Technical Papers

NEW IN 2021

In line with SIGGRAPH 2021, we have updated the policy on prepublications like arXiv, and added a new policy on ethics and diversity.

Start by reading the information below about how to prepare your submission, including information on formatting, anonymity, resubmissions, the new policy on ethics and diversity, etc. Then log in to the SIGGRAPH Asia Submission System, select the “New Submission” tab, and then select the Technical Papers form. You will be asked for a series of basic information about your submission. Please strictly adhere to the following deadlines:

Thursday, 20 May 2021, 22:00 UTC

Deadline for creating the submission form with the title, complete list of co-authors, as well as the specification of conflicts of interest (COI) for each co-author. To see what you will need to submit, view the Sample Form (Stage 1). Creating a submission form will assign your submission a paper ID, which must be included in your submitted paper.

Friday, 21 May 2021, 22:00 UTC

Deadline for the complete submission, including either the actual PDF paper or an MD5 checksum (which will be required in lieu of the actual files starting at some point on this day). If you wish to submit supplemental material (movies, code, data, etc.) as well, these files (or their MD5 checksums) must also be uploaded by this date and time. To see what you will need to submit, view the Sample Form (Stage 2).

Saturday, 22 May 2021, 22:00 UTC

Deadline for uploading all materials if you used MD5 checksums. No new or changed material may be uploaded. Only files matching MD5 checksums submitted the previous day are valid.

English Review Service

Non-native English speakers may optionally use the English Review Service to help improve the text of submissions. Please note this process takes time, so plan far ahead in order to meet the submission deadline.

Ethics & Diversity

We request that authors are sensitive to issues of ethics and diversity in their papers. Reviewers will be asked to consider these aspects as part of the review process.

Please see the updated Review Form. A section pertaining to this policy has been added, where reviewers will assess how the submission handles issues surrounding ethics & diversity.

Physical Submission of Supplemental Materials

We strongly encourage electronic submission of videos and other supplementary materials, since they are easier to distribute to reviewers than physical media. See Submission Requirements for details on electronic supplementary materials and their format. However, if you believe reviewers of your paper need to see physical supplementary materials, you may mail or ship six copies, to arrive by (not be postmarked or sent by) the paper deadline (Friday, 21 May 2021, 22:00 UTC/GMT, see Timeline) at this address:

Carrie de Souza

SIGGRAPH Asia Conference Manager
Koelnmesse Pte Ltd
152 Beach Road
#25-05 Gateway East
Singapore 189721
Tel: +65 6500 6726

All complete submissions received by the deadline will be acknowledged by email. For this purpose, a submission is complete if paper-ID has been assigned and a PDF file of the paper and a representative image have been successfully uploaded. Such submissions will be reviewed unless they are withdrawn by the author. For more information about the papers submission and rebuttal process, or about uploading files for your submission, please refer to the Technical Papers FAQs.

For more information about uploading files for your submission, please refer to the Technical Papers FAQs.

Double Submissions

By submitting a manuscript to the SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers program, authors acknowledge that the technical contributions they claim have not been previously published or accepted for publication in another peer-reviewed venue, and that no manuscript substantially similar in content is currently under review, or will be submitted to any peer-reviewed venue during the SIGGRAPH Asia review period. Violations constitute grounds for rejection. If you wish to submit revised or extended versions of conference or workshop papers, please directly submit direrctly to ACM TOG instead of SIGGRAPH Asia.

Plagiarism

A submission to the SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers program should describe an original work of the authors. Authors must not use ideas or content originating from others without properly crediting their original sources. Note that such sources are not limited to peer-reviewed publications, but also include patents, textbooks, technical reports, theses, unpublished work posted on arXiv, as well as other posts on the World Wide Web. Failure to comply with this requirement will be considered plagiarism and result in rejection.

Prior Art

Authors are expected to cite, discuss differences and novelty, and compare results, if applicable, with respect to relevant existing publications, provided they have been published in a peer-reviewed venue. This also applies to patents, which also undergo a professional reviewing process.

But what about technical reports, and other non peer-reviewed publications, such as technical reports or papers posted on arXiv, which we henceforth refer to as prepublications? With the rapid progress of search engines and the increased perusal of arXiv papers by the scientific community, asking authors to thoroughly compare their work to these prepublications imposes an unreasonable burden: a seemingly relevant report that is incomplete in its disclosure or validation might appear online shortly before the deadline.  Although peer-reviewed publications are certainly not immune to these shortcomings, they have, at least, been judged sufficiently complete and valid by a group of peers. Consequently, authors are not required to discuss and compare their work with recent prepublications (arXiv, technical reports, theses, etc.), although they must properly cite those that inspired them (see “Plagiarism” above). Nevertheless, we encourage authors to mention all related works they are aware of as good academic practice dictates. Note that with new works posted on arXiv on a daily basis, it is increasingly likely that reviewers might point out similarities between the submitted work and online reports that have been missed by the authors. In this case, authors of conditionally accepted papers should be prepared to cite these prepublications in their final revision as concurrent work, without the burden of having to detail how their work compares to or differs from these prepublications.

Anonymity

The SIGGRAPH Asia review process is fully double-blind: i.e., the committee members and external reviewers do not know the identity of the authors, and the authors do not know the identity of the reviewers. This anonymity is an integral part of an objective and fair review process, so authors are required to take all reasonable measures to preserve their anonymity. Specific instructions for preserving anonymity in your submission are discussed in the Submission Requirements section. Below, we discuss specific situations in which authors may have to mention their own publications and how to handle such disclosures in the context of a SIGGRAPH Asia submission.

Before submission

When citing already published work by the same (or an overlapping) group of authors, the citation should refer to that work in the third person, just as it would refer to any other previously published work by a completely different set of authors. For other relevant work from the same author(s) as the submission, we distinguish between two cases: (A) works that have been submitted for publication elsewhere, but have some relevance to, and/or overlap with the submission; and (B) largely overlapping prepublications that are available online at the time of submission (arXiv, technical report, thesis, etc.).

• For case (A), the other work should be cited anonymously, as well as provided as anonymous supplementary material. The authors must convince the reviewers that the current submission is sufficiently different from the other work, which can be done using an anonymous cover letter that outlines the differences.
• For case (B), namely earlier or largely similar versions of the submission that are publicly available (on arXiv, as a technical report, etc.), should NOT to be cited in the submission, as this would identify the authors. Instead, these prepublications must be listed in the appropriate field of the submission form, titled “Prepublication”. This field is not visible to reviewers.

After submission

Blatant violations of anonymity are not acceptable. However, we also recognize that prepublications and talks have become part of the scientific discourse, and SIGGRAPH Asia allows these means of communication. Specifically, before the final acceptance decision is made:

• Authors must not discuss the research described in submitted SIGGRAPH Asia papers with the media. Media includes editors/journalists/writers/interviewers of newspapers, radio, television, magazines, as well as public relations and media arms of companies, universities, and other research institutions.
• After submitting to SIGGRAPH Asia, authors may archive the submission without mentioning SIGGRAPH as an institutional tech report or on arXiv or a similar service.
• Authors must not make any posts to social media or elsewhere that can be linked to a specific SIGGRAPH Asia submission (e.g., mentioning the title of the submission or details and content and saying that it is a SIGGRAPH Asia submission).
• Authors may talk about their work in a presentation without saying it is submitted to SIGGRAPH Asia.
• Authors may mention their submission(s) as under review at SIGGRAPH Asia as part of the written materials submitted for job and funding applications. Authors may talk about the research involved in their submission in talks given for these purposes as well, without mentioning SIGGRAPH Asia.

Lobbying Reviewers

It is strictly prohibited to make any attempt to intervene in the review process. For example, it is inappropriate for an author to contact a committee member or a person they suspect to be a reviewer during the review process and mention the author’s own submission, even if the author does not explicitly ask for a favor. Committee members and reviewers will be asked to report such incidents and subsequently may be marked as conflicted and removed from the review process for that submission. For the most serious interventions, the submission may be rejected without completing the review process.

Authors of technical papers should prepare their documents according to the ACM SIGGRAPH publication guidelines. Please pay particular attention to the citation format for prior ACM SIGGRAPH conference papers, as specified in the ACM SIGGRAPH publication guidelines, because the proper format varies depending on the year of publication. Moreover, if you use LaTeX, make sure to change the \documentclass{} command to: \documentclass[acmtog,anonymous,review]{acmart} and to add your paper-ID through: \acmSubmissionID{your_paper_ID_here}. Please ensure that you are using version 1.64 or higher of the acmart class. Earlier versions (e.g., from your previous submissions) might not produce a valid submission format. Download the latest acmart class along with other necessary materials here. A LaTeX submission template is provided for your convenience.

