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[SIGGRAPH ASIA 2011 Course]How to write a siggraph paper
The document outlines comprehensive guidelines for writing a SIGGRAPH paper, emphasizing the importance of selecting an impactful and novel research problem, solid algorithm contributions, and clear writing. It advises prospective authors to be creative, open to collaboration, and to engage with the community while acknowledging potential rejections as part of the process. Additionally, it stresses the need for discipline, practice, and a positive mindset to enhance the chances of acceptance and success in academic writing.
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[SIGGRAPH ASIA 2011 Course]How to write a siggraph paper
- 2. How to writea SIGGRAPH paper Reconstructed from SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 Course
- 3. Writing a paperis like an interview Expose it right Pick the right problem Write a Execute paper it right well
- 4. SIGGRAPH • What SIGGRAPHwants • What we have • Right problem • Do what you love • Novel idea • Do the best • Solid algorithms • Randomness • Good apps & results • Objectivity • Clear writing • Discipline • Engaging talk • Practice
- 5. What SIGGRAPH wants •Right problem • What people care right now • Novel ideas • Do not do incremental stuff • Think big, be creative (not easy) • Solid algorithms • aka technical contribution • Knowledge is power; study hard, be evil
- 6. • Good applications • Give people what they need • Good results/effects • Work hard (in demos) • Good writing • You can’t sell what you can’t tell • It is all about bullshit
- 7. Right problem • Dowhat people care • Do what people don’t hate • Many interesting/cute problems in graphics • Pick what you love • Don’t be afraid of difficult problems • Less competition • Be brave
- 8. Novel ideas • Don’tdo incremental stuff • You are wasting your time • Aim for the best • Read as many as possible(SIGGRAPH, geometry, texture, rendering…) • Results/demos are important! Technically awesome. • Something the state-of-the-art cannot do • Comparison are often unavoidable
- 9. Solid algorithms • Practice • Most algorithms are modified from others • Read a lot of papers • Uncertainty • Don’t expect to get everything right on 1st try • Expect failures
- 10. Good applications • Bebroad • Do what you love
- 11. Clear writing • Practice • Blog, love letters, etc • Discipline • Good writing takes time; don’t wait until the end • Objectivity • Have others read your drafts • It is hard to see what you know while others don’t
- 12. Mentality • Mentality moreimportant than talent • Do what you love • Aim for the best • Train your mentality • Practice • Have fun
- 13. Refine the problem & converge Problem Refine Last Month Time Refine
- 14. Research Front • Ageto Contribute. • Outsiders are more likely to come up with new ideas. • Naï students help! ve
- 15. MENUS FOR SIGGRAPHPAPER
- 16. SHIFT • From areasyou know into other areas you don’t know. • Examples: • Detailed deformation Image warping • Captcha Image emerging
- 17. Adapt • Adopt fromother field into your expertise • Examples: • L1 median Image enhancing, filtering and surface reconstruction • Machine learning 3D analysis • Mean-value coordinate Image editing, cloning
- 18. Expand • Expansion ofan existing area • Examples: • Seam carving for image For video • 2D vector texture 3D vector volume texture
- 19. Trends, opportunities • Identifynew phenomena recently appeared, and employ them. • Examples: • Photo explosion on web Scene completing using web searching, ``Sketch2photo”, photo tourism • Popularity of Wii Kinect
- 20. Identify successful techniques andapply • Internet Image completion Surface completion • Computational photography Kinect • High-performance Computing Mechanical Turk
- 22. Identify / Problems • Ray Tracing • Radiosity • Image Retargeting • Mesh Compression • Etc…
- 23. Retro • Pick aproblem that was only hot 20 years ago and revisit it. • Example: • Occlusion Culling City Visualization
- 24. Invent a NewProblem
- 25. Reverse a Known Problem •Synthesis large texture from small texture Abstract from large texture to small texture (Inversed texture synthesis!) • Detect an object in the image Hide classified information in the image • Image Colorization Image Grayization
- 26. Find an Unexplored Problem •Depixelizing Pixel Art • Face Beautification
- 28. And Expose itRight! • Make it sound interesting • Surprise!!! • A general message
- 29. Terminology is important • Finalwords • Make your readers’ life as easy as you can • Main thing: aim at innovative, impactful research work • Don’t despair!
