Initial Announcement and Call for Papers
========================================

Conference: NPAR 2009
ACM International Symposium on Non-Photorealistic Animation and
Rendering (co-located with SIGGRAPH 2009)

URL: http://www.npar.org/2009/

Date: August 1-2, 2009

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Aims and Scope:
===============

NPAR 2009 is the 7th international symposium dedicated to
non-photorealistic animation and rendering, sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH
and in cooperation with Eurographics. For the second time, NPAR will be
co-located with SIGGRAPH which in 2009 takes place in New Orleans. This
will allow us to raise attention for this important field, to open it to
new people from academia, arts, and industry. Once again NPAR will bring
together researchers and practitioners to showcase cutting-edge research
in non-photorealistic animation and rendering systems and techniques.

Non-photorealistic animation and rendering (NPAR) refers to techniques
for visually communicating ideas and information. Such techniques
usually generate imagery which is expressive, rather than
photorealistic. We seek new research on both the mechanisms of
non-photorealistic rendering techniques as well as the principles of
visual communication via such artistic rendering. Specific themes of the
conference include, but are not limited to:

* Simulation of traditional and new graphical styles
* Simulation of natural media
* Hardware-accelerated non-photorealistic algorithms
* Level-of-detail in image space
* Abstraction and composition in rendered images
* Synthesis of stroke-based patterns
* Style transfer
* Automatic painting from photographs and video
* Temporal and spatial coherence in non-photorealistic rendering
* Motion blur and depth of field in non-photorealistic images
* Lighting models for NPAR
* Non-traditional perspective
* Non-photorealistic modeling
* Animation systems
* Computer-aided cartoon animation
* 2D/3D integration
* Live-action integration
* Computer-aided in-betweening
* Computer-aided layout
* Matting and compositing
* Image-based rendering
* Rendering languages and systems
* Practical NPAR applications
* Evaluation methods for artistic graphics
* Computer-generated abstract art

We invite researchers and practitioners of all areas connected to
non-photorealistic animation and rendering to submit papers. Full-length
papers are the primary medium for conveying new research results at the
NPAR symposium. Submissions are sought that describe original,
unpublished work on all themes listed above.

Paper submissions should be at most 5000 words or 10 ACM conference
pages in length. The title page should include an abstract (fewer than
200 words) and keywords. The submission is electronic in PDF format;
supplemental video and images may also be submitted. Submission is
single-blind, so papers may be submitted in \"camera-ready\" format. We
recommend that prospective authors consult the SIGGRAPH publications
page (http://www.siggraph.org/publications/instructions/) for
information on paper formatting for paper submissions. The accepted
papers will be published in the conference proceedings by ACM SIGGRAPH
and will be available online via the ACM Digital Library.

Important Dates
===============
Abstract submission deadline:  April 13, 2009
Submission deadline:           April 15, 2009, 12 midnight PDT
Acceptance notification:       May 22, 2009
Camera-ready deadline:         May 29, 2009

Organization
============
Bruce Gooch, University of Victoria, Canada (General Chair)
Tobias Isenberg, University of Groningen, Netherlands (Program Chair)
Craig Kaplan, University of Waterloo, Canada (Program Chair)
Holger Winnemöller Adobe Inc., USA (Poster Chair)
Marc Nienhaus, mental images GmbH, Germany (Poster Chair)