Authors are required to submit fully formatted papers, with graphs, images, and other special areas arranged as intended for final publication, using the ACM SIGGRAPH paper preparation guidelines. Be sure that all pages are numbered and contain your paper’s ID number. You should obtain this paper ID by completing the Online Submission Form before finalizing your paper. If your paper is accepted, you will receive instructions for formatting the final version, which will be different because, among other things, the authors’ names and affiliations will be included, and the pages will not be numbered.

Authors must submit their papers electronically. The only allowable format is Adobe PDF. We prefer that authors upload supplemental materials (anything except the paper) electronically, but physical submission is also possible. If there is some reason why electronic submission is impossible for you, please contact us via the Technical Papers Email Contact Form well before the deadline. See How to Submit for more information. For videos, we strongly encourage QuickTime MPEG-4 or DivX Version 6, and for still images, we strongly encourage JPG or PNG. If you use another format, you are not guaranteed that reviewers will view them. In preparing videos, please choose a reasonable frame size and rate, but be prepared to submit higher-resolution video if a section of your video is selected for the Papers Preview section of the Electronic Theater. If your supplemental materials amount to more than 100 MB of data, you are not guaranteed that reviewers will download and view them.

Anonymity

Remove any information from your submission materials (paper, video, images, etc.) that identifies you or any of the other authors, or any of your institutions or places of work. In addition to not listing your names and affiliations from the paper, please omit acknowledgements (you will be able to add them back upon acceptance). If you are a well-known author, don’t narrate your video; get someone else to do it. You must reference all relevant work completely, however, including your own and that of the other authors. The detailed policy on how to cite these papers, were they already published, submitted to publication, or online prepublications (arXiv, technical reports, theses, etc.) is described in Submission Policy. Please read it carefully before submitting your work.

Do not include URLs referring to websites that contain vital material for your submission. Such material won’t be considered, due to the fact that reviewers cannot access it without endangering the anonymity of the reviewing process.

Please keep the PDF version anonymous; in particular, note that under some operating systems the “properties” of a PDF file may contain the creator’s name. Also, Version 7 PDF files allow inclusion of a script that will contact the author each time the file is opened. Do not include this script in your PDF file; if we find it, we will reject your paper without review. Make sure that no submitted files contain any information about the authors in the metadata.

For more information, see the Anonymity section of the Submission Policy.

Paper Length

There is no arbitrary maximum (or minimum) length imposed on papers. However, clarity of writing is considered vital to a high-quality submission. Papers may be perceived as too long if they are repetitive or verbose, or too short if they omit important details, neglect relevant prior art, or tamper with formatting rules just to save on page count. Have a look at previous proceedings to get a sense of the range of paper lengths, where typical lengths are between 8 and 10 pages, not including references (though the variation is large). The page length need not be an even number.

If a submission is conditionally accepted, its length may change only by permission from the primary reviewer.

Companion Videos

Papers may be accompanied by a video that is five minutes or less in duration. In recent years, well over half of the accepted papers were accompanied by some kind of video material. To the extent possible, accepted papers should stand on their own, with the video providing supplementary information or visual confirmation of results. However, it is fine to refer to the video in the paper, in which case the video should be submitted under Supplementary Materials, part A in the submission form, as described below. Such a public video should not be included in a submission unless substantively similar footage can appear in the ACM Digital Library. If your paper is accepted and you cannot comply with this requirement because of copyright or permission problems, your acceptance will be rescinded.

Supplemental Materials

Authors are invited, but not required, to include supplemental materials such as code and data files (so that reviewers can reproduce results in the paper), additional images or videos, related papers, more detailed explanations, derivations, or results. These materials will be viewed only at the discretion of the reviewers, who are only obligated to read your paper itself. These materials must be anonymized, so that they can be made available to all reviewers. There are two separate parts in the online submission form for uploading supplementary materials:

A) Anonymous supplemental materials that are considered part of the submission, and that you are committing to provide for the ACM Digital Library if your paper is accepted.

B) Anonymous materials that you are submitting to help in the review process but do not plan to submit to the Digital Library.

For instance, in addition to videos, A) may include some code, and a .zip archive containing result images and some text files, such as detailed user-study results or other appendices associated to your submission. B) may include anonymized versions of related papers from the same authors currently under review or in press elsewhere, together with an anonymous cover letter that outlines the differences between the submission and these other papers. In case of resubmission with reviewer continuity, the cover letter explaining how you took into account previous reviews and listing the improvements in your method should be there, too.

Resubmissions

If your paper is a revision of a paper that has previously been submitted to a SIGGRAPH or SIGGRAPH Asia conference, we recommend (but do not require) that when you fill out the submission form you identify it as a resubmission, and select the option that allows the previous review materials (reviews, reviewer discussions, summaries, etc.) to be made available to the Technical Papers Committee. Please indicate the latest conference that your paper was submitted to, and its paper-ID at the time. If you choose to use this option, your paper may be assigned to some or all of the previous reviewers, and all reviewers will have access to suitably anonymized versions of the review materials of all prior submissions. We encourage you to choose this option if you consider the paper to be derived from the previous version, even if the paper has been substantially rewritten and authors have been added, because it will result in more consistent reviews, and decrease the chance that a new set of reviewers will want completely different changes than those you made in response to the reviews of your earlier submissions. This option also has the added side benefit of reducing the overall burden on the volunteer reviewing community. Note that simply responding to all earlier criticisms will not guarantee acceptance. If you resubmit with reviewer continuity, you should include a cover letter under the Previous Submission section of the submission form in order to explain the changes you made to the paper and how you improved your work and its exposition since the last review cycle.

Permissions and Copyrights

You must have permission from the owner or copyright holder to use any images or video (or provide rationale for using it w/out permission) that you do not own in your submitted paper or supplementary material [http://www.acm.org/publications/authors/third-party-material]. ACM has a clear policy and procedures for handling third-party material. If your submission is accepted, you will be asked to provide a signed rights form, which is required by ACM before your paper can be published. The contact author of each paper will receive an email message from ACM Rights Review containing instructions and a link to the rights form, which is completed online.

Authors of accepted Technical Papers are required to complete the ACM Rights Form prior to publication. They are also required to upload final versions of all public supplementary materials that were originally part of their submission.

The Technical Papers Committee and a set of external reviewers, both consisting of recognized experts, will review submitted papers. Then, at their meeting, the committee will select those papers to be presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 and published in a special issue of ACM Transactions on Graphics

The Technical Papers review process will be conducted by (1) the Technical Papers Chair, who was chosen by the SIGGRAPH Asia Conference Chair and approved by the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee and its Conference Advisory Group; (2) the Technical Papers Advisory Board, consisting of past Technical Papers Chairs and other trusted and experienced advisors, chosen by the SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers Chair; and 3) the Technical Papers Committee, chosen by the Technical Papers Chair with the assistance of the members of the Technical Papers Advisory Board, and consisting of about 45 people whose expertise spans the entire field. (4) the Conflict of Interest (COI) Coordinators, also chosen by the Technical Papers Chair. The composition of the COI Coordinators group is similar to the Technical Papers committee, but the members are disjoint from that committee.