- 30. Avoid the “delta” impression •Chrystal clear expression • Intuition is always helpful • Try to find the simplest understandable explanation for your math
- 31. Practical Tips for Mathhaircut • Clear and neat notation • Always define all symbols • Give equation numbers • Assume nothing, explain everything
- 32. How to getaway with it? • Make sure you speak the language of the community • Do your homework-learn previous work • Use common terminology
- 33. Writing: get help andlearn from experienced people • Contribution/page radio • Single idea: 4 pages • 1.5 ideas: 6 pages • 2 ideas: >8 pages • Schedule your projects as early as possible • The best of luck && Take care of your health~~
- 38. If you arenot highly experienced, you’d group with other 2~6 people.
- 39. The multi-touch screenin your hands was invented in 70’s, as a failed product.
- 41. Live as Baining BainingGuo: • 1986: firstly heard CG • 1988: live with Eric Haines • 1989: met Dani Lischinski • 1990: attended D.Greenberg’s Graphics course • 1996: firstly attend SIGGRAPH conference • 1998: first SIGGRAPH paper • 1999 ~ now: more SIGGRAPH papers, • And much more rejected ones.
- 42. Our mission • Advancein each field we do research • Transfer new technologies into products • Ensure your lab a future!
- 43. Faster, higher, stronger! You only live once, so have some serious fun.
- 44. Kill, Kill,KILL!!! KILL, Kill!!! • Good ideas grow from killing bad ideas • Kill false or mediocre projects • Be ruthless • Focus on one high-quality work • Walk the fine line of greatness and stupidity • “Fail fast” you should! • If you feel trapped in your idea, usually it would be a bad idea.
- 45. You’d always: Collaborateand contact with Product Developers and Users
- 46.
- 47. As you start •Break writer’s block, start with the body • From text to structures: • Relentlessly focus on what you’ve done and never try to impress everyone • Structure, structure, structure… • Be concise: “Appendix test”! • One section for one person if you are working as a group (hope you’re not writing alone!)
- 48. Perfectionism Question yourself: • Haveyou provided references or justification for whatever you stated? • For things difficult to evaluate mathematically, have you provided a user study? • Does your method have a lot of practical applications? Are they surprisingly fresh or just stereotyped ones? • Can’t your results be more pleasing?
- 49. “Introduction” • Where passionmet facts • So be passionate!
- 50. “Result” • Keep yourpromise!!!
- 51. Other RULES • Don’tcopy conclusion from abstract. • Here you’d have some more deeper view! • Never praise your own work! • Not “we present an elegant algorithm…” • Don’t (intentionally or unintentionally) hide problems! • Realize the problem and try to fix that (either in your paper or in your future work), not elude from that.
- 54. What if Rejected? •Never forget the long term review • Building a career is a long process. • Your physical and mental health come first. • Sustained good performance comes next. • Always act professionally. • Drastic local events are not big deals in long term.
- 55. What if Rejected? •So have a good rest! • Don’t bet your career on a SIGGRAPH paper! • Inspired by the reviews? • Resubmit. • Mature work? • Find your champions and get the work out ASAP. • Again anchor your decision on analysis of your work
- 56. Live with rejections •Do what you love, so that you won’t mind reject • Treat rejections as normal and routine • Life is not as fun without failures (I mean it)
- 57. Learn from your rejections •You CAN learn from rejections • Learn to listen to your reviews, and filter out their outliers. • Learn to listen to your friends.
- 58. The review Form •Did the reviewer understand what the paper is about? • Contribution scope: How important is your work? Is widely applicable? Is there abundant analysis? • Contribution magnitude: amount of novelty, originality. • If the paper is poorly written, it always get rejection no matter how good the idea is. • It’s your responsibility to ensure the reviewers understand your paper, make their job easier! • Be kind/fair, avoid insulting previous methods! • Completeness, mention important implementation details, constant values. • Make sure you demonstrate/discuss any drawbacks or limitations
- 59. The importance of theIntroduction cannot be more estimated • “Uneducated guess”: in over 90% the reviewers will have made up his mind while reading Introduction. • Goals: • What the paper is about? • What problems does it address? • Why should the reader care?
- 60. Convince • Your problemshould be important. It has not been solved enough. • Apparently you have a novel solution.
- 61. Tips I • Demonstrate the problem solving • Show the shortcomings of existing methods • Visual aids to help explain • Demonstrate the quality • The reviewers should understand just from figures & captions.
