Submitting a paper to CESCG takes some time and effort, but it is a unique opportunity to learn a lot of things the school will most likely not teach you. The intense three days seminar lets you experience the latest knowledge in visual computing in a very interactive way. Most important of all, you will get a lot of feedback.
Scientific writing
In the last three months before the seminar you will learn how to write a scientific report. Your local supervisor and two or three international experts specialized on your topic will provide you feedback. You will learn about the proper structure and storytelling in science. The resulting paper will be your first scientific publication.
Presenting
Verbal and visual presentations are important in everyday life, not only in science. You will learn how to give a good pitch, but also a long explanation. We offer feedback service for presentation slides one week before the seminar. Since practice is the best preparation, you will have a lot of chances to practice before and during the event.
Career
The seminar includes an industrial exhibition of innovative companies and research institutions in the field of visual computing. They often scout for talented students and offer internships or jobs. Your research paper and its presentation is a good way to attract their attention. Some of the exhibitors also give specialized workshops. Make sure not to miss them.
Social program
Evenings are spent in a relaxed mood making new friendships. You can meet many interesting young people with focus similar to yours. These friendships sometimes grow to important cooperation.
The seminar takes place in spring. Half a year earlier you should select your favorite topic and consult the seminar submission with your supervisor. You can submit only if he or she recommends your work for the seminar.
Focus on visual computing
Your topic should be focused on visual computing.
- computer graphics
- computer animation
- image processing
- computer vision
- visualization
- visual analytics
- VR and AR
- geometric modeling
- 3D printing
- human computer interaction
Eligible authors
You should be a university student of visual computing or related curriculum. Computer science and mathematics are fine. Please make sure that your supervisor is affiliated with one of our partner institutions. If not, please contact us as soon as possible.
Submissions can be written by one or several student authors and one supervisor. If the first author is a bachelor’s student, he or she should be at least in the 5th semester. A doctoral student may be an author only if it is the first publication during his or her PhD study.
In the first phase you should be working on your research with your local supervisor. Do not forget to submit the title and abstract and a few weeks later the full paper draft. Please make sure to study the guidelines in detail and follow them.
Abstract submission
In order to prepare the feedback process we need the title, keywords and abstract of your work two weeks before the submission deadline.
Full draft submission
The report must be written in proper English. It should be at most 8 pages DIN A4. Using the provided LaTeX template is mandatory. The .tex source files must be included in the submission. You are not allowed to take any modifications to the predefined formatting.
The submitted work may be a report on initial research work still in progress. However, it must be complete from the structural point of view. There must be a problem formulation with motivation, a clear outline of contributions or novelty, a comprehensive presentation of the proposed method. Most important of all, there must be results presented and evaluated already in this stage.
Three weeks after the paper submission you will receive feedback from 2 – 3 expert scientists who are specialized on your topic or work with a very similar one. You should integrate all their suggestions and address all their concerns in the final version of your paper. Your supervisor has to check on that upon submission. Please do not forget to rate back how helpful the feedback was for your work.
You will have less than a month to prepare the final “camera-ready” of your paper. Please keep in mind that you should also start preparing other presentation materials soon enough.
Presentations vs. posters
Along with the feedback you will also get a notification on the presentation form granted for your paper. The presentation form does not affect the written submission at all.
The schedule of the seminar allows for 24 student presentations. Usually, there are not more submissions than that. But in case we receive more, the committee sorts them and assigns full presentation slots (15 mins) and poster slots.
As of 2018 we include a separate track for posters with talks which is mainly intended to discuss work in progress. Students first submit a single-page talk proposal using the official CESCG template. Within a few days we invite the best proposals to the seminar. There is only little written feedback before the event, but the short talk at the seminar kicks off discussion about the poster with the audience.
Neither the proposal, nor the poster are parts of the proceedings. Posters will be exhibited in the halls of the castle during the whole event. Submission link and guidelines can be found at the bottom of this page.