The Review Process

1. After the submission deadline, the Technical Papers Chair and several others selected by the chair will conduct the papers sort. During this meeting, they assign each paper to two senior reviewers, called the primary and secondary reviewers, who are members of the Technical Papers Committee. Additionally, each submission is assigned a COI Coordinator. All parties participating in the review process enter their conflict of interest data into the submission system ahead of time. The Technical Papers Chair does not make assignments or review papers. Rather it is the job of the chair to facilitate the process. Papers that are inappropriate may be rejected during this assignment process, without being sent to any senior reviewers. Papers will normally be rejected at this stage only if they are clearly off-topic for SIGGRAPH Asia, or if they are discovered to have been published previously or to have been submitted simultaneously to another conference or journal. For more details, see Submission Policy.
2. The two assigned senior reviewers may, upon conferring with each other and the Technical Papers Chair, recommend a paper to be rejected without additional review. A paper will normally be rejected at this stage only if it falls into one of the categories listed in phase one, but this fact was not detected during the papers sort. It is possible that a paper may also be rejected at this stage if it solves a problem that is known to be already solved; or if it does not cite (and the authors seem unaware of) important prior work on the same problem and doesn’t address how it is different; or if it has no evaluation via proof, experiment, or analysis; or if it is solving a problem sufficiently minor that the senior reviewers do not believe that it belongs in the program; or if it addresses a topic that is clearly outside the purview of SIGGRAPH Asia.
3. Each paper is distributed to three or more additional experts, called tertiary reviewers. Two of them are selected by the primary senior reviewer of that paper, and the third is selected by the secondary senior reviewer. The identity of the authors is not revealed to any of the reviewers. The primary and the secondary reviewer are warned by the submission system Linklings if their selection of tertiary reviewers would result in a conflict of interest. In addition, the assigned COI Coordinator does see the identity of the authors, and approves the tertiary reviewers selected by the primary and the secondary reviewer after verifying that there is no COI in the assignment. The primary, secondary, and tertiary reviewers all write full reviews. See the Review Form and Reviewer Instructions. Thus, at least five reviews are written for each paper that has not been rejected during phases one and two. In unusual cases, such as when a tertiary reviewer fails to deliver a review on time, papers may receive only four reviews. However, if a paper receives fewer than four reviews, additional reviewers will be found, possibly from the committee. For more details, see the Review Process section in the Technical Papers FAQs.
4. After all reviews are complete, the review system allows the authors access to the reviews and scores for their papers on Monday, 12 July 2021, 22:00 UTC/GMT. Then, authors have until Friday, 16 July, 22:00 UTC/GMT, to enter rebuttals if they feel the reviewers have made substantive errors, or to answer specific questions posed by the reviewers. The rebuttal is confined to 1000 words in length, and must be self-contained. For instance, URLs to additional material are not allowed. The rebuttal period is for addressing factual errors in the reviews, not for providing revised text or new results. Any such novel material will be ignored by the reviewers. For more details, see the Rebuttal Process section of the Technical Papers FAQ.
5. Between the end of the rebuttal period and the committee meeting, the senior reviewers will read the author rebuttals, confer intensively about the paper, and prepare a recommendation for the committee meeting. The three tertiary reviewers will see the author rebuttals and will participate in discussions about the paper. Due to the double-blind review process, the authors must maintain anonymity in their rebuttals. In addition, the tertiary reviewers don’t know each other’s identities, so they too must maintain anonymity during the discussion. The preliminary recommendation agreed on at this stage will be either conditionally accept or reject. If an agreement on the recommendation cannot be reached, a third option is to table the paper for further review and discussion during the final Technical Papers Committee meeting.
6. If a paper is tabled, the senior reviewers will select one or more other members of the Technical Papers Committee to write extra reviews of the paper and be prepared to discuss it in detail at the meeting. The extra reviews will be written during the week before the committee meeting. If consensus still cannot be reached, it is even possible that extra reviews will be assigned during the meeting itself. Any extra review will be provided to the authors after the meeting.
7. The full Technical Papers Committee meets to finalize conditional acceptance or rejection of each paper. In cases where a consensus on a paper was not reached during the pre-meeting discussion phase, additional committee members may read the paper, and their evaluations will be taken into account in the decision.

Members of the Technical Papers Committee, including the chair, leave the room when papers for which they have conflicts of interest are discussed. Papers are judged solely on their merit, as determined by the reviews. Although the acceptance rate of SIGGRAPH Asia papers has remained fairly constant over the past years, there is no quota for the number of papers that should be accepted by the SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 Technical Papers Committee; this number will arise organically from the actions of the committee.

Possible Outcomes for a Paper

Email notifications of the Technical Papers Committee's decisions will be sent following the committee meeting (see Timeline tab below). The notifications will place each paper in one of the following categories:

1. Conditionally accepted for presentation at SIGGRAPH Asia 2021. Conditionally accepted papers undergo a second reviewing process, in which a referee (a member of the Technical Papers Committee) verifies that the final version of the paper is acceptable (i.e. that any required changes have been made, and that other changes made by the authors, perhaps in response to reviewer comments, have not compromised the paper in any way). This second and final stage determines the final acceptance status of all papers. The referees' decisions are final. Papers that do not satisfy the referees in the second stage of reviewing and/or that are not uploaded in final form by the final deadline, together with the original or revised versions of the submitted supplementary material, will be rejected. Accepted papers will appear in the conference proceedings, which will continue to be published as a special issue of ACM Transactions on Graphics. One author of the paper must commit to presenting the paper in person at the ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 conference.
2. Rejected from SIGGRAPH Asia. Submissions that were deemed not suitable for the conference, or too flawed or incomplete to be accepted, will be rejected. In some cases, the reviewers have found enough merit in the submission that they encourage the authors to consider resubmitting to either ACM Transactions on Graphics or SIGGRAPH/SIGGRAPH Asia with reviewer continuity. The review summary includes a set of suggested changes.

All contributors to SIGGRAPH Asia Annual Conferences are now required to use ACM's rights management system to grant rights to publish accepted content rather than through the online submission system. Essentially, submission tracking, jury review, and acceptance remain the same, but now the rights management is through ACM, the parent organization of SIGGRAPH Asia.

You will be asked to complete an ACM rights management form, which includes permission to record and distribute the audio and video of your recorded presentation through official channels of ACM/SIGGRAPH Asia. For most content types, this will be a Permission and Release form, which allows authors to retain copyright.

More Information on these options (the FAQ is particularly useful)

As a contributor to an ACM-sponsored event, the following expectations apply to you, should your content be accepted for presentation:

• You have the permission to use everything that is in your presentation. This includes securing permission to use third-party material, and providing documentation of that permission to ACM. (More information on the proper use of third-party material in your presentation)
• If you are using copyrighted musical compositions in your presentation, you must secure performing rights licenses.
• You must have the authority to grant ACM the right to distribute your presentation.

Once your contribution is accepted, you will receive a link via email to the appropriate form for your contribution.

Authors of papers conditionally accepted by the committee must revise their submission for the second round of reviewing, and deliver that material to Linklings. Once the reviewers have approved the paper, authors will finalize the preparation of their camera-ready paper, and deliver the source of that paper, and any supplemental materials, to TAPS for publication in the ACM Transactions on Graphics issue that documents the work presented at SIGGRAPH 2021.

TAPS is ACM’s article processing system, which accepts LaTeX or Word source documents and prepares the formatted PDF and HTML5 versions of one’s article for publication in the ACM Digital Library. The use of TAPS replaces the need for authors to prepare and deliver “camera-ready” materials to Linklings. Information on preparing and delivering materials to TAPS can be found here.

Notification of conditional acceptances and rejections will be sent to authors, along with any extra reviews and possibly a list of required changes (see Timeline tab below). Members of the Technical Papers Committee, typically your primary reviewer, will be assigned to each paper as referees for the revision cycle.

A few days after notification, any changes to the paper title, list of authors, or 30-word paper summary will be due back to your referee. Changes to the paper title and length must be approved by your referee. Extensions of more than one page are unlikely to be granted.

The deadlines for the revised version and final version of your paper are listed in the Timeline below. During the week between these two dates, the referees and authors will communicate via the bulletin board process about the adequacy of the changes in the revisions. Sometimes, changes are not initially considered adequate, or introduce new problems, so further revision may be required. It is recommended to submit the initial revised version sooner than the deadline in order to provide more time for iterated revisions. It is hoped that all conditionally accepted papers will be accepted by the end of this process, but this is not guaranteed. When writing successive revisions, the referee’s job is made easier if authors use a different color for the added or revised text in each new version. (Please remember to remove these colors in the final version.) It also helps to describe the changes in the bulletin board post to which the revision is attached.

One author must attend to present your work at SIGGRAPH Asia 2021. This includes participation in the Technical Papers Fast Forward session on the first day of the conference, in addition to the regular presentation of the paper in a Technical Papers session.

Session Room Equipment

Here is a complete summary of the resources available for presentation of your paper. Arrangements for equipment outside the standard set-up are the sole responsibility of the paper presenter.

Presenter Recognition

Here is how SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 will support your participation if your work is accepted.

