I used to concentrate my paper submissions to a venue that gained prestige by accepting only the most novel ideas, but its prestige has been diluted with more incremental works over the years to the point that it has higher acceptance rate than alternatives (in an overlapping but different field) that I now submit to more.
January 16, 2025
December 14, 2024
Art papers
I took a look at the art papers in SIGGRAPH Asia 2024 primarily due to the unusual preface and, to a lesser extent, the much lower (and thus more precious) number (28 only!) and acceptance rate (15.9%) than the technical papers program.
Unlike the technical papers which have clearer review criteria (novelty, importance, utility, readability, reproducibility, ethics, etc.), I agree with the art papers chair that it is not clear what is an art paper, not least a good one. I found some of the papers interesting in the technical or philosophical perspectives, while some others left me scratching my head. But I guess this is what art is in general – more about expressing/sharing novel viewpoints/experiences than scientific discoveries or practical utilities.
November 16, 2024
Most important skills for ML R&D
Secure compute resources and figure out the compatible combinations of Python package versions, and the rest will follow naturally. 😈
September 22, 2024
Unexpected intellectual discovery
There are several aspects of scientific research that excite me: solving a challenging problem, publishing a paper, shipping a product, creating a demo/artwork, presenting a talk, reviewing a submission, serving on a committee, attending a conference, meeting people with shared interests, working with collaborators.
But what excites me the most is discovering new ideas and insights, especially those that are surprising or unexpected.
Looking back at my research career, here are some examples:
- My PhD thesis work on texture synthesis – fixed neighborhoods, over manifold surfaces, from multiple sources (blending and 3D volumes from 2D views), and order-independent/random-accessible synthesis.
- Tile-based texture mapping, in particular the math and algorithms for packing and random access.
- Parallel white noise and blue noise generation, analogous to the order-independent texture synthesis.
- Inverse texture synthesis, basically a reversal of traditional (forward) texture synthesis.
- Nonlinear Beam Tracing on a GPU \cite{Liu:2011:NBT} – it is possible to use rasterization to achieve some ray tracing effects.
- Nonlinear revision control for images – revision control can be applied beyond code and text!
- Differential domain analysis for non-uniform sampling – the trigonometric expansion of the power spectrum depends only on the relative sample positions, and the subsequent synthesis method of point sampling with general noise spectrum.
- Improving light field camera sample design with irregularity and aberration – randomness/noise helps with computational photography.
- Autocomplete painting repetitions, hand-drawn animations, and 3D sculpting – the use of workflows for analysis and prediction.
- Mapping virtual and physical reality and the subsequent work on leveraging temporary blindness to avoid warping at all for redirected walking \cite{Sun:2018:TVR}.
In retrospect, I tend to have more focus, and likely as a consequence, more innovation during the earlier stage of my career, and more breadth (in terms of topics and applications) towards the later stage.
But it is really the unexpected intellectual discovery that keeps me excited, which I missed.
July 9, 2024
Bad reviews during a rebuttal are like bad calls during a game
By “bad” reviews, I meant those that are short or unclear/uninformative, which is different/orthogonal from “negative” reviews which criticize or reject the work.
If a review is bad because it is too short, it wouldn’t bother me at all. I can write a correspondingly short portion of my rebuttal addressing that review, or even ignore it altogether.
If a review is bad because it is unclear, I can ask for clarification in the rebuttal, and make a few educated guesses about the exact questions or criticisms followed by my answers.
The last thing I would do is to complain about the bad reviews in the rebuttal, or (worse) contact the paper chairs/committee. These are like complaining about bad calls during a game. What would you expect the paper chairs/committee to do? Ask for an additional review or the bad reviewer to submit a better review? That would take time, and even if you receive an updated review, it might be too late for you to address it before the end of the rebuttal period.
July 7, 2024
Focus time during shutdowns
Adobe has week-long (or longer) shutdowns around early July and late December every year, which are often good opportunities for traveling (e.g., vacations, family visits, or conferences).
To me these are also often golden opportunities for focused work, such as reading papers, thinking about research problems, and conducting exploratory experiments, which are often hard to come by during the regular work days with frequent distractions (often fulfilling coworkers’ requests).
I have found such focus time incredibly productive and satisfying, and wonder if I could continue the effect outside shutdowns by trying to reduce distractions, at least those self-induced.
May 15, 2024
Newspaper photo of Genghis Khan
I hypothesized these newspaper “photos” of Genghis Khan via a IP-Adapter ComfyUI workflow that combines the structure of his portrait and the style of a real newspaper photo of my late grandfather.
(Their ancestral relationship could lend to some credibility of this experiment.)
March 27, 2024
Hands on – quick short abstract
An intern collaborator thanked me for a quick editing of the abstract of an upcoming paper submission, which reminded me of the the following story reflecting how our PhD advisers (or senior collaborators) could influence our work styles:
A few days before the SIGGRAPH 2002 paper deadline, while trying to submit the abstract from a paper draft, I received an error message saying that it was over the length limit (maximum 600 words, if I remember correctly). I could do a quick trim of the abstract but worried that I might not be able to preserve the content in such a short form, and thus sent a message to the paper advisory board asking whether I can have a longer abstract in the paper file.
Several minutes later, my PhD adviser emailed me a shortened version of the abstract, with perfect content and length.
I thanked him for his (astonishing) quality and speed, and wondered if he could read my mind (or, more likely, network traffic). He said that he happened to be on the advisory board and thus saw my message.
A few hours later, I received a reply from the paper chair clarifying that the abstract for the submission form was mainly for the paper sorting process and can differ from the abstract in the submitted paper file.
March 2, 2024
Fun versus job
Academic research can be a day job for some people, including reading, writing, and reviewing papers, coding prototypes, conducting experiments, advising students, and interacting with collaborators.
But it is a leisure activity for me, more intellectually satisfying than managing and communicating about products which is my current day job, which, in turn, I wonder might be a fun activity for others.