Posters track submissions also have to submit a fast forward and they may send presentation slides for feedback. However, they are not considered for the awards.
You should spend the last few weeks before the seminar preparing the main presentation or poster, and also the supplementary presentation material like the fast-forward and a video.
Presentations
For a full presentation slot you should prepare a 15 minutes talk. The audience will have 5 minutes to ask additional questions. Please prepare your slides in a 16:9 format. A few days before the seminar we offer remote feedback to your talk. If you send us your slides for review, please do not forget to add notes so that we know what you are going to say. The level of talks is very high. You should not underestimate the preparation amount. It starts with a smooth structure, great visuals on the slides and ends with a lot of practice. A talk usually evolves during several weeks. You should practice it several times and at least once at your home university in front of a real audience.
Students with posters prepare a DIN A1 scientific poster instead of a talk. A poster summarizes the paper with a few images and text blocks. Posters (if any) will be presented during a separate session. The authors will stand next to their posters installed in the halls of the castle and discuss their work with the passing audience. Remember that students with posters will also present their work within the fast forwards session.
Fast forwards
All students give a fast 30 seconds preview of their work at the opening ceremony. The impact can be high. All our EXPO partners are carefully watching you. Preparing a good elevator pitch for the first time is not easy. Make sure to take enough time to find the best combination of visual and spoken messages. Please note that the organizers are serious about strictly following the provided template.
Science videos
For most conferences in visual computing a video attached to the submission is already a standard. We hope you will also prepare a video illustrating your work or method. Each year the international program committee awards the best student video. For examples from previous years have a look on our Youtube channel.
The seminar takes place in the beautiful castle in Smolenice, Slovakia. The participants also sleep at the castle. The program starts already before the opening ceremony. In the first session the students rehearse the fast forwards and learn some pitching tricks. Therefore, please arrive to the castle on time. It makes no sense if two dozens of other authors have to wait for a few latecomers.
Travel
Once you find a good connection to Bratislava or Vienna, you are almost there. Contact the organizers for advice on local transport. We also often organize car sharing. If you travel with your own car, please let us know. Free parking is possible at the lower courtyard.
Costs
We try to keep the fees as low as possible. Usually the student tickets cost around 100€ all included. We assume our partner institutions can refund the fees of their students. If not, high costs must never be an obstacle for a student to submit a paper. We offer special scholarships up to the full seminar fee for such cases. Please consult the organizers any time.
Dress code
No formal dress is required. The activities during the seminar include not only scientific sessions and the opening dinner, but also a barbecue, sportive activities in the nature and dancing. Comfortable casual dressing and sport shoes are the best choice.
How much time does it take to write a paper?
If you start writing a paper for the seminar, you should be working on your topic already in the autumn. Writing down the paper takes about a month, but it can take even long if you are not accustomed writing in English. Preparing high-quality images and meaningful illustrations sometimes takes more than a week.
After submitting your manuscript for review you get a paper for cross-reviewing. Depending on its quality it can take a few hours up to a day. Once you have receive the reviews three weeks later, there is a lot of work ahead. Improving your paper according to the feedback will take a week or two. We encourage students to produce short videos presenting their method and the results. It usually takes a few days to cut a nice video. At the same time you should already start preparing the fast forward presentation and your main presentation or poster.
I have to work on my thesis, why bothering with CESCG?
Because for most students the CESCG paper is just a shortened version of their future thesis. The seminar provides you with extensive feedback from international experts in your specific domain which you can also use to improve your thesis. The time overhead for writing a seminar paper is relatively low, since you can reuse all of it for your thesis.
I am already a PhD student. Can I submit my work?
Yes, you can present the work you have done for your Master’s thesis. You can also write a paper on your PhD topic, however it has to be the first publication during your PhD study and it will be of course not considered peer-reviewed.
If I submit a paper do I have to present it?
Yes.
Is it possible to participate without writing a paper?
Absolutely. Do not hesitate to participate at the seminar without an own submission. There is a lot of interesting program for all participants.