Authorization for Use

Any material that supports a paper's acceptance for publication must be available as part of the final publication (see Submission Requirements). Thus, all material uploaded for review in the “public materials that are considered part of the submission“ section of the submission form, including supplementary text, images, and videos, are subject to the ACM copyright policy, and the required permission forms must be completed upon acceptance. If it subsequently becomes apparent that the necessary permissions cannot be given for publication of material that is substantially similar to that submitted for review, acceptance of the paper may be withdrawn. Upon acceptance, authors must deliver final versions of their papers and their submitted supplementary material, which will be made available to subscribers through the ACM Digital Library via the web page associated with their TOG paper.

Please be aware that ACM has recently updated its copyright policy to give authors the options of retaining copyrights on some materials or to pay fees that enable free access. You can read about the policy here or a more concise summary here. Authors of accepted Technical Papers are required to complete the ACM Copyright Form prior to publication. For every supplemental file originally uploaded as part of your submission, you must upload either copies of the originally submitted material (now in non-anonymized form) or updated versions of this material to the SIGGRAPH Asia Submission System's final-versions page (see Timeline tab for the deadline).

Technical Papers Preview Trailer

A Technical Papers Preview Trailer will be prepared from selected parts of the videos accompanying accepted papers. The preview will appear in the Computer Animation Festival at the conference and may also be used to publicize the Technical Papers program inside and outside the conference, for example on the web. If a section of your video is selected, you may be asked to provide a high-quality rendering of that clip. Therefore, if you submit a video accompanying your paper, please keep your raw data available for that purpose.

Technical Papers Fast Forward

In addition to the material that is part of your publication, you will be asked to provide a short presentation for the Technical Papers Fast Forward. This session is held on the first day of the conference. The authors will be allowed 30 seconds to summarize the paper and entice attendees to attend their complete paper presentation later in the week. See the Timeline tab below for the deadline for Fast Forward material.

ACM Rights Management Form

If your work is accepted for presentation at SIGGRAPH Asia 2021, you must complete the ACM Rights Management Form. The form will be sent to all submitters whose work is accepted.

Your representative image and text may be used for promotional purposes. Several SIGGRAPH 2021 programs — Art Gallery, Art Papers, Real-Time Live!, Technical Papers, and all installation programs — will prepare preview videos for pre-conference promotion of accepted content, which may include a portion of the video you submitted for review. You have the option to grant or deny us the ability to use the representative image and submitted video for these purposes.

Should I Submit?
Deadlines
Double Submissions
Prior Publications
Supplemental Material
Resubmission
Formatting
Uploading Files
Representative Image Guidelines
Anonymity
Review Process
Rebuttal Process
Presentations
Referrals to TOG
Patents and Confidentiality
Technical Papers Committee
Contacts
Copyrights

SHOULD I SUBMIT?

What types of papers should be submitted to SIGGRAPH Asia?

Submissions should be novel, high-quality research papers on topics related to computer graphics and interactive techniques.  In addition to the core topics of modeling, animation, rendering, imaging, and human-computer interaction, we encourage submissions from areas related to computer graphics, including: games, visualization, computer-aided design, computer vision, computational photography and display, immersive technologies, audio, computational fabrication, robotics, and machine learning. This list is in no way exhaustive. As always, excellence of the ideas is the predominant acceptance criterion.

How do I decide whether to submit my work as a Technical Paper, a Talk, or a Poster?

The Technical Papers program is the most competitive of these three categories. Technical Papers present the opportunity to work out your ideas at greater length and describe them in a citable archive. SIGGRAPH Asia Talks and Posters provide an opportunity to disseminate ideas and get feedback from colleagues but do not represent a citable research paper. Authors of accepted Technical Papers will present their work at a Fast Forward (30-seconds) and a full presentation at SIGGRAPH Asia 2021. Also, they will have the opportunity to gain further exposure for their work as part of the Poster program.

If I have previously presented a Talk or Poster on my topic, or I have an online report about it already available on arXiv, can I then submit a full Technical Paper?

Yes. Authors of a prepublication (Talk, Poster, Technical Report, Thesis, etc) can later submit a full Technical Paper on the topic. However, other authors of submitted Technical Papers must consider such prepublications as prior art and cite them as such. See Submission Policy for more information on plagiarism and prior art.

Can I submit a Technical Paper and submit the same work to the General Submission process or to Posters?

SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 does not allow simultaneous submission to the Technical Papers and Talks tracks, though it does allow content related to a Technical Papers submission to also be submitted to the other General Submission venues. The General Submission form has a checkbox to indicate work submitted elsewhere. Please check this box and explain that the work was submitted as a Technical Paper for SIGGRAPH Asia 2021.

Papers rejected from the SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 Technical Papers program may be submitted as Posters. Accepted SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 Technical Papers also will be given the opportunity to present their work in the Posters program.

Back to FAQs links

DEADLINES

Please explain the three Technical Papers deadlines.

There are three deadlines for the submission of a paper to the Technical Papers program. Of course, contributors are strongly advised to complete everything prior to the first deadline, but if you wish to wait until the final hours (and bear the risk of having to deal with hard-to-reach web servers), please read on.

Submission Form & Conflicts Deadline (Stage 1), Thursday, 20 May 2021, 22:00 GMT/UTC

By the submission form and COI deadline, you must have created the submission form, entered the complete list of co-authors and their affiliations, and each co-author has specified and updated the complete and valid list of their conflicts of interest.

Paper Deadline (Stage 2), Friday, 21 May 2021, 22:00 GMT/UTC

By the Paper Deadline submitters must have completed the following requirements:

• All basic information about the submission (title, abstract, author list, etc.) must be finalized.
• Either the submission materials (paper PDF, optional video, and optional supplemental materials) must be uploaded, or the MD5 checksums of all the submission materials must be provided. The MD5 option will be required in the final hours before the deadline to lighten the webserver load.
• If you are shipping physical supplemental materials for review, six copies must arrive by this deadline.

Upload Deadline, Saturday, 22 May 2021, 22:00 GMT/UTC

Finally, the Upload Deadline allows submitters to upload their submission materials after the Paper Deadline, provided they match previously uploaded MD5 checksums. For more information about this MD5 option, please see the following question regarding MD5 checksums.

What is the deal with MD5 checksums?

If you upload all your files by the deadline, you can ignore the MD5 checksum. If you are uploading in the last few hours before the submission deadline, server response may be slow. To make the deadline, you can upload just the MD5 checksum for your files. For each MD5 checksum received by the deadline, you will have 24 hours to complete the upload of the files that matches this checksum, i.e., you will have another day to upload files matching the MD5 checksums previously uploaded (but, of course, not another 24 hours to do your work).

We have tested the following MD5 calculators:

• Linux: md5sum command
• Windows: FastSum v1.3
• Mac OS/X: "md5" command in Terminal

If you are uploading in the last few hours before the submission deadline, server response may be slow. To make the deadline, you can then upload just the MD5 checksum for your files. For each MD5 checksum received by the deadline, you will have 24 hours to complete the upload of the files that matches this checksum, i.e., you will have another day to upload files matching the MD5 checksums previously uploaded.

Can I submit after the deadline?

No. The deadline is absolute.

But my equipment has failed just before the deadline and I clearly have no control over such events!

The deadline is absolute. Equipment failures are common, and SIGGRAPH Asia cannot adapt its schedule to accommodate them, so please submit early to avoid equipment failure issues.

But I was unable to upload my submission on time. The system was overloaded, and halfway through uploading my submission, the deadline passed.

The deadline is absolute. Submissions that are in progress when the deadline passes, even if it is because our server has slowed down due to high load, will not be accepted. You should allow enough lead time to avoid this kind of problem. Please see How to Submit for explanations of the MD5 checksum process.

Unfortunately, in our rush to meet the deadline, we incorrectly set the parameters for our video, resulting in a significantly lower quality result. May I substitute new videos for the ones I submitted? The video is identical, except for the gamma correction.

No. The submission deadline is absolute. All materials must be submitted by the deadline. If your paper is accepted, you will have an opportunity to replace the video.

But I am using the SIGGRAPH Asia English Review Service, and they did not get back to me soon enough. So, it is SIGGRAPH's fault that my paper is not ready.

The deadline is absolute. The English Review Service makes no guarantees about turnaround, and it is up to you to make contingency plans. English Review Service Deadlines.

Can I email my submission to the Technical Papers Chair if the SIGGRAPH Asia Submission System is overloaded?

No. Papers and submission materials emailed to the Technical Papers Chair or other conference representative are not considered to have been submitted; you must use the SIGGRAPH Asia Submission System. Please leave yourself enough time before the deadline to avoid such situations.

