The SIGGRAPH 2005 Papers program is the premier forum for presenting the finest research in computer graphics and interactive techniques. A total of 461 submissions were received by the deadline and 98 Papers were selected for presentation at SIGGRAPH 2005. The leading contributors to this year's Papers program include: Microsoft Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Stanford University, Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, the University of Washington, Carnegie-Mellon University, California Institute of Technology, and ETH Zurich. "The SIGGRAPH Papers program constitutes the core of all SIGGRAPH programs," stated Markus Gross, SIGGRAPH 2005 Papers Chair from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. "It continues to define excellence in research in computer graphics and interactive techniques. It has long been the finest international forum for disseminating groundbreaking, provocative, and important new work -- this year is no different. From increasingly sophisticated simulation of physics to advanced picture and video processing, this year's program provides a full spectrum of topics and cutting-edge thinking. Our selection criteria follow the highest standards, are very rigorous and only accept outstanding innovations in our field. The acceptance number clearly demonstrates the large body of excellent research in computer graphics." According to Gross, three major trends are surfacing in the research arena. The first is that graphics researchers are bringing reality into the computer. Complex lighting and shading models are becoming "data-driven" or based on samples from the real world. He concludes that this advancement, for instance, makes it possible to alter and simulate the appearance of human faces photo-realistically. Given this development, novel camera and acquisition devices have been created. A second trend that the Papers Chair noted is the increasingly sophisticated simulation of physics. He points out that various Papers deal with simulation of the complex interaction of media, such as liquids, smoke, or gas, and solid materials. He also notes that various innovations make physics simulations interactive and real time on personal computers. "This is very important for the development of more realistic games and will be supported by novel hardware architectures and processing units to be released by the industry very soon," stated Gross. "In particular, novel chip generations and physics processing units will accelerate computations in computer games." He concludes that a third trend points toward advanced image and video processing. Specifically, the public will soon experience a variety of methods for panoramic stitching of videos, 3-D photo creation, and intelligent and user-friendly editing of video. According to Gross, such methods will soon become tools the public utilizes to take their home videos to an entirely new level. A Few Highlights From the SIGGRAPH 2005 Papers Program: Capturing reality deals with novel methods to bring reality into the computer by acquiring complex shape and appearance information from real world objects. This allows for unprecedented realism and novel effects in visual simulation. Performance Relighting and Reflectance Transformation With Time-Multiplexed Illumination Andreas Wenger Andrew Gardner Chris Tchou Jonas Unger Tim Hawkins Paul Debevec University of Southern California, Institute for Creative Technologies SCAPE: Shape Completion and Animation of People Dragomir Anguelov Praveen Srinivasan Daphne Koller Sebastian Thrun Jim Rodgers Stanford University James Davis University of California, Santa Cruz High-Performance Imaging Using Large Camera Arrays Bennett Wilburn Stanford University Neel Joshi University of California, San Diego Vaibhav Vaish Eino-Ville Talvala Emilio Antunez Adam Barth Andrew Adams Mark Horowitz Marc Levoy Stanford University The following deal with physically based simulations of the complex interaction of media, such as liquids, smoke, and solids. They permit the simulation of novel and even more stunning visual effects and might become tools to enhance the visual experience in second but next generation computer games. A Vortex Particle Method for Smoke, Water, and Explosions Andrew Selle Stanford University and Intel Corporation Nick Rasmussen Industrial Light & Magic Ronald Fedkiw Stanford University and Industrial Light & Magic Discontinuous Fluids Jeong-Mo Hong Chang-Hun Kim Korea University Water Drops on Surfaces Huamin Wang Peter J. Mucha Greg Turk Georgia Institute of Technology Meshless Deformations Based on Shape Matching Matthias Muller Bruno Heidelberger NovodeX/Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich Matthias Teschner Universitat Freiburg Markus Gross Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich This year, we experience a renaissance of ray-tracing algorithms and architectures. Such prototypes encourage designers of graphics hardware to rethink the way they define the graphics pipeline. Soft Shadow Volumes for Ray Tracing Samuli Laine Helsinki University of Technology Timo Aila Helsinki University of Technology and Hybrid Graphics Ltd. Ulf Assarsson ARTIS, INRIA, and Illuminate Labs Ltd. Jaakko Lehtinen Helsinki University of Technology and Remedy Entertainment Ltd. Tomas Akenine-Moller Lunds universitet RPU: A Programmable Ray Processing Unit for Realtime Ray Tracing Sven Woop Jorg Schmittler Philipp Slusallek Universitat des Saarlandes We will see advanced methods for panoramic stitching of videos, for making pictures three-dimensional, and for intelligent and user-friendly editing of video. Such methods might soon become tools people will utilize to edit their latest home videos. TextureMontage: Seamless Texturing of Arbitrary Surfaces From Multiple Images Kun Zhou Xi Wang Microsoft Research Asia Yiying Tong Mathieu Desbrun California Institute of Technology Baining Guo Heung-Yeung Shum Microsoft Research Asia Defocus Video Matting Morgan McGuire Brown University Wojciech Matusik Hanspeter Pfister Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) John F. Hughes Brown University Fredo Durand Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Automatic Photo Pop-Up Derek Hoiem Alexei Efros Martial Hebert Carnegie Mellon University Panoramic Video Textures Aseem Agarwala Ke Colin Zheng University of Washington Chris Pal University of Massachusetts Amherst Maneesh Agrawala Michael F. Cohen Microsoft Research Brian Curless University of Washington David H. Salesin University of Washington & Microsoft Research Richard Szeliski Microsoft Research Novel fundamental insights are also a facet of many of these sessions; in particular the following contribution provides an in-depth analysis. A Frequency Analysis of Light Transport Fredo Durand Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Nicolas Holzschuch Cyril Soler ARTIS, GRAVIR/IMAG - INRIA Eric Chan Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Francois X. Sillion ARTIS, GRAVIR/IMAG - INRIA The SIGGRAPH 2005 Papers Program opens 1 August at 8:30 am and closes 4 August at 5:30 pm. Also, a special, comprehensive preview of all the Papers is on 31 July at 6:00 pm. For complete details visit its Website.