Andreas Butz - Böcker

The International Symposium on Smart Graphics 2004 was held on May 23-25, 2004 in Ban?, Canada. It was the ?fth event in a series which originally started in 2000 as a AAAI Spring Symposium. In response to the overwhelming success of the 2000 symposium, its organizers decided to turn it into a self-contained event in 2001. With the support of IBM, the ?rst two InternationalSymposia on Smart Graphics were held at the T. J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, NY in 2001 and 2002. The 2003 symposium moved to the European Media Lab in Heidelberg to underline the international character of the Smart Graphics enterprise and its community. The 2004 symposium particularly emphasized the contribution of arts and design to the interdisciplinary ?eld of Smart Graphics andwasthereforeheldattheBan?CentreinAlberta,Canada,aninternationally recognized center of creative excellence. The core idea behind these symposia is to bring together researchers and practitioners from the ?eld of computer graphics, arti?cial intelligence, cog- tive psychology and the ?ne arts.Each of these disciplines contributes to what we mean by the term "Smart Graphics": the intelligent process of creating - pressive and esthetic graphical presentations. While artists and designers have been creatingcommunicativegraphicsfor centuries,arti?cialintelligencefocuses on automating this process by means of the computer. While computer graphics providesthetoolsforcreatinggraphicalpresentationsinthe?rstplace,cognitive sciences contribute the rules and models of perception necessary for the design of e?ective graphics.

TheInternationalSymposiumonSmartGraphics2005washeldfromAugust22- 24, 2005 in the cloister Frauenwort .. h on the island of Frauenchiemsee, Germany. It was the sixth event in a series which originally started in 2000 as a AAAI Spring Symposium. Inresponsetotheoverwhelmingsuccessofthe2000symposium,itsorganizers decided to turn it into a self-contained event. With the support of IBM, the ?rst two International Symposia on Smart Graphics were held at the T.J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, NY in 2001 and 2002. The 2003 symposium moved to the European Media Lab in Heidelberg to underline the international character of the Smart Graphics enterprise and its community. The core idea behind these symposia is to bring together researchers and practitioners fromthe ?eld ofcomputer graphics,arti?cialintelligence, cognitive science, graphic design and the ?ne arts. Each of these disciplines contributes to what we mean by the term "Smart Graphics": the intelligent process of creating e?ective, expressive and esthetic graphical presentation. Many Smart Graphics symposiaemphasizea particularaspectofthe?eldin thecallfor papers.In2005 our focus was on "Visual Analytics"- the art and science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces.

The International Symposium on Smart Graphics 2006 was held during July 23–25, 2006, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. It was the seventh event in a series which originally started in 2000 as an AAAI Spring Symposium. In response to the overwhelming success of the 2000 symposium, its or- nizers decided to turn it into a self-contained event. With the support of IBM, the ?rst two International Symposia on Smart Graphics were held at the T. J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, New York, in 2001 and 2002. The 2003 symposium moved to the European Media Lab in Heidelberg. Since then the conference has alternated between North America and Europe. It was held at Ban? Alberta Canada in 2004 and at the cloister Frauenw¨ orth on the island of Frauenchiemsee in Germany in 2005. The core idea behind these symposia is to bring together researchers and practitionersfrom the ?eld of computer graphics,arti?cialintelligence, cognitive science, graphic design and the ?ne arts. Each of these disciplines contributes to what we mean by the term “Smart Graphics”: the intelligent process of c- ating e?ective, expressive and esthetic graphical presentation. While artists and designers have been creating communicative graphics for centuries, arti?cial - telligence focuses on automating this process by means of the computer. While computer graphics provides the tools for creating graphical presentations in the ?rst place, the cognitive sciences contribute the rules and models of perception necessary for the design of e?ective graphics.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Symposium on Smart Graphics, SG 2003, held in Heidelberg, Germany in July 2003. The 19 revised full papers and 7 poster papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for presentation. The papers address smart graphics issues from the points of view of computer science, artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and fine art. The papers are organized in topical sections on graphical interaction, visualization techniques, virtual characters, and camera planning.

The International Symposium on Smart Graphics 2007 was held during June 25–27, 2007 in Kyoto, Japan. It was the eighth event in a series which originally started in 2000 as a AAAI Spring Symposium and has taken place every year since then in Europe and North America. The 2007 Symposium was our ?rst to reach out to the Asian Smart Graphics community. As a result the number of submissions has again increased and the acceptance rate dropped to 31–36% (depending on category). The core idea behind the Smart Graphics symposia is to bring together - searchers and practitioners from the ?eld of computer graphics, arti?cial intel- gence,cognitivescience,graphicdesignandthe?nearts.Eachofthesedisciplines contributes to what we mean by the term “smart graphics”: the intelligent p- cess of creating e?ective, expressive and esthetic graphical presentation. While artists and designers have been creating communicative graphics for centuries, arti?cial intelligence focuses on automating this process by means of the c- puter. While computer graphics provides the tools for creating graphicalpres- tations in the ?rst place, the cognitive sciences contribute the rules and models ofperceptionnecessaryforthedesignofe?ectivegraphics.Theexchangeofideas between these four disciplines has led to many exciting and fruitful discussions, andthesmartgraphicssymposiadrawtheirlivelinessfromaspiritofopenminds and the willingness to learn from and share with other disciplines.