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DOUBLE SUBMISSIONS

I would like to submit my paper to conference X or journal Y as well as to SIGGRAPH Asia 2021. Is this acceptable?

You must submit to just SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 and await our response before submitting elsewhere (should your work not be accepted by SIGGRAPH Asia 2021). If you submit your paper to another conference or journal simultaneously, we will reject your paper without review. We will be in contact with the editors of several graphics journals, and chairs of other graphics-related conferences, exchanging information. Several double submissions to SIGGRAPH Asia have been found in recent years.

But I want my paper to be in SIGGRAPH Asia 2021. I promise that if it is accepted by SIGGRAPH Asia 2021, I will withdraw it from the other conference or journal.

Dual submissions are not allowed. Your submission cannot be under review by any other conference or journal during the SIGGRAPH Asia review process, or else it will be rejected.

I would like to submit my paper to conference X. Their submission deadline is after SIGGRAPH Asia 2021's Technical Papers committee meeting, but they require abstracts to be submitted before SIGGRAPH Asia 2021's committee meeting. May I submit the abstract?

Yes. The prohibition against dual submission kicks in when a full paper substantially equivalent to your SIGGRAPH Asia paper is submitted elsewhere. For conferences that require extended abstracts or other formats, you should ask the Technical Papers Chair before submitting, to avoid risking your paper being rejected from SIGGRAPH Asia.

We have submitted a paper about a pilot study to conference X, and now we would like to submit a paper about the full-blown user study to SIGGRAPH Asia. How should we go about that to avoid the perception that it is a dual submission?

Anonymously cite the submitted paper in your SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 submission with a note to the reviewers that either it will be accepted by conference X, or you will publish it as a tech report and make it freely available on the web. Include an anonymous version in your SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 submission. Then when you write the SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 paper, treat the pilot study as already published and cite it as [Anonymous]. Do not repeat text or figures from that paper in the SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 version.

I sent in a paper to workshop X with the understanding that it was for review purposes only, and the workshop would have no published proceedings. Now, four months later, they tell me that they are going to publish the proceedings and include them in the digital library. Unfortunately, there is a significant overlap between that paper and my submitted SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 paper. How should I handle this?

We realize that you did not intend to do anything against the SIGGRAPH Asia rules, but now that the workshop rules have changed, you should either withdraw the workshop paper from the proceedings or withdraw your SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 submission.

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PRIOR PUBLICATIONS

I have a paper that was previously published in a little-known conference or in another language. Can I submit it to SIGGRAPH Asia?

Previously published papers in any language or submitted to any other conference or journal may not be submitted. A paper is considered previously published if it has appeared in a peer-reviewed journal or meeting proceedings that are visibly, reliably, and permanently available afterward in print or electronically to non-attendees, regardless of the language of that publication.

Can I submit a paper on my work that has previously appeared in my thesis, a tech report, a patent, and/or an abstract of a talk at another conference?

Publications such as thesis, tech reports, patents, or abstracts in other conferences do not preclude subsequent publication of a complete paper on the same topic by the same authors. However, such prepublications should be mentioned in your submission form. See Submission Policy for more precise instructions.

How do I reference an ACM SIGGRAPH Talk, Poster, or Sketch on the same topic as the paper that I am writing?

Depending on the year of the presentation, the Sketch or Talk might appear in the ACM Digital Library. If it does, you should use the ACM Digital Library as a reference. If it is not archived, you may refer to the oral presentation at the conference or the abstract, if it appeared in one of the conference publications. If you were the author of the Sketch or Talk, then citation is not strictly necessary because publication of a Sketch or Talk does not preclude publication of a full paper. Avoid citing it as your own work (in first person), so that anonymity is preserved. If you were not the author of the Sketch or Talk, then you should cite the Sketch or Talk to respect the author's ideas. If the authors have published a subsequent paper, thesis, or tech report about their work, you should cite that instead of the Sketch or Talk because it will be a more useful pointer for your readers.

A month after submitting our paper, we obtained much better results. Can we withdraw our paper from review and submit it elsewhere (or wait until next year)?

SIGGRAPH Asia submissions can be withdrawn at any time. However, authors should remember that the reviewers on their paper already may have spent considerable effort handling and reviewing their paper. If your paper is conditionally accepted, you will be able to add your new results, subject to approval by the senior reviewers.

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SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

What supplemental material can be uploaded with my submission?

Authors are invited, but not required, to include supplemental materials such as related papers, additional images and videos, results of a user study, executables, and data for reproducibility of results, along with a cover letter explaining the list of changes in case of a resubmission, related papers, etc. Some of the supplemental materials can be uploaded as part of your submission, while the other ones are there to support the reviewing process. For instance, if you have a related paper that is under review or in press elsewhere, you should upload a version of this paper as an anonymous supplementary document for the attention of the reviewers, together with a note explaining differences with the current submission. For more information, see Submission Requirements.

Although your paper should always stand alone, and supplemental materials are never required, past experience shows that certain kinds of submissions (especially those involving video or animation) tend to fare better if they are accompanied by a supplemental video. Similarly, if your paper is an interactive system and/or presents quantitative results, we recommend that you upload a zip or tar file with an executable, data, and scripts that can be used to reproduce the results presented in the paper. A README.txt file should be included to describe how to run the executable on the data, and how to interpret the results (please make these descriptions as simple as possible). The instructions can be followed by the reviewers to run your code on the data you provide, and (even better) on other data of the same type to validate the results presented in the paper. Clearly, reviewers will appreciate your claims of generality if they can validate those claims directly.

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RESUBMISSION

My submission is a revision of a paper that I submitted to an earlier SIGGRAPH conference. Will the reviewers get to see the earlier reviews?

Only if you authorize them to see them. When you submit your paper, you can optionally identify it as a resubmission, in which case all reviews (suitably anonymized) and BBS discussions from all previous submissions will be made available to the current reviewers. The identity of the previous reviewers will also be made available to the sorters and the senior reviewers. If you do not choose this option, none of the materials from any previous submission will be known to this year's reviewers. For more details on these options, see Submission Requirements.

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FORMATTING

Do I have to prepare the paper in the final format?

Yes, please format your paper according to the SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers submission formatting guidelines. If you use LaTeX, you must change the \documentclass{} command to: \documentclass[acmtog,anonymous,review]{acmart} and add your paper -ID through: \acmSubmissionID{your_paper_ID_here}. Please ensure that you are using version 1.64 or higher of the acmart class. Earlier versions (e.g., from your previous submissions) will not produce a valid submission format. Download the latest acmart class along with other necessary materials here. A LaTeX submission template is provided for your convenience.

What is the page limit for papers?

There is no arbitrary maximum (or minimum) length imposed on papers. Clearly, writing plays an important role in assessing the quality of the paper submission. Papers may be perceived as too long if they are repetitive or verbose, or too short if they omit important details or tamper with formatting rules just to save on page count. Have a look at previous proceedings to get a sense of the range of paper lengths, where typical lengths are between 8 and 10 pages (not including citations), but the variation is large.

Can I provide a video with my paper?

Papers may be accompanied by a video that is five minutes or less in length. In recent years, well over half of the accepted papers were accompanied by some kind of video material.

What file formats are allowed?

The paper must be submitted in Adobe PDF format with embedded fonts, and the representative image must be JPEG. Please see the submission form for allowed formats of the other materials. You can upload a zip/gzip file as supplemental material that contains any format; however, there is no guarantee that the referees will view supplemental materials, especially if they are available only in an obscure format.

What types of keywords should I include with my paper?

Select one primary topic area and optionally one more secondary topic area from the list in the online submission form, as well as 1-7 keywords from the suggested list. The final draft of the paper will also need to include a list of Computing Reviews categories.

Where can I find a list of the Computing Reviews categories?

See ACM's Computing Classification System to determine the selection of keywords to include with the final version of your paper.

As a non-native English speaker, I would appreciate help to improve the text in my paper submission.

Non-native English speakers may optionally use the English Review Service to help improve the text of submissions. Please note that this process takes time, so plan far ahead.

The details in my imagery are very subtle. I am concerned that the reviewers will not print my paper on a suitable printer or view my video with an appropriate codec.

You still need to submit your paper as a PDF file, but you are welcome to use the physical submission process and send a hard copy of the paper (in addition to submitting it electronically), or selected images, or your video.

