1. Important Dates
2. Supplemental Material and Formatting Guidelines
3. Submission
4. Journal Publication and Date of Publication
5. Submission and Review Process
6. General Expectations (Ethics Guidelines)
7. Topics
8. Paper Types
9. Chairs

For the IEEE Visualization Conference we solicit novel research ideas in a number of different research topics and research approaches. We are looking for novel approaches as well as daring, out-of-the-box ideas that go beyond incremental results. We have broadened the scope of a visualization paper and this is reflected in the guidelines for authors before you. Last, but not the least, we strive for excellence, which is recognized in a highly prestigious "Best Paper" award each year. Please consult the details of the newly revised and highly transparent selection process at http://vis.computer.org/VisWeek2009/vis/best_paper.html.

All deadlines are at 5:00pm Pacific Time (PDT).

Papers can be up to a maximum of eight (8) pages in length, including references and full-color figures throughout. We encourage the use of digital video to support the submission (which can be embedded directly into the pdf), particularly if part or all of the work covers interactive techniques. We also encourage the submission of code or other supplemental material in order to increase the reproducibility of the work. Please take special care in making parameter settings available and either refer to open source data or provide your data sets.

The paper formatting page (http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~vis/Tasks/camera_tvcg.html) provides details and guidelines for preparing a proper submission. Guidelines for supplementary materials may be found at http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~vis/Tasks/supplement_tvcg.html. Authors must follow the style guidelines specified there.

We encourage the usage of a teaser image to showcase your work.

Electronic submissions details can be found at http://egmcp1.cgv.tugraz.at/VIS09.

All papers accepted to IEEE Visualization 2009 will appear in a special issue (Nov/Dec 2009) of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) containing the conference proceedings. This special issue will be published before the conference, the likely publication date is October 1st. Papers (including supplemental material) will undergo a revision and review cycle after initial notification of review results in order to ensure they are acceptable for publication and presentation in the journal. The paper and supplemental material will appear at the same time in the IEEE Digital Library.

IEEE Visualization 2009 will use a double-blind review process for the first review cycle. Therefore authors should NOT include their name or institution on the cover page of the initial submission, and should make an effort to ensure that there is no self-revealing information in the text (such as anonymizing the citations to authors' previous work, or making acknowledgments to colleagues). Authors should also avoid posting their submitted manuscript on the web until the notification date of the first review cycle.

Note that submission of an abstract for each paper is mandatory by March 21, 2009 and full papers are due March 31st. All submissions must be original works that have not been published previously in any conference proceedings, magazine, or journal. Related previous work by the authors must be cited (anonymously), and the differences to the current paper must be clearly explained. Concurrent submissions are strictly forbidden. If it is determined that a manuscript is simultaneously under the consideration by another publication venue (e.g., conference, journal, edited book) during the review process of IEEE Visualization 2009, the manuscript will be immediately rejected.

At least one author of an accepted paper must attend the conference to present the work, and authors will also be required to present a very brief one-minute summary of their talk at the opening papers preview session.

Since successful submissions will appear in the premier archival journal of the field (IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics), we expect that the submissions will clearly discuss the novel and significant contributions as well as place them in the context of prior art in the field. This will involve highlighting how the current contributions differ and advance the state-of-the-art in visualization, especially, but not limited to previous work in the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) and other leading journals and conferences of the field such as Vis, InfoVis, EuroVis, and PacificVis.

Our reviewing process is double-blind. However, in the review system, you need to provide a complete list of authors at the time of the submission, which is important for the assignment of reviewers. Adding additional authors AFTER the acceptance of a paper is not acceptable.

Ethics Guidelines for reviewers can be found at http://vis.computer.org/VisWeek2009/ethics.html.

Topics

The IEEE Visualization Conference is soliciting papers on all topics of visualization research. Please do note, that topics primarily involving non-spatial data (such as abstract information spaces, tree, network, and textual data) might be a better match for our sister conference, the IEEE InfoVis Conference. A comprehensive list follows.

Suggested topics for papers include, but are not limited to:

Theory of Visual Data Analysis

taxonomies, visualization models, visual analysis models, design methodologies

Visual Analysis and Knowledge Discovery

hypothesis forming, hypothesis testing, visual evidence, visual knowledge discovery, visual knowledge representation, knowledge externalization

Visual Data Handling, Processing and Analysis

data acquisition and management, aggregation, cleaning, clustering, filtering, fusion and integration, registration, segmentation, smoothing, transformation and representation, machine learning, feature detection and tracking

Spatial Data in Visualization

scalar, vector and tensor fields, irregular and unstructured grids, point-based data, extraction of surfaces, volume rendering, topology-based and geometry-based techniques, PDEs for visualization, and volume modeling

Interaction Techniques

human factors, human-computer interaction, user interfaces, interaction design, zooming and navigation, focus and context techniques, coordinated and multiple views, data editing, manipulation and deformation

Display and Interaction Technology

large and high-res displays, stereo displays, immersive and virtual environments, multimodal input, devices, haptics for visualization,

Evaluation

usability, laboratory, and field studies, qualitative and quantitative evaluation, metrics and benchmarks, task and requirements analysis