- 62. Tips II • Alwayskeeping promises • Never over/understate • Make a balance between your and previous work • Be through, be fair, and support your claim about their shortcomings, never write a laundry list for them • In your results, you’d point out benefit. Don’t assume the reviewers understand • In your conclusions, re-iterate limitations for future work and summarize what you’ve achieved.
- 63. Start trying whenyou are 22-25 years old Failure with first couple of tries Your first happiest day of your life! Afterwards, life settling into a routine … ROAD TO 1ST SIG PAPER
- 64. Like your firstlove • Idealistic: beautiful, even sexy, pretty name … • The hardest to get few “love at first sight” • Devote your passion and patience
- 65. Do not sueme … • Be a little bit careful if you are married • It helps to be single … • or Chinese: new year always after deadline!
- 66. Making the first… • The right people • The right mindset • The right problem
- 67. People: mentor • Learnfrom and work with the experts • They know • What is a SIGGRAPH-able idea • How to make a SIGGRAPH paper • How to do that in an industrial lab • How to write a SIGGRAPH paper • …
- 68. People: student • Onewho can finish • Smart and hard-working • No genius needs execution • One who can pay attention to details • One who has the sense of aesthetics • One One who write,notleast the technical week! who can does at wait until the last parts
- 69. People: colleague • Notan exact match with your expertise • Those who complement you • Machine learning, statistics, optimization • Differential geometry • Those who brings you surprising problems • Architects, artists, designers … • Engineers or manufacturers from all industries …
- 70. Mindset: love it! •Enjoy the thrill of getting a SIGGRAPH paper • Even a bit of an addition • Show joy, not bitterness • Be optimistic
- 71. Mindset: patience • Whichis harder? • Beautiful and polished images/results/videos • Brilliant presentation • A cool and new idea • Comprehensive evaluation • Luck can lead you to an idea, but not the others! • For those, you need A LOT of patience
- 72. Mindset: have fun •“Fun with shapes” • Have your family enjoy it • Buy more time on your submission
- 73. TIPS III • MakeSIGGRAPH papers your love • Find the right people, mindset, and problem • Keep exploring the more unknown • Shape understanding • Creative modeling and design • When writing, try really hard to make your point
- 74. But really … •There is no single recipe To think there is a single type of problem that will make SIGGRAPH is like thinking there is one type of people who is going to be the love of your life! my quote imitated from Edgar Dijkstra • It is about you … Do only what only you can do! Edgar Dijkstra
- 75. Do what youlove • All other factors are ephemeral • Trend, popularity, hotness, … • More likely to be productive and successful • You will spend a lot of time on your stuff • Less likely regret in the worst case (e.g. reject) • At least you have fun • Start your own stuff • It is like investing; followers are already late • Life is too short
- 76. Do the best •Graphics → SIGGRAPH • Vision → CVPR, ICCV • … • Hard work anyway; so go for the jugular • Happier if succeed, less sad if fail • Life is too short
- 77. Randomness • Humans prefercertainty • Life is random end end start start fiction reality
- 78. Randomness in accept/reject clear accept accept borderline deterministic quality bar stochastic quality zone reject clear reject fiction reality
- 79. Monte Carlo Sampling •Life long intrinsic acceptance rate r = x% • r seems 0 if the first paper got rejected • r seems 1 if the first paper got accepted • Need more samples! • (be patient, and try more.)
- 80. Objectivity • Humans arebiased Score by others Score by you • Optimistic → self • Pessimistic → others • Get feedbacks • Early & frequent • Self criticism Paper by you Paper by others
- 81. Don’t get mad •(a few) nasty reviewers might exist • Useless to get upset • Get even! • Assume reviewers are going to kill your paper
- 82. Discipline • Humans liketo procrastinate • Start early • Manage projects by • Paper draft • Schedule
- 83. Practice • Humans arelazy • Research is a craft; learn through practice code talk read write experi- create ment
- 84. Practice what? • Achain is only as strong as its weakest link • Practice the weakest link Cause of rejection
- 85. Be happy • Longterm productivity depends on happiness • Live healthy and happy • Sleep, exercise, eat, social life, … • Creativity depends on happiness • I got all my ideas outside office • Be nice and positive to others • Especially in conferences & reviews
- 86. WELCOME TO SIGGRAPH2013 You won’t be in time if you haven’t written your paper for Danny Cohen-Or SIGGRAPH/Asia 2012… Baining Guo Liyi Wei Olga Sorkine Kun Zhou Hao Zhang