The details in my imagery are very subtle. I am concerned that the reviewers will not print my paper on a suitable printer or view my video with an appropriate codec.

You still need to submit your paper as a PDF file, but you are welcome to use the physical submission process and send a hard copy of the paper (in addition to submitting it electronically), or selected images, or your video.

Does the submitted video have to be final quality? Or will people whose papers are accepted have the opportunity to prepare a more polished video?

You will have the opportunity to prepare a more polished video. Of course, the better the submitted video looks, the more likely reviewers will be able to see the strength of your work, so early polishing is a good investment of time and energy.

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UPLOADING FILES

How do I upload my submission files?

Uploading is not always perfectly smooth. To make sure that all submissions will get to us with minimal frustration, please follow these guidelines:

Don’t Wait Until the Last Minute
The online submission system uses a robust server with high bandwidth access to the internet, but everything has a limit. In previous years, we have observed exponential growth in the hours and minutes leading up to the deadline, leading to the need to close the system to all but MD5 uploads.

Upload Early and Often
Once your submission is complete, you are still allowed to edit it and add to or modify the supplementary materials right up to the deadline. This means you can upload some materials early as soon as they are ready and upload the remainder later, avoiding the need to upload everything at once. This also means you can upload a rough draft of your materials early and replace it with more polished versions later. Upload drafts that are roughly the same size as your final material. This will allow you to get a feel for the upload process and the time it takes to upload files of those sizes and give you time to diagnose problems. Then, as your draft gets refined, upload revisions. This way, if the last polish or final render encounters problems, you only lose the polish, not the entire submission.

We Do Not Control the Internet
In our tests, we have found upload speeds of anywhere from 20 megabits/sec to five kilobit/sec. We have tested uploads from two gigabytes to 10 kilobytes. We have seen upload times from one second to 24 hours. If you are traversing a path to our server that is through congested nodes, your upload may fail, and you will have to retry. You may even have to do the upload from work, school, home, or a local business-services firm. Don’t wait until the last minute to find out.

Don’t Try to Upload Too Much
Some programs have upload limitations. Upload limits for required materials are described in the online submission system.

Don’t Wait Until the Last Minute
Yes, we said this already, but it’s worth repeating! The deadlines are absolute. We’re on a tight schedule, and we won’t be able to extend the deadline to accommodate straggling uploads. Despite all these dire warnings, we are happy to report that the online submission process works very well. We don’t anticipate major problems. Just don’t wait until the last minute!

MD5 Checksum of Uploaded Materials

In an effort to conserve server resources and bandwidth, file uploading and downloading will be disabled as needed temporarily as each of our deadlines nears. If uploading and downloading are disabled, all submitters will be required to use the MD5 Checksum mechanism. We don’t know the exact time when this might take effect. It will be determined by server loads to ensure that all submitters are able to access their submissions. May not apply to all Programs. Check instructions on the Online Submission Form for details.

What Do I have to Do?

To be accepted as uploaded, all files must: EITHER be completely uploaded by the appropriate deadline OR have an MD5 Checksum computed AND be submitted before the deadline. Files that do not match the MD5 Checksum submitted before the deadline will not be accepted. If you choose to submit an MD5 Checksum, you will then have 24 hours after the deadline to upload your files with the matching MD5 Checksum previously uploaded by the appropriate deadline.

What Does MD5 Checksum Look Like?

If you use the MD5 option, the MD5 Checksum should be submitted without additional characters surrounding it and without any breaking characters. An example of a correct MD5 Checksum is:
871A51785E2A6414DEB097C2CEE89743
Examples of incorrect MD5 Checksums:
871A51785E2A6414DEB097C2CEE89743 filename.avi
871A 5178 5E2A 6414 DEB0 97C2 CEE8 9743
Note that the letter case is ignored.

How Do I Calculate an MD5 Checksum?

You must use an MD5 calculator. We have tested the following MD5 calculators:
Linux: md5sum command
Mac: md5 command in Terminal
Windows: FastSum

How Can I Test This Process?

We recommend that you try uploading a small test file well in advance of the 22:00 UTC/GMT deadline to ensure that you are familiar with the procedure, that the MD5 calculator that you are using is working properly, and that it is compliant with the MD5 standard that we are using.

What If I Don’t Want to Use MD5 Checksum?

If you complete uploading of all the necessary files by your deadline and before we revert to the checksum only mechanism, you can ignore the MD5 Checksum. However, the system will compute and report MD5 Checksum for all the files you upload. You may find this useful if you want to check that your file has been uploaded without corruption: just compare the MD5 Checksum you compute for your file with the checksum computed by the submission system.

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REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE GUIDELINES

What Are the Image Guidelines?

• Every submission must include at least one representative image.
• The image must be digital, of the highest quality possible, with a pixel resolution of at least 1500 x 1000, at least 300 dpi at 5 inches (12.7 cm) wide, with proportional height, or the highest-possible-resolution screengrab.
• Images must be 24-bit (RGB, 8-bits per channel) uncompressed, in the highest possible JPEG resolution.
• A standard ICC color profile of sRGB is also recommended and will be assumed if not specified.
• Horizontal (landscape) images are required. Vertical (portrait) images are not acceptable.
• Your image will appear in 3 X 2 ratio on the SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 website. Images that do not conform to this proportion will be cropped from the center.
• Avoid embedded rules, layers, tags, masks, color models (for example, CMYK), etc. If in doubt, use an image editor to paste into a new file.
• Please also specify copyright and image credits for each image. The file-upload manager offers an input field for this optional information.
• If your work is accepted, your representative image will be used both as an identifying image during the jurying and selection process and in publications or for media purposes.
• Higher resolution images are often favored by media for publication use, so the minimum-resolution requirement is only a guideline.
• It is important that you have permission to use this image.
• If you are not sure how to best represent your work with an image, you may consider an image that conveys the appropriate area of computer graphics or interactive techniques.

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ANONYMITY

What should I do to make my submission anonymous?

Remove any information from the paper, video, and supplemental materials that identifies you or any of the other authors, or any of your institutions or places of work. In particular, replace the authors' names with the paper ID (for example, papers_0000) in your submitted paper. Do not include any acknowledgment. See Submission Requirements

How do I include a reference to myself without identifying myself?

The general rule is to use the third person. For example, if Fred Brooks were to write a paper, he might say in his "related work" section: "Brooks et al. [12] discuss a system in which molecular visualizations are ... Our work builds on some of the ideas presented there, and on the ideas of Smith et al. [14] and the interaction techniques described by Wolford [18]." He would NOT say: "The authors, in prior work [12], discussed a system in which molecular visualization ... " The only case in which anonymous references are appropriate are unpublished manuscripts, in which case he might write: "The authors have also developed closely related techniques for molecular manipulation [15], but that work is outside the scope of this paper." Reference 15 would then read: “[15] Anonymous Authors. Molecular manipulations through computer graphics submitted to CACM.”

You should submit the anonymous manuscript as supplemental material with your SIGGRAPH Asia submission, along with an anonymous cover letter (also submitted as supplemental material) that briefly explains the differences with your SIGGRAPH Asia submission.

My SIGGRAPH Asia submission needs to cite one of our own web pages, which cannot easily be anonymized. Now, what should I do?

The rules governing prepublication have been clarified (see Submission Policy). For other types of web content, if you can reasonably cite the web page in the third person, go ahead.

My SIGGRAPH Asia submission needs to cite another, concurrent SIGGRAPH Asia submission by our group. Now, what should I do?

Cite it as [Anonymous 2021] Anonymous Authors, A grand unified theory of computer graphics, submitted to SIGGRAPH Asia 2021, and include the other submission as anonymous supplemental material.

I know I am supposed to remove my name, company name, etc. from the document, but should I also remove names from the acknowledgments? If the paper is accepted, should I send another copy to you with this additional material?

You cannot include an "acknowledgments" section in the submission. If your paper is accepted, you will submit a revised version that identifies you and your co-authors, your affiliations, and any acknowledgments that are appropriate. Keep in mind the additional space that will be required when stating how many pages the paper will require.

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REVIEW PROCESS

Can you give me some examples of reasons that my paper would get rejected without review?

