IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CG&A) Awards

The IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CG&A) Awards celebrate outstanding contributions to the field of computer graphics, recognizing excellence in research, editorial leadership, and peer review. These prestigious awards honor individuals and teams whose work has significantly advanced the state of the art in computer graphics, visualization, virtual reality, and interactive techniques.

Each year, CG&A acknowledges achievements across multiple categories:

• Best Paper Award – Recognizing the most impactful and outstanding research papers of the year, selected through a rigorous review process.
• Test of Time Award – Honoring papers with a lasting and profound influence on the field of computer graphics.
• Outstanding Associate Editor Award – Commending exemplary editorial contributions and dedication to the peer-review process for CG&A feature articles.
• Outstanding Department Editor Award – Recognizing exceptional editorial leadership in managing a CG&A department.
• Outstanding Guest Editor Award – Celebrating editors for successfully curating and leading a high-impact CG&A special issue (SI).

The Best Paper Award is administered by the IEEE Computer Society (CS) Publications Board in collaboration with CG&A, while all other awards are managed solely by CG&A.

By recognizing these achievements, the CG&A Awards foster innovation, collaboration, and excellence in the computer graphics community. Explore the list of past award winners and their groundbreaking contributions below.

The Best Paper Award recognizes and honors the outstanding research article published in IEEE CG&A within the past year. Eligible papers must be peer-reviewed manuscripts, including both feature articles and special issue contributions.

This prestigious annual award is organized by the IEEE CS Publications Board, with participation from 21 IEEE CS publications. Each publication selects a winner and may also designate runners-up. The selection process for CG&A is overseen by the Editor-in-Chief (EIC), who appoints a Best Paper Award Committee consisting of 2–4 members from the current editorial board. The award committee solicits nominations from the editorial board, guest editors, and possibly other readers, ensuring a rigorous evaluation of at least three articles. Following the review process, the committee recommends up to two unranked candidate manuscripts to the EIC for final consideration. The EIC then reviews these recommendations and submits their final winner and runner-up selections to the IEEE CS Publications Board for approval.

The evaluation process of this award prioritizes technical excellence, with criteria including novelty, number of downloads, citations, and overall impact on the field. Each Best Paper Award recipient is recognized by the IEEE CS Publications Board with an official certificate. Below are the award-winning and runner-up papers organized by year:

Award-winning Paper: Zhenpeng Zhao and Niklas Elmqvist, “The Stories We Tell About Data: Surveying Data-Driven Storytelling Using Visualization,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 97-110, 2023.

Runner-Up Paper: Melanie Tory, Lyn Bartram, Brittany Fiore-Gartland, and Anamaria Crisan, “Finding Their Data Voice: Practices and Challenges of Dashboard Users,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 22-36, 2023.

Award-winning Paper: S. Latif, H. Tarner, and F. Beck, “Talking Realities: Audio Guides in Virtual Reality Visualizations,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 73-83, 2022.

Runner-Up Paper: E. Wall, C. Xiong, and Y.-S. Kim, “VisHikers’ Guide to Evaluation: Competing Considerations in Study Design,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 29-38, 2022.

Award-winning Paper: P. Gu, J. Han, D. Chen, and C. Wang, “Reconstructing Unsteady Flow Data From Representative Streamlines via Diffusion and Deep-Learning-Based Denoising,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 111-121, 2021.

Runner-Up Papers:

M. Karyda, D. Wilde, and M. Kjarsgaard, “Narrative Physicalization: Supporting Interactive Engagement With Personal Data,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl. vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 74-86, 2021.

B. Haworth, et al., “Gamification of Crowd-Driven Environment Design,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl. vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 74-86, 2021.

Award-winning Paper: D. Offenhuber, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Data Physicality,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 40, no. 6, pp. 25-37, 2020.

Runner-Up Paper: K. Koumaditis, F. Chinello, P. Mitkidis, and S. Karg, “Effectiveness of Virtual Versus Physical Training: The Case of Assembly Tasks, Trainer’s Verbal Assistance, and Task Complexity,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 40, no. 5, pp. 41-56, 2020.

