brycewang-stanford SIGGRAPH Review Process
Understanding the SIGGRAPH pipeline tells you where author leverage exists and where it does not.
The process is a hybrid: a conference clock (one deadline, a short rebuttal, a committee
meeting that decides in one round) wrapped around a journal outcome (an ACM Transactions on
Graphics article, with a conditional-accept revision to reach the journal bar). Facts below trace
to the SIGGRAPH 2026 reviewer-instructions/ethics page (resources/official-source-map.md);
reconfirm per cycle.
The pipeline
Submission form (authors locked) -> full submission (PDF + supplemental video)
-> assignment to a Technical Papers Committee member (primary) + secondary + external tertiary reviewers
-> reviews written; authors see the full set
-> rebuttal window (<=1000 words, text only)
-> Technical Papers Committee meeting: conditional accept / reject, and track assignment
-> [if conditional] second-stage review verifies the final version
-> publication in the SIGGRAPH issue of ACM TOG (or the Conference Proceedings)
One scale for everyone
All submissions — dual-track and Journal-only — are scored on a single scale: Strong Reject, Reject, Borderline Reject, Borderline Accept, Accept, Strong Accept. There is no separate journal vs conference review; the same reviews serve both possible outcomes, and the committee decides the track afterward. Practically, this means you write one paper to the journal bar and let the committee route it — you do not get to argue "but it's only a conference paper."
Who reads your paper
- A primary (a Technical Papers Committee member) owns the paper, recruits reviewers, and presents it at the committee meeting.
- A secondary committee member and external tertiary reviewers provide additional expert reviews. Graphics reviewers are domain-deep and will run the supplemental video and scrutinize comparisons and timings.
- The rebuttal is read by these referees and folded into the committee discussion — the primary carries your paper's case into the room, so answer the objection the primary will have to defend.
Where leverage exists
| Stage | Author leverage | Reality |
|---|---|---|
| Submission | High | The paper + results video are 95% of the outcome; write and shoot them to the journal bar |
| Rebuttal | Narrow but real | 1000 text-only words can flip a factual error, rarely a judgment |
| Committee meeting | None directly | The primary argues on your behalf; you are not in the room |
| Conditional accept | High | Deliver every required change; the second-stage reviewer can still hold the paper |
| Track assignment | Low | The committee decides Journal vs Conference; you cannot appeal the track |
Conditional acceptance and the second stage
A SIGGRAPH accept is almost always conditional: the committee lists required changes, and a
committee member verifies in a second reviewing process that the final version is acceptable
and the changes were made. This is the journal-grade revision folded into a conference calendar —
treat the conditions as binding, not advisory (see siggraph-author-response and
siggraph-camera-ready).
The dual-track decision
For a dual-track submission the committee chooses Journal (TOG) or Conference publication. Reviewers are less demanding about formal completeness, validation, and experimental evaluation when accepting to the Conference track — that track exists to publish riskier or earlier-stage work. A Conference-track accept is a real acceptance and a real SIGGRAPH presentation; it is published in the Conference Proceedings rather than the TOG issue. Do not read a Conference-track outcome as a rejection of the idea.
Calibrating outcomes
- SIGGRAPH acceptance has historically run in the ~20-30% range across the whole program with no fixed quota — the number emerges from the committee, not a target. (SIGGRAPH 2025: >970 submissions, 306 accepted; SIGGRAPH 2026: >1,120 submissions — exact 2026 accepts 待核实.)
- A borderline paper is decided by the video and the comparisons, not by the rebuttal. Invest accordingly before submission.
- If rejected, the standard path is to revise using the reviews and target the next cycle
(SIGGRAPH Asia after SIGGRAPH, or vice versa) — see
siggraph-workflowandsiggraph-topic-selection.
Output format
[Stage] pre-submission / awaiting reviews / rebuttal / post-decision / conditional
[Score read] where the pivotal reviewer sits on the 6-point scale
[Leverage] what this stage can and cannot change
[Rebuttal target] the factual error / specific question to address (if in window)
[If conditional] required changes -> plan -> second-stage risk
[Track expectation] dual-track (journal/conference) or journal-only