Submissions will be rejected without review if it is found that:

• The submission violates the ACM Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism, Misrepresentation, and Falsification.
• The submission is a dual submission; that is if the submission is simultaneously under review for any other peer-reviewed conference or publication. For more details see the Prior Publication and Double Submissions section of the FAQs.
• The paper is so incomplete or poorly written that a review is impossible.
• The paper focuses on advertising a company's product(s).
• The paper is on a topic clearly outside the scope of SIGGRAPH Asia.
• Electronic files have been submitted that have been designed to have side effects other than presenting the submitted work to reviewers and committee members (for example, a "phone home" script).
• It appears that the paper contains material for which the submitters have not secured the necessary copyrights.

Why are good papers rejected?

Check out this article by Jim Kajiya, the Technical Papers Chair for SIGGRAPH 1993, for many excellent reasons. Although some of the details are dated, the wisdom is timeless.

Am I allowed to ask for my paper to not be reviewed by someone from whom I do not expect a fair review?

No. The reviewer selection process includes no such provisions.

I am submitting a paper on topic X, which I know is an area of expertise for committee member Y. Can I ask that Y be a senior reviewer of my paper?

No.

I am submitting a paper on topic X, which I know is an area of expertise for committee member Y. Can I ask that Y not be a senior reviewer of my paper, because Y works for a competing company?

No. Indeed, Y may well be the best-qualified reviewer for your work, and if so, we may ask Y to be the senior reviewer. However, we do take cross-reviewing conflicts into account, please see Technical Papers: Ethics of Review.

Who knows the identities of the authors and how is that information used during the review process?

Technical Papers Chair, sorters, and COI coordinators know the identity of a submission’s authors. The sorters use this information to avoid conflicts of interest when assigning the senior reviewers, and the COI coordinators use this information to approve the tertiary reviewers suggested by the senior reviewers. No reviewers of any paper know the authors’ identities. Papers are judged solely on their merit, as determined by the reviews.

Isn't the committee more likely to accept papers by committee members and other insiders? How do you prevent a conflict of interest?

Any paper on which a committee member has a conflict of interest will not be discussed while that committee member is in the room, and in fact, the committee member will not receive any information about such papers throughout the entire review process and committee meeting.

Is there a quota for the number or percentage of papers accepted?

There is no quota for the number of papers that should be accepted; this number arises organically each year from the actions of the committee.

I am a SIGGRAPH Asia reviewer, and I would like to show this paper to one of my students, who frankly knows more about the topic of this paper than I do. May I?

Yes. You may show a paper under review to a small number of people, normally one or two, provided that you:

• List their name(s), title(s) (for example, "my PhD student"), and affiliation(s) in the private section of the review form, (question 9, which goes only to the papers committee).
• Clearly instruct them on the rules of confidentiality of the SIGGRAPH Asia review process. THIS IS IMPORTANT: submissions are confidential, and therefore all information related to rejected submissions must be "forgotten" by all who saw them after the review process is complete. For more information, see Ethics of Review.

However, it is not appropriate for others to write the review for you. If this is your intention, then you must discuss it with the senior reviewer who assigned you the paper. At that person's discretion, the paper may be officially reassigned to your student.

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REBUTTAL PROCESS

What is a rebuttal?

There will be an opportunity to upload a rebuttal to address factual errors and specific questions in the reviews via the SIGGRAPH Asia Submission System from Monday, 12 July 2021, 22:00 UTC/GMT through Friday, 16 July 2021, 22:00 UTC/GMT. Reviews will be available via the SIGGRAPH Asia Submission System on Monday, 12 July 2021, 22:00 UTC/GMT. Then, authors may upload up to 1,000 words of text (no images, video, or URLs to external pages) in the system before Friday, 16 July 2021, 22:00 UTC/GMT. The rebuttals will be read by the referees and factored into the discussion leading up to the decisions made at the Technical Papers Committee meeting.

Should I write a rebuttal?

Any author may upload a rebuttal. The choice of whether to submit one and how much time to spend on it is up to each author. As a general guideline, submitting a rebuttal is a good idea if the paper seems to have a chance of being accepted, and if the reviews contain errors that can be corrected or specific questions that can be answered with short textual descriptions.

What should be included in the rebuttal?

The rebuttal is for addressing factual errors in the reviews and for answering specific questions posed by reviewers. It is limited to 1,000 words of text and must be self-contained. It cannot, for instance, contain URLs to external pages. There will be no uploads of images or videos during the rebuttal process. The rebuttal can also help clarify the merits and novelty of the paper with respect to prior work if it is felt that the reviewers misunderstood the paper's contributions and scope.

Now that I have read the reviews of my paper, I see much better how to organize it so it will be clear to the reader. Can I do this reorganization and upload the new version during the rebuttal period?

No. The rebuttal period is for addressing factual errors in the reviews, not for getting revised text into the review process. The committee members will have only a short time in which to read and act on your rebuttal, and it must be short and to the point. Hence, it will be limited to 1,000 words of text (no images or video).

Between May and July, we have gotten some really cool new results for our paper. Can I upload those results during the rebuttal period? I'm sure that they will make the reviewers realize the importance of our approach.

No. The rebuttal period is for addressing factual errors in the reviews, not for getting new results into the review process.

Reviewer #2 says that our collision-detection algorithm will not work on concave objects. But it will, as we just demonstrated with the lid of the teapot. Can we upload an image or movie showing this new result?

No. Images and video may not be uploaded with rebuttals. In recent years, you could ask the primary referee for permission to upload additional material. However, that feature was eliminated in 2009 to provide greater fairness and less stress in the rebuttal process.

Reviewer #4 clearly did not read my paper carefully enough. Either that or this reviewer does not know anything about the field! How should I respond during the rebuttal period?

We have all received reviews that made us mad, particularly on the first reading. The rebuttal period is short and does not allow for the cooling-off period that authors have before they write a response to a journal review. As a result, authors need to be particularly careful to address only factual errors or reviewer questions in the rebuttals rather than letting their emotions show through.

Please do not say: "If reviewer #4 had just taken the time to read my paper carefully, he would have realized that our algorithm was rotation invariant." Instead say: "Unfortunately, Section 4 must not have been as clear as we had hoped because Reviewer #4 did not understand that our algorithm was rotation invariant and he was therefore skeptical about the general applicability of our approach. Here is a revised version of the second paragraph in Section 4, which should clear up this confusion."

I uploaded a rebuttal but got no feedback. How can I be sure the reviewers received and actually read my rebuttal?

If you can view your rebuttal comments in the online review system, so can your reviewers. Rest assured that rebuttal information is considered and can be very helpful in the selection process.

Why can't we upload images and videos as was possible prior to 2009?

In previous years, authors could ask the committee for permission to post images, audio, and/or videos on a public BBS. While this feature was sometimes helpful for providing examples that answer specific questions posed by referees, it was used very differently by different authors and regulated differently by different referees. In some cases, an author would be allowed to upload entirely new examples, while nothing was allowed in others. The instructions clearly stated that rebuttals are only for "addressing factual errors in reviews". Yet, some authors would push the limits (for example, "the review said my method does not work, and so here are several new results to show that it does work ..."), and some referees were more lenient than others in allowing such uploads. To improve the uniformity of the review process, rebuttals will be limited to only 1,000 words of text. No images and no video can be uploaded with the rebuttal for any paper. This change should improve the fairness of the rebuttal process, and also decrease the pressure on submitters to create new results during the short rebuttal process.

Will we use the bulletin board system (BBS) for discussion during the rebuttal period?

There will be no discussion back-and-forth between authors and referees on any BBS during the review process. Prior to 2009, referees could ask questions of authors on a public BBS at any time prior to the committee meeting, and authors could provide extended answers, sometimes with new visual results in response to specific questions. Thus, the review process was different for different papers, and unnecessarily stressful for all. Presently, there is no longer a public BBS. Instead, the authors have the opportunity to upload a single, text-only rebuttal. This change was made to increase the fairness and reduce the stress of the rebuttal process. If your paper is accepted, the bulletin boards will be opened for discussions during the revision process.

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PRESENTATIONS

Are papers merely published in print, or is there a presentation as well?

There is a presentation, which in recent years has been approximately 15-18 minutes in length, followed by a few minutes of discussion and questions.

Where can I get information on how ACM handles copyright transfers and publishing licenses? I need to show it to my employers before I submit.

The various levels of the rights management form that ACM offers to authors can be found here.

My paper was just accepted to SIGGRAPH Asia 2021, and I am thrilled. But now my boss points out that I cannot use Bart Simpson as an example in my paper because I do not have the right to use him. What do I do now?

