The ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games (I3D) is the leading conference for real-time 3D computer graphics and human interaction. The symposium brings together researchers, engineers, and industry professionals to discuss their latest work on real-time and interactive computer graphics and related applications. The symposium has a long legacy of innovative and excellent technical content, with influential work on rendering, texture synthesis, collision detection, VR interaction, animation, and many other areas of real-time computer graphics, having been presented at the conference.

We invite you to submit papers about real-time 3D graphics, interaction, and games. All accepted papers will be published in PACMCGIT Issue I3D 2026 and presented at I3D 2026 in May 2026, which is sponsored by ACM SIGGRAPH.

Submissions from industry and outside of academia are welcome. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Real-time rendering
• Real-time ray tracing and path tracing
• Physics-based animation
• Virtual and augmented reality
• Learning-based methods for interactive graphics and simulation
• Collision detection
• Real-time computer vision
• Navigation in virtual environments
• Texture synthesis
• Real-time post-processing effects
• Interactive 3D modeling
• In-the-wild 3D reconstruction
• Level-of-detail approaches
• Pre-computed lighting for real-time applications
• Visibility computation
• Real-time surface shading
• Fast shadows, caustics and reflections
• Image-based rendering techniques
• Motion synthesis and path planning
• Character and crowd animation and simulation techniques
• Interaction devices and techniques
• User studies of interactive techniques
• Sketch-based 3D modeling and design
• Video game techniques
• Content generation techniques for real-time applications

Submission Information

Research papers should be in ACM conference format using the ACM small trim journal size (“acmsmall”). They should contain at most sixteen (16) pages of content, including appendices but excluding references. Optional supplemental material does not count towards this limit. Videos are required for techniques involving motion or animation.

There is a single track for paper submission, and authors will be asked to present a 15-20 minute talk on each accepted paper at the conference. At least one (1) author from each accepted paper must register for the conference. Papers without in-person presenters may not be published.

Papers must be submitted anonymously and will be evaluated by double-blind peer review from an international paper committee of published authors and tertiary reviewers. There is no rebuttal process. The submission system link is: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=i3d2026

All accepted papers will be published in a special issue of the Proceedings of the ACM in Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (PACM CGIT), once all mandatory changes have been addressed and a second round of peer review by the primary reviewer is passed.

By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects. Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.

Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID, so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. ACM has been involved in ORCID from the start and we have recently made a commitment to collect ORCID IDs from all of our published authors. We are committed to improve author discoverability, ensure proper attribution, and contribute to ongoing community efforts around name normalization; your ORCID ID will help in these efforts.

All questions about paper submissions should be emailed to papers@i3dsymposium.org.

Markus Billeter and Benjamin Watson, Papers Co-Chairs I3D 2026

Important update on ACMs new open access publishing model for 2026 ACM Conferences!

Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With over 2,700+ institutions already part of ACM Open and with more institutions joining from around the world every week, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 75% on average across all ACM-sponsored conferences).

Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a geographic or discretionary financial hardship waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the Policy on Geographic APC Waivers and Discounts Policy and the Policy on Discretionary APC Waivers. Keep in mind that discretionary waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM. Simply sending a message to ACM indicating an inability to pay an APC is typically an insufficient justification for such a waiver. Waivers are based on the specific circumstances of the author(s) requesting the waiver. ACM does take seriously into consideration the institutional affiliation of the authors and whether it is a reasonable expectation that their institution should be joining the ACM Open program. This is necessary for the long-term financial sustainability of the ACM Open model. 

To support a smooth transition and encourage broader ACM Open participation, ACM has approved a temporary subsidy on APC pricing for 2026. The subsidy will offer:

This represents a 65% discount off the regular APC list prices, funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to help advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period. This temporary subsidized pricing will apply to all conferences scheduled for 2026.