ksbooth@watcgl.UUCP (10/14/86)
This article is an attempt to clarify some of the questions that have appeared recently regarding ACM SIGGRAPH publications. Forgive the preample if you know all about SIGGRAPH, but some readers may not. ACM SIGGRAPH is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics. Membership is open. Applications are through ACM. Members receive five issues of the newsletter annually, one of which is the proceedings from the annual conference. SIGGRAPH publishes a number of other things on an irregular basis, the most popular of which is the SIGGRAPH Video Review, a series of 3/4" and 1/2" video tapes containing short video pieces (and some film converted to video) of interest to the computer graphics community. Computer Graphics This is the ACM SIGGRAPH newsletter. It is sent to all members of ACM SIGGRAPH. It is also available in some (many?) libraries. The new schedule for publication has four "regular" issues that include announcement of upcoming conferences (SIGGRAPH and non-SIGGRAPH), book reviews, short articles and reports, the education directory (info on programs in computer graphics), and an annual bibliography of articles on computer graphics (this is the place to look before posting those articles to net.graphics that request basic information -- save the net for information that is not readily available elsewhere). The newsletter does not, as a rule, publish research articles, except for the fifth issue, which is the proceedings of the annual ACM SIGGRAPH conference. That issue contains all of the papers from the conference. ACM SIGGRAPH Video Review These tapes contain material submitted for publication. The material is refereed and (in some cases) edited. As pointed out in the posting by Doris Kochanek, not all material at the Film & Video Show from the conference is on the tapes. This is because some of the material (often the "flashy" stuff) cannot be distributed because of copyright or other restrictions. Its use at the conference is with the understanding that ACM SIGGRAPH will not make or distribute copies of the information. ACM SIGGRAPH Slide Sets Each year ACM SIGGRAPH produces slides sets (about 80 slide each) that contain images submitted to the slide set editor. Slides sets typically include the technical slide set (anything of general interest in computer graphics that illustrates the state-of-the-art), the Art Show slide set (material from the Art Show at that year's conference), the Industry slide set (photographs of equipment or examples of commerical systems), and some upcoming slides sets such as a GKS set (similar to the earlier Core slide set of some years ago) and an education slide set (basic material on principles/fundamentals of computer graphics suitable for introductory courses -- this is to provide material that is otherwise difficult to obtain by individuals). ACM SIGGRAPH Other Goodies At each conference there are 20-30 courses for which course notes are prepared. These are available on-site for sale either as individual course notes or as full boxed sets (a full set runs around $400). The full sets can be purchased prior to the conference. Other material, including art show catalogs, film show catalogs, and anything else put out by a particular conference, are typically available only at the conference. ACM SIGGRAPH does sell back issues of the proceedings and the video reviews through ACM's Order Department. The other material is not stocked by ACM because it becomes quickly dated and the overhead in processing orders is too high. All material stocked by ACM is listed in their publication catalog, which is update annually. This year, each ACM SIGGRAPH local group received a full set of course notes, a copy of the proceedings, and selected copies of the video reviews and slide sets. This material was distributed to the local groups to attempt to provide more access to the material to the general computer graphics community. In addition to the material above, ACM SIGGRAPH helped to start the journal ACM Transactions on Graphics by providing some funding for its first year of operation. TOG and the IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications are publications that complement the material published by ACM SIGGRAPH. ACM SIGGRAPH is in the process of reviewing its publication policies. There is a possibility of some arrangement with CG&A whereby all members of ACM SIGGRAPH would received subscriptions to CG&A. This is only under discussion at this point, but there may be a later posting with specific details of a proposal (there will definitely be an announcement in the ACM SIGGRAPH newsletter before anything definite is decided). Kelly Booth, ACM SIGGRAPH Chair