SIGGRAPH 2009 is fast approaching! Mark your calenders for this major event if you haven't already done so. The conference, this year in New Orleans, runs from August 3rd, through August 7th, with the exhibition from August 4th through August 6th. The complete conference schedule will be available in April. Online registration and hotel reservation will be available in early March at siggraph.org.

Though the general submission deadline has passed, there is still time to get your work submitted for the Computer Animation Festival at SIGGRAPH. Deadline is March 4th. The CAF, now in it's 36th year, is featuring two new sections: Real-Time Rendering, and Visual Music!

SIGGRAPH 2009 Preview Video

Here's a further look at what's new for SIGGRAPH 2009:

• Beginning in 2009, Art Papers will be published in a special issue of Leonardo, The Journal of the International Society of the Arts, Sciences and Technology. This issue of Leonardo also documents SIGGRAPH 2009 BioLogic Art.
• Integration of the Sandbox Symposium. Starting in 2009, SIGGRAPH is specifically including contributions from videogame theorists, creators, producers, and players. The Sandbox Symposium is no longer a separate event but is integrated into the main SIGGRAPH conference: SIGGRAPH 2009 includes Game Papers, published in ACM Sandbox 2009 Proceedings, and a Sandbox area where attendees can explore game development and design.
• Real-Time Rendering in the Computer Animation Festival.
• Music & Audio. SIGGRAPH 2009 has a special focus on music and audio, including presentation of content in cooperation with the New Interfaces in Musical Expression (NIME) symposium.
• Visual Music in the Computer Animation Festival.
• Information Aesthetics Showcase. Works that combine information and data visualization with graphic design and media arts.
• Research Challenge. Teams present projects they've worked on to solve an announced challenge problem.
• GameJam!. An intense 24-hour competition in which teams design and implement a video game.

And for those who were unable to attend SIGGRAPH 2008, at least three innovations introduced in 2008 are continuing in 2009:

• The curated Design & Computation Gallery. This year's theme is Generative Fabrication.
• A new format for the Computer Animation Festival that features day- and week-long passes to festival screenings and events. Computer Animation Festival passes are included with Full Conference registration, they can be added to other registration categories, and they can be purchased by the general public without registering for SIGGRAPH 2009.
• SpeedLab, a multi-disciplinary competition, in which teams are assigned a problem at the beginning of SIGGRAPH 2009, and they present their solutions to a panel of celebrity judges four days later. The judges select the winning teams and confer fame and prizes.

Submission Deadlines looming for SIGGRAPH 2009:

If you have submitted works for SIGGRAPH 2009, be sure to contact marketing@renderosity.com and let us know! Also, if you are planning to attend SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans, please let us know. We'd love to see you there!