Out of boredom today I dug around the found the website for the Vis2006 conference in Baltimore, Maryland. It’s a pretty underwhelming website, huh? Especially given how pretty the Vis05 website was.

Well, along with that website I found the website for the Vis06 Visualization Design Contest, this year focusing on earthquake data. They’ve got some new guys running the contest this year, and I’m pretty impressed to already see the data online. They’ve even gone so far as to setup an Contest Mailing List this year, even though it’s pretty quiet. But I’m most surprised by the submission requirements:

Submissions will consist of a 2-page PDF document describing the solution (how the design addresses the scientific questions, which software systems and algorithms were used), along with four sets of CDs or four DVDs with accompanying information including a video demonstration (XXX details of video format forthcoming). Concurrent submission to the posters program is not allowed.

Submissions must be sent to the following address, first-class or airmail, postmarked by Friday August 11th, 2006:

So you have to burn all your stuff to CD & DVD, and then mail it? Hasn’t anyone here ever heard of the Internet? So now on top of having time to do the work, you have to have access to a Digital Video Camera with Transfer capabilities, and video editing equipment for burning DVD’s. Worse than that, look at the Tasks:

  1. (25 points) Do the waves in the Whittier-Narrows area follow a pronounced sediment channel defined in the crustal structure?
  2. (25 points) Do waves systematically focus toward the centers of basins, thus providing a physical explanation of the correlation of amplification factors with basin depth?
  3. (25 points) At which locations do the largest conversions between wave-types occur?
  4. (15 points) Which regions produce wave reflections?
  5. (10 points) Do strongly shaken basins act as wave sources?

I guess they forgot that it’s a visualization contest, and not a geology contest.

I was kinda looking forward to entering this year, since I had a better feeling of what i’m up against after last year. But if they’re requiring all of this extra garbage, and if one of the judging requirements is “I could implement this and get these same pictures and know what settings to put on all of the parameters” (for “Completeness” judging), then they’ve just eliminated any custom code and are basically saying you have to go COTS. Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll be entering this year.

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