SIGGRAPH

It has been an incredible honor and privilege to have chaired the process leading to these proceedings. As in past years, the papers contained herein represent the most exciting and diverse recent research in the area of computer graphics and interactive techniques. I thank the authors for choosing to send their work to SIGGRAPH 2010, I thank the hundreds of reviewers for all their effort, and I especially thank the Technical Papers committee --- 49 of the wisest, hardest working, and most devoted individuals in the field.

This year a total of 390 complete submissions were received. This is down somewhat from the record of over 500 submitted to SIGGRAPH 2008 and 440 submitted to SIGGRAPH 2009. The reason is that SIGGRAPH Asia is having the desired effect of spreading out the submission load across two conferences. In fact, the total number of submissions continues to climb. Taken together, more than 650 papers have been submitted to SIGGRAPH and SIGGRAPH Asia over the last 12 months. The spreading of submissions across conferences is helpful in several ways. First, authors missing a deadline or having a paper rejected do not have to wait an entire year before resubmitting, and second, each committee can be smaller and more cohesive, leading to more informed and consistent decisions.

In building the committee this year I felt it was particularly important for committee members to help keep SIGGRAPH fresh and vibrant by being expansive in their definition of what is appropriate for publication at SIGGRAPH, and by looking for the inspiring work that will stimulate future research and propel the field forward as quickly as possible. Doing so is crucial if SIGGRAPH is to remain a fertile breading ground for new research areas. I also asked the committee to select their tertiary reviewers with these goals in mind, and I'm happy to report that they responded enthusiastically. One measure is that the acceptance rate was up this year, as we accepted 103 papers, or just over 26%.