Award-winning Paper: Victor Dibia and Cagatay Demiralp, “Data2Vis: Automatic Generation of Data Visualizations Using Sequence-to-Sequence Recurrent Neural Networks,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 39, no. 5, pp. 33-46, 2019.

The IEEE CG&A Test of Time Award was established in 2021 to recognize feature and special issue articles published in CG&A that have made significant and lasting contributions to bridging the theory and practice of computer graphics. An Award Selection Committee is formed each year by inviting senior researchers with major editorial experience at CG&A. The names of the committee members are listed with each year’s award recipients below.

The inaugural award, selected in 2021, honored nine papers spanning the first three decades of CG&A (1981–2010). In subsequent years, award-winning papers are selected from a ten-year period ending a decade prior to the award year. For example, the 2023 Award recognized papers published between 2004 and 2013, while the 2024 Award covered papers from 2005 to 2014.

The selection process considers both objective metrics, such as total citation count and yearly citation trends, and subjective factors, including the quality of the work, its impact on application domains, and its influence on emerging research directions. Survey papers are not eligible for consideration.

The following lists the selection committee members and award-winning papers for each year.

Committee: Philip Chi-Wing Fu (chair), John Dill, Torsten Möller, Vijay Natarajan, and Mike Potel

Award-winning Paper: C. Basdogan, S. De, J. Kim, M. Muniyandi, H. Kim, and M. A. Srinivasan, “Haptics in Minimally Invasive Surgical Simulation and Training,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 56-64, 2004.

Committee: Richard Zhang (chair), John Dill, Dave Kasik, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Holly Rushmeier

Award-winning Paper: J. Starck and A. Hilton, “Surface Capture for Performance-Based Animation,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 21-31, 2007.

Committee: Richard Zhang (chair), John Dill, Dave Kasik, Kwan-Liu Ma, and Holly Rushmeier

Award-winning Papers:

• A. Barr, “Superquadrics and Angle-Preserving Transformations,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 11-23, 1981.
• M. Levoy, “Display of Surfaces from Volume Data,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 29-37, 1988.
• C. Upson, et al., “The Application Visualization System: A Computational Environment for Scientific Visualization,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 30-42, 1989.
• M. Cox, S. Molnar, D. Ellsworth, and H. Fuchs, “A Sorting Classification of Parallel Rendering,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 23-32, 1994.
• R. Szeliski, “Video Mosaics for Virtual Environments,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 22-30, 1996.
• B. Bodenheimer, M. Cohen, and C. Rose, “Verbs and Adverbs: Multidimensional Motion Interpolation,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 18, no. 5, pp. 32-40, 1998.
• B. Gooch, M. Ashikhmin, E. Reinhard, and P. Shirley, “Color Transfer between Images,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 21, no. 5, pp. 34-41, 2001.
• W. Freeman, E. Pasztor, and T. Jones, “Example-Based Super-Resolution,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 56-65, 2002.
• E. Foxlin, “Pedestrian Tracking with Shoe-Mounted Inertial Sensors,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 38-46, 2005.

The Outstanding Associate Editor Award, formerly known as the Best Associate Editor Award, recognizes current or recently retired associate editors who have contributed significantly over past year and have been served at least one full term in the role. These awards honor editors whose efforts have enhanced the quality and efficiency of the editorial process.

The Associate EIC (AEIC) of feature articles nominates candidates based on key criteria, including their ability to manage workload effectively and dedicate themselves to editorial responsibilities, timeliness in handling articles and meeting deadlines, skill in conflict resolution and navigating editorial challenges, and the quality of their reviews when applicable.

