Visual computing enthusiasts swapped Smolenice for on-line meeting
At the beginning of May the participants usually meet at the traditional international Scientific conference of university students from several countries in the SAV Congress Centre at the castle of Smolenice to exchange experiences and transfer new knowledge from the area of Visual computing. However, this year on first Sunday and Monday of May they were only able to meet through video calls and chat windows.
Thus the Central European Seminar on Computer Graphics (CESCG) celebrated its 24th birthday in the virtual space. There were around 140 participants who listened to 17 student works live or from the record.
The conference was opened by Professor Daniel Sykora from the Prague´s CVUT with his lecture on the links of creativity and artificial intelligence. The organizers prepared for this year an ambitious plan of expanding the conference programme by two days of specialized workshops. But of the four planned thematic areas, only two could be implemented into the virtual space. With particularly positive reviews was met a full-day introduction to deep learning under the direction of Martin Tamajka from FIIT STU in Bratislava. The Conference's conclusion belonged to Professor Marc Stret of JKU in Linz who showed participants the range of research techniques for data visualisation.
The awards for the best student works could not be missing. The first three places were shared by students from TU Wien (Thorsten Korpitsch, Stefan Stappen) and TU Graz (Alexander Weinrauch). The award winner for the best young scientist became Monika Wißmann from VRV is Research Centre in Vienna. Audience awards for the best presentations were travelling to the Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary. But one award still remained at home. Frantisek Durana of FIIT STU in Bratislava took a split third place in the ballot. Our university was represented by Richard Toth of FMFI UK led by Adam Riecicky who published an article The Application of Subsurface Scattering Techniques on Responsive Visualization of 3D Range Scans.
In spite of advanced technologies the virtual space could not replace coffee discussions during breaks, so the heard topics were not discussed in small groups until the late evening as usually. Nevertheless, the event organizers agreed that the non-traditional conference year changed their view of the preparation of scientific events. "As the best way to the future we see to link the virtual training of students and the final "live"conference. We can only hope that the next year it will be possible to meet in Smolenice once again," adds Martin Ilcik from the Technical University of Vienna.
All presentations are available on the conference website.