The Call for Technical Papers explicitly stated that you MUST have permissions for all the images in your paper and the footage on your video at the time of submission. You should immediately tell the Technical Papers Chair what you propose to use as a replacement. If the new images or footage are not substantively similar to that submitted for review in the judgment of the Chair and the Papers Advisory Board, then acceptance of your paper will be rescinded. The archival record (Conference Proceedings) must contain material that is equivalent to what the reviewers saw at the time of review.

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REFERRAL TO TOG

Is “referral to TOG” a possible outcome of the Technical Papers review process?

No. In the past, it was possible that papers got rejected from SIGGRAPH/SIGGRAPH Asia and accepted with major revisions to TOG, but this option has been eliminated starting with SIGGRAPH Asia 2018.

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PATENTS AND CONFIDENTIALITY

When will my accepted paper become publicly available?

Public disclosure of a paper's title, abstract, and contents can have important commercial and legal ramifications. Acceptances are finalized in August, at which time the paper's title, abstract, and 30-word summary (written by the authors) may be disclosed publicly in SIGGRAPH Asia communications. Excerpts of the paper's companion video may also be disclosed. The SIGGRAPH Asia Proceedings will be published as Volume 39, Issue #10 of ACM Transactions on Graphics. The publication date of this issue is Tuesday, 30 November 2021. Please be advised that in order to receive maximum international patent protection on your paper's idea, you will need to file your application prior to that date.

What information about my rejected paper will become publicly available?

No information about rejected papers will be made public.

What about patents and confidentiality? Are the two senior reviewers and the three tertiary reviewers under a confidentiality agreement not to disclose the contents of the paper to others? Some organizations like IEEE have all reviewers sign a confidentiality agreement. It is very important that I know for sure, since my employer may want to apply for a patent, and it affects when I may submit the paper to the SIGGRAPH Asia conference. Can I, for example, get a written guarantee of confidentiality?

Reviewers are asked to keep confidential all materials sent to them for review, but they do not sign a confidentiality agreement. In general, there is wide respect for the confidentiality of submissions, but we cannot promise anything, or provide a written guarantee.

It would not be wise for SIGGRAPH Asia to give you legal counsel on the matter of patents and publication; we urge you to seek independent legal advice. The main issue is that in different jurisdictions (such as Europe) prior public disclosure could invalidate a patent application. The situation is different in North America, where you have one year after public disclosure (for example, publication) to file a patent. It is a common practice for authors to prepare a patent filing coincidentally with their SIGGRAPH Asia publication.

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TECHNICAL PAPERS COMMITTEE

Can I contact members of the Technical Papers Committee with questions?

Although search engines make it a simple matter to find email addresses for these people, we ask that you do not contact them directly about the review process. Instead, please use the SIGGRAPH Asia Technical Papers Email Contact Form, which sends messages to the Chair, the Advisory Board, and selected administrators of the papers review process.

I have been doing graphics for years. May I be on the Technical Papers Committee?

The Technical Papers Chair selects the committee with several goals in mind, including: coverage of areas in which we anticipate submissions, getting some "old hands" who have been on the committee before, bringing some new folks into the process, recruiting people who will work well together and treat papers with respect and enthusiasm, and getting representation from diverse communities. If you would like to participate, send email to the Technical Papers Chair and tell us about yourself and your areas of expertise.

I have volunteered to be on the committee for three years now, and I have never been chosen. Is there a reason for this?

It may be that we already have committee members with expertise in your area, that others are better qualified, that the chairs do not feel that you have been in the field long enough to be an effective committee member, or any number of other reasons. The committee composition does change from year to year, though. Please keep offering your services, and gain experience, if necessary, by accepting service for other conferences.

Just what sort of workload is involved in being on the Technical Papers Committee?

You must review about 15-20 papers. For about half of those papers, you must find two additional reviewers, and for the other half, you must find one additional reviewer. You must attend a Technical Papers Committee meeting, during which time you will discuss papers, possibly be called on to provide additional reviews of a couple of papers, and be expected to listen carefully to a lot of discussions that has little to do with you. You may also be asked to act as a referee for a paper that has been conditionally accepted or conditionally accepted with minor changes, to verify that the final version meets the requirements set for it. Finally, you may be asked to chair a Technical Papers session at the SIGGRAPH Asia conference.

What do I get for all the work that I will be doing as a committee member?

In material terms, you get a discount when registering for SIGGRAPH Asia 2021. You also receive the recognition of your colleagues, the gratitude of authors, and the sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing you have given something back to the organization that helps disseminate research in graphics. Finally, you’ll get a super-awesome SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 token.

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CONTACTS

To whom should I send questions about the paper's submission and review process?

Use the SIGGRAPH Asia 2021 Technical Papers Email Contact Form. Do not send emails directly to the Technical Papers Chair.

Why not the Technical Papers Chair directly? 

First, the Technical Papers Chair might be unavailable for several days. Second, during parts of the submission and review process, the chair will be buried in emails. If you use the contact form, your email will go to the Technical Papers Chair and selected administrators of the papers review process. One of them may be able to answer your question, and they will often do so surprisingly promptly.

If you have a question of extreme delicacy, or a question on which the Technical Papers Chair or a member of the Advisory Board might be conflicted, and only in this case, then you may use a real email address.

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COPYRIGHTS

I believe that images in a scientific publication fall under the umbrella of the fair use rule. Why do I have to clarify the copyright issues?

Fair use rules do not directly apply to all papers. A publication needs to satisfy certain conditions. See this Wikipedia summary for more information. It is the author's responsibility to make sure that the submitted paper satisfies the conditions when claiming fair use. And this claim must be clearly stated in the submission form. Authors should contact Barbara Ryan at ACM [This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.] with questions and concerns about fair use and whether a particular image and its use in a paper falls under fair use.

Can I use images in my submission with unclear copyright status and then secure the copyright or replace the images later if the paper is accepted?

No. The reviewers can only judge the paper that is submitted, not a paper that includes material that might be changed after acceptance. Remember: you are declaring that you hold the rights for all materials when you submit your paper. This is the reason why material with unclear copyrights may be rejected.

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All deadlines are 22:00 UTC/GMT, unless stated otherwise below.

Thursday, 20 May 2021 22:00 UTC/GMT
Submission form deadline
One of the authors must start a submission in the online submission system Linklings and provide basic information about the paper, including the complete list of authors. All authors must enter their complete and valid conflict of interest data in Linklings by this deadline.

Friday, 21 May 2021 22:00 UTC/GMT
Paper Deadline
Basic information about your submission such as contact details of the corresponding authors, paper title, paper length, are required. Additionally, the submitted paper in PDF format and a representative image must be uploaded, along with any video, code and data, and other supplemental material if applicable. Alternatively, MD5 checksums may be uploaded in lieu of any of the files involved in the submission.

Saturday, 22 May 2021 22:00 UTC/GMT
Upload Deadline
If MD5 checksums were submitted by the Paper deadline (as described above), files that match the checksums can be submitted until this deadline.

Friday, 9 July 2021
Review Deadline for Reviewers

Monday, 12 July 2021 22:00 UTC/GMT
Reviews Available for Authors & Rebuttal Begins

Friday, 16 July 2021 22:00 UTC/GMT
Rebuttals Due 

Wednesday – Friday, 28 – 30 July 2021
Technical Papers Committee meeting (Virtual Synchronous PC Meeting)

Sunday, 1 August 2021
Results Notifications

Monday, 6 September 2021
Revisions Due
Revisions submitted by authors for final review

Friday, 10 September 2021
Final version deadline

Friday, 8 October 2021
Fast Forward material deadline

Tuesday, 30 November 2021
Official Publication Date

To be advised
Fast Forward Presentation

14 - 17 December 2021
SIGGRAPH Asia 2021

*Publications content will be available in the ACM Digital Library one week prior to the conference.

ACM SIGGRAPH strives to create a welcoming and nurturing community for everyone working in computer graphics and interactive techniques independent of gender, sexual orientation, ethnic background, religion, country of origin, or abilities. Work submitted to this program should be in alignment with these values.

For any submission to an ACM SIGGRAPH conference or Standing Committee activity, the person in charge (PIC) of the program should be aware of and sensitive to potential issues pertaining to the ACM SIGGRAPH values of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. If an issue is identified, then the authors of the submission shall be asked to modify their submission to resolve the issue before acceptance. If the PIC is unsure if there is an issue, then they should contact the Chair of the DEI Committee for advice.