The EIC makes the final selection from the nominated candidates, ensuring that award recipients exemplify excellence in editorial service. Below is a list of past recipients of the awards:

• Robin Bing-Yu Chen, National Taiwan University
• Siming Chen, Fudan University
• Lili Wang, Beihang University

• Ruizhen Hu, Shenzhen University
• Alexander Lex, University of Utah

• Wei Chen, Zhejiang University
• Soren Pirk, Adobe Research
• Xin Tong, Microsoft Research Asia

• Gilles Bailly, ISIR Laboratory of Sorbonne Université
• Philip Chi-Wing Fu, Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Christopher Collins, Ontario Tech University

• Ligang Liu, University of Science and Technology of China
• Peter Wonka, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

The Outstanding Department Editor Award recognizes department editors for their excellence in curating high-quality articles that align with their department’s mission while upholding CG&A editorial standards. By ensuring content remains relevant, accessible, and engaging, these editors serve both researchers and practitioners, broadening CG&A’s impact.

Exceptional department editors foster strong author collaboration, providing constructive feedback and mentorship to enhance content quality and continuity. They drive innovation by introducing novel topics, soliciting high impact invited articles, and incorporating multimedia elements like videos and social media.

Award recipients demonstrate timeliness and reliability, effectively managing submissions, meeting deadlines, and ensuring a smooth editorial workflow. Beyond their editorial duties, they strengthen CG&A’s presence through outreach and promotion, reinforcing its role as a vital resource in the field.

In the inaugural year, winners were selected by the EIC to honor long-standing department editors with distinguished service. Moving forward, award recommendations will be made by the AEIC for Departments and approved by the EIC, with winners chosen based on the previous year’s performance.

The winners of the 2025 Best Department Editor Award are listed below:

• Mike Potel, Applications
• Theresa-Marie Rhyne, Visualization Viewpoints

The Outstanding Guest Editor Award recognizes exceptional leadership in curating and managing IEEE CS special issues. These editors are essential in showcasing emerging research trends and upholding high editorial standards.

Award recipients select timely, impactful topics aligned with CG&A’s mission, addressing critical challenges in computer graphics, visualization, virtual and augmented reality, and interactive techniques. They drive their special issues by attracting high-quality submissions and ensuring rigorous peer review with a diverse expert pool.

Effective guest editors excel in collaboration and organization, guaranteeing smooth workflows, timely publication, and balanced content. They also foster community engagement, enhancing CG&A’s visibility.

Established in 2014, this award celebrates excellence in special issue guest editing. Nominees are evaluated on their ability to manage workloads, fulfill editorial responsibilities, meet deadlines, and resolve conflicts. Review quality is considered when applicable. Additional criteria include leadership, professionalism, and contributions to the journal’s success.

The AEIC for special issues nominates candidates, with final approval by the EIC. Awards are granted solely on merit and significant contributions, with no fixed number of recipients per year.

The following are the awards for each year:

• Siming Chen, “Visual Computing for Autonomous Driving,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 11-13, 2024.
• Johannes S. Mueller-Roemer, “Quantum Visual Computing,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 44, no. 5, pp. 10-13, 2024

• David J. Kasik, Mary C. Whitton, and Chris R. Johnson, “The Big 50: Celebrating 50 ACM SIGGRAPH Conference,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 12-80, 2023.

• Ligang Liu, “Geometric Modeling and Processing,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 41, no. 3, pp. 18-19, 2021.
• Yingcai Wu, Siwei Fu, Jian Zhao, and Chris Bryan, “Powering Visualization With Deep Learning,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 41, no. 5, pp. 16-17, 2021.

• Xin Tong and Kun Zhou, “Deep Learning in Computer Graphics,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 25-25, 2019. (First installment of a two-part special issue)
• Xin Tong and Kun Zhou, “Deep Learning in Visualization and Image Processing,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 14-15, 2019. (Second  installment of a two-part special issue)

• Andy Wilson and Hrvoje Benko, “Interacting Above and Beyond the Display,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 20-21, 2014.
• Danyel Fisher, Steven Drucker, and Mary Czerwinski, “Business Intelligence Analytics,” IEEE Comput. Graphics Appl., vol. 34, no. 5, pp. 22-24, 2014.