   6.0000   Nancy S. Pollard
 90  60.00   40   1.5000   Daniel Cohen-Or
444  55.00  140   0.3929   Peter Schröder
449  45.00   20   2.2500   Philip Dutré

So on a pure points basis, only two of the popular choices paid off this year, Zoran and Pat, both of whom are pricey. Some of the other popular choices scored points, but did not yield the greatest payoffs.

Now let's look at efficiency, i.e. most bang for the buck. Here is everyone with an efficiency of 2.0 or more:

###  Value Cost Efficiency Name
===============================
408  60.00   10   6.0000   Nancy S. Pollard
437  30.00   10   3.0000   Paul S. A. Reitsma
450  15.00    5   3.0000   Philip L. Davidson
470  15.00    5   3.0000   Robert D. Kalnins
449  45.00   20   2.2500   Philip Dutré
286  20.00   10   2.0000   Jovan Popovic
546  20.00   10   2.0000   Tomoyuki Nishita
588  20.00   10   2.0000   Ren Ng
594  20.00   10   2.0000   Yoshinori Dobashi
Hats off to Nancy Pollard, who was well ahead of the pack here and also appears on the highest payoff list. She was chosen by two teams. As usual, few of these were the most popular choices (actually, just Jovan), since the most cost-effective researchers have a low cost and so usually are not as well-known (yet).

And that's all until the sketches are announced. If you want to check your results or have some strange craving to actually see what papers were accepted, check Tim Rowley's great web page. I've also put up the alphabetical listing of past researchers and how many points each is worth this year.

In the meantime, for a walk down memory lane, recalling the halycon days of your youth, don't bother with these links:


From the cerebella and uvulae of Eric Haines, Phil Dutré, Dan Kartch, and Ben Trumbore.
last updated: April 4, 2003