European Association for Computer Graphics

European Association for Computer Graphics
Name	European Association for Computer Graphics
Formation	1972
Type	Learned society
Region served	Europe
Leader title	President

European Association for Computer Graphics is a learned society dedicated to the advancement of computer graphics in Europe, connecting researchers, practitioners, and educators from institutions such as University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Max Planck Society, Imperial College London, and Politecnico di Milano. The association fosters collaboration among communities linked to SIGGRAPH, ACM, IEEE, Eurographics, CETI, and national academies like the Royal Society and the Academia Europaea, while interacting with events such as the World Conference on Computational Science and the International Conference on Computer Vision.

History

Founded in 1972 during a period influenced by developments at Bell Labs, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Utah, and research groups at Fraunhofer Society, the association emerged alongside laboratories like PARC and projects such as Sketchpad. Early connections linked pioneers from University of Utah to members of Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA), CERN, Technical University of Munich, and Delft University of Technology, with participation from figures affiliated with NASA, European Space Agency, IBM Research, Siemens, and Philips Research. Milestones included collaboration with conferences at Royal Society venues, workshops held in cities like Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Vienna, and Rome, and cross-pollination with exhibitions at Tate Modern and museums like the Victoria and Albert Museum. The association's evolution mirrored advances reported in journals such as Communications of the ACM, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, Nature, Science, and proceedings of SIGGRAPH and Eurographics.

Organization and Governance

Governance is structured with a council comprising representatives from universities and research institutes including University College London, ETH Zurich, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, and University of Edinburgh, alongside industry partners like Adobe Systems, NVIDIA, Intel, Microsoft Research, and Google Research. Executive roles have been held by academics affiliated with École Polytechnique, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Politecnico di Torino, Aalto University, and Stockholm University, and the advisory board has included members from Max Planck Institute for Informatics, CNRS, Czech Technical University in Prague, KTH, and TU Delft. Financial and legal oversight interacts with entities such as European Commission, Horizon Europe, European Research Council, Wellcome Trust, and private foundations like Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Simons Foundation.

Conferences and Events

The association organizes flagship conferences and supports symposia and workshops frequently co-located with events such as SIGGRAPH, Eurographics Conference, IEEE VIS, ICCV, and ECCV, and regional meetings in capitals including London, Paris, Milan, Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Zurich. Special sessions and summer schools have been held at institutions like ETH Zurich, EPFL, University of Cambridge, TU Munich, Sorbonne University, Scuola Normale Superiore, and University of Helsinki, featuring keynote speakers from Stanford University, MIT, Caltech, Harvard University, Columbia University, and Princeton University. Collaborative events linked to museums and festivals have involved Science Museum, London, Musée du Louvre, Venice Biennale, Documenta, and Ars Electronica.

Publications and Journals

The association publishes proceedings and partners with publishers and journals including Springer-Verlag, Elsevier, Wiley, Oxford University Press, and ACM Press, and maintains relationships with periodicals such as Computer Graphics Forum, ACM Transactions on Graphics, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, Journal of Graphics Tools, and Foundations and Trends in Computer Graphics and Vision. Edited volumes and lecture notes have been produced in collaboration with series like Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Communications in Computer and Information Science, Advances in Computer Graphics, and monographs associated with MIT Press and Cambridge University Press.

Awards and Recognition

The association recognizes contributions through awards modeled on practices seen in organizations such as ACM, IEEE, Royal Society, European Research Council, and foundations like Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Guggenheim Foundation, celebrating lifetime achievement, technical contributions, and paper awards similar to Turing Award, ACM SIGGRAPH Achievement Award, IEEE Fellow distinctions, and national prizes such as Copley Medal analogues. Laureates have often been drawn from institutions including ETH Zurich, University of Cambridge, Max Planck Society, INRIA, UNIVERSITÀ di Bologna, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and industry labs like Nokia Research, Bell Labs, and Microsoft Research.

Education, Outreach, and Special Interest Groups

Educational initiatives include summer schools, tutorials, and online courses developed with partners such as Coursera, edX, FutureLearn, Khan Academy, and universities like Imperial College London and University of Oxford, while outreach programs have collaborated with cultural institutions including Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, Musée d'Orsay, and science centers such as Science Museum, London and Deutsches Museum. Special Interest Groups (SIGs) mirror those in SIGGRAPH and IEEE VIS with topics connected to labs at Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Fraunhofer Society, INRIA, CWI, Centre for Digital Media, and universities like University of Toronto and Purdue University hosting focused activities on rendering, geometry processing, visualization, virtual reality, and human-computer interaction.

Category:Computer graphics organizations