Perception & Cognition

perception theory color, texture, scene, motion perception, cognition theory, perceptual cognition, distributed cognition, embodied / enactive cognition, cognitive and perceptual skill, attention and blindness

Hardware for Visualization

hardware acceleration, GPUs and multi-core architectures, special purpose hardware, CPU and GPU clusters, parallel systems, distributed systems and grid environments, volume graphics hardware

Large Data Visualization

time-varying data, multidimensional, multi-field, multi-modal, and multi-variate, streams, multi-resolution, compression, petascale visualization

General Topics

aesthetics, animation, collaborative and distributed visualization, design studies, glyph-based techniques, illustrative visualization, integrating spatial and non-spatial data visualization, mathematical foundations for visualization, mobile and ubiquitous visualization, presentation, production, and dissemination, scalability issues, sonification, uncertainty visualization, view-dependent visualization, visual design, visualization system and toolkit design,

Applications

visualization in Mathematics, physical sciences and engineering, earth, space, and environmental sciences, flow, terrain, geographic/ geospatial visualization molecular, biomedical and medical, bioinformatics visualization, business and finance visualization, visualization in social and information sciences, software visualization, visualization in education, in the humanities, for the masses, multimedia (image/video/music) visualization, data warehousing, database visualization and data mining

We would like to solicit a broad range of papers - algorithm/technique, system, application/design study, evaluation, and theory/model papers. We discuss these categories below as a guide to authors. However, papers can include elements of more than one of these categories, and are not required to fit within these five. Please see "Process and Pitfalls in Writing Information Visualization Research Papers" by Tamara Munzner for more detailed discussion on how to write a successful InfoVis paper. While these excellent guidelines have been written by an InfoVis researcher, they apply just as well to any visualization paper.

Your paper type has to be specified during the paper submission.

The technique or algorithm description provided in the paper should be complete enough that a competent graduate student in visualization could implement the work, and the authors should create a prototype implementation of the methods. Relevant previous work must be referenced, and the advantage of the new methods over it should be clearly demonstrated. There should be a discussion of the tasks and datasets for which this new method is appropriate, and its limitations. Evaluation through performance studies, informal or formal user studies, or other methods, will often serve to strengthen the paper.

Past work examples include: algorithms for iso-surface extraction or rendering; data analysis techniques for visualization (such as transfer function design and interaction); topology and geometry based techniques data exploration; algorithms for understanding of vector and tensor fields; etc. This list is not exhaustive, and we welcome submissions in these and all other areas of visualization.

System papers present a blend of algorithms, technical requirements, user requirements, and design that solves a major problem. The system that is described is both novel and important, and has been implemented. The rationale for significant design decisions is provided, and the system is compared to documented, best-of-breed systems already in use. The comparison includes specific discussion of how the described system differs from and is, in some significant respects, superior to those systems. For example, the described system may offer substantial advancements in the performance or usability of visualization systems, or novel capabilities. Every effort should be made to eliminate external factors (such as advances in processor performance, memory sizes or operating system features) that would affect this comparison. For further suggestions, please review "How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper" by Roy Levin and David Redell and "Empirical Methods in CS and AI" by Toby Walsh.

Application/Design Study papers explore the choices made when applying visualization techniques in an application area, for example relating the visual encodings and interaction techniques to the requirements of the target task. Although a significant amount of application domain background information can be useful to provide a framing context in which to discuss the specifics of the target task, the primary focus of the case study must be the visualization content. The results of the design study, including insights generated in the application domain, should be clearly conveyed. Describing new techniques and algorithms developed to solve the target problem will strengthen a design study paper, but the requirements for novelty are less stringent than in a Technique paper. The work will be judged by the design lessons learned, and on which future contributors can build. We invite submissions on any application area.

Past work examples include application areas such as the oil and gas industry, medical and biomedical analysis, simulation and fluid flow, and mathematical visualization.

Evaluation papers explore the usage of visualization by human users, and typically present an empirical study of visualization techniques or systems. Authors are not necessarily expected to implement the systems used in these studies themselves; the research contribution will be judged on the validity and importance of the experimental results as opposed to the novelty of the systems or techniques under study. The conference committee appreciates the difficulty and importance of designing and performing rigorous experiments, including the definition of appropriate hypotheses, tasks, data sets, selection of subjects, measurement, validation and conclusions. The goal of such efforts should be to move from mere description of experiments, toward prediction and explanation. We do suggest that potential authors who have not had formal training in the design of experiments involving human subjects may wish to partner with a colleague from an area such as psychology or human-computer interaction who has experience with designing rigorous experimental protocols and statistical analysis of the resulting data. Other novel forms of evaluation are also encouraged.

Past work examples include evaluation metrics for image quality, evaluation of effectiveness, and usability analyzes of visualization designs.

Theory/Model papers present new interpretations of the foundational theory of visualization. Implementations are usually not relevant for papers in this category. Papers should focus on basic advancement in our understanding of how visualization techniques complement and exploit properties of human vision and cognition.

Examples include the treatment of the rendering integral, taxonomies, new color models for visualization, or models to measure the value of visualizations.

Hanspeter Pfister, Harvard University
Torsten Möller, Simon Fraser University
Kwan-Liu Ma, University of California, Davis