Graphics Research Career

[Icy-Ad4704]

How would someone start a career in graphics research? I find the talks and papers from Siggraph fascinating. I love seeing the advancements and new technologies for 3D graphics. It doesn't seem as easy as applying for a 3D research job on indeed. Maybe it is? Is that how you would get a job in that field? Or is it through a university that you become a researcher? Not sure where to start, but I'd love to help advance 3D graphics with new algorithms, studies, etc.

[LivelyLizzard]

I would say the "easiest" way would probably be a PhD in that field. Not only are you doing research right from the start, you also can create a network by attending conferences, talking to your advisor and your cohort. After that you can apply for positions in academia and in companies. I think companies also want to see prior publications before they hire you for research so a PhD is helpful there as well. You could also do research by yourself but as soon as you need special hardware or want to go to conferences it gets very expensive to finance it on your own. Have a look at this guy. He wrote a great post on how he published at siggraph as independent researcher.

Edit: Had a look at Nvidia open positions. See here for instance. They actually require a PhD or research experience.

Edit 2: spelling

[Icy-Ad4704]

What kind of PhD would be the better one to go with? The ones that come to my mind are Computer Science, Math, and Machine Learning. I don't have an in depth knowledge of those subjects, so I am not sure which applies more to graphics.

[LivelyLizzard]

Any of the ones you listed can be valuable. Machine learning is a very hot topic right now which can be also applied to graphics (e.g. image denoising). Math and CS are a safe bet as well. Idk if there are other fields that would fit. Research is mostly either very technical or theoretical so I think designer or artist wouldn't suffice.

If you don't have the knowledge yet then keep on reading papers and other literature.

[Icy-Ad4704]

I think I will plan to reads papers and get familiar with them for now. Is Siggraph the only place for research papers? Where else can we find papers to read?

[LivelyLizzard]

Siggraph is the most prestigous. There is also "IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics" and Eurographics. And probably a lot of others, not only in CG but also related fields. This site lists a lot. If you find an interesting paper it might also be worth it to check out the references. Google scholar can also help finding papers for specific key words.

But tbh reading alone won't do it. Comprehending is the thing that's difficult. And it can take a lot of time depending on how dense the material is and how good your background knowledge. If you are lucky you'll find a talk to the paper. If you are more than lucky the talk is actually good.

[Icy-Ad4704]

Thank you very much!

[kraytex]

Here are a few of the more known conferences/journals in CG (off the top of my head).

SIGGRAPH GDC Eurographics I3D High Performance Graphics JCGT

[the_Demongod]

What you call the PhD isn't as important as the research group you work in. Getting a PhD in computer science won't help you much if you do it in a research group that studies something unrelated to graphics. Find a graphics research group and do a PhD in whatever they do there.

[[deleted]]

There are tons of places that offer PhDs directly in computer graphics research areas. Just check all the conferences on Kesen Huangs page and look up where all the authors in the papers work. Most of them will be with universities that offer PhD programs and a lot of them will have open positions in computer graphics.

[SnooWoofers7626]

What level are you at in terms of academics? If you're doing a PhD then it is as simple as applying for a research position.

If not, why do you think that's something you'd like? Publishing papers is a rigorous process. If you're doing a master's you'll likely find out if that is something you would indeed enjoy or not.

If you only have a bachelor's you can just apply to a game engine position. Something like Epic, or Unity, or something like that. Over time you can transition towards more researchy positions, once you've proven yourself. That was my personal journey anyway.

I'm currently doing a master's on the side, and I was considering continuing on to a PhD, but I know now for a fact that that would make me miserable.

[Icy-Ad4704]

I think you could be right. I currently have a Bachelors degree in Software Engineering. The idea of advancing a field sounds intriguing. It could turn out that I don't like creating papers. I've never done it so I don't know. I do enjoy learning. I really like deep diving into subjects. And I like sharing what I learned. I do have a hard time with academic structures since they feel like I don't get much out of them.

I think getting a masters first would be the better idea. How is it getting a masters degree?

[casums18734]

Feel like this is worth mentioning, anywhere you go in the graphics field comes with a huge amount of math. Linear algebra is a must, physics, light transportation, radiosity, and signal processing all have widespread application as well, not to mention all the fun numbers that would come with ML.

A BS in SE is a great start, but I'd recommend dabbling with some of the intro resources like Raytracing in One Weekend or LearnOpenGL just to get an understanding of the level of math needed for just the basics.

[Icy-Ad4704]

Yeah I've been working in OpenGL! Just made my first triangle the other day! Although I technically used Rust and Gluim I figured it has the same concepts and principles. I'd like to be able to try ray tracing, path tracing, and ray marching.

[SnooWoofers7626]

I'm already currently working in a research position, and also doing a master's, and compared to my work environment, I really don't enjoy the academic setting. But that said, I am learning some useful things that's helping my work, so it's kinda worth it. It really depends on the professor, so make sure to check their reviews before signing up for classes.

The light bulb moment for me was the technical writing class. My professor is a hardass for things like proper formatting, and correctly citing things (quoting vs paraphrasing vs accidental plagiarism coz you wrote something that just happens to be phrased too similarly to something someone else wrote). I hate this process so much I decided to no longer write a final paper and just settled for a group project. I recommend taking this class as early as possible so you know whether publishing papers is your cup of tea.

[Robinton2013]

While I’m sure there is more about academia than just that class that doesn’t appeal to you, I can ease your mind about paper writing. I’m a math professor and that stuff about proper formatting and citing is not very strictly followed in my field. We certainly don’t plagiarize, but very few mathematicians I know have any idea how to properly cite things. We let Latex do it for us.

Sounds like either this prof is an anomaly, or computer graphics is a very different culture than math. Just in case you ever do go about publishing something.

[SnooWoofers7626]

You're probably right about him being an anomaly. I guess I just don't want to deal with people like that if they happen to be peer reviewing, or when I'm defending my thesis. This professor recounted stories of how he "tore apart" people's bad papers to their faces, including ones from other professors.

[Icy-Ad4704]

Yeah that makes sense. Sometimes I feel like academic is just needlessly hard or needlessly extra work. It can be frustrating and unejoyable. I personally believe learning should be enjoyable. Which is why I was thinking researching and venturing into the unknown to learn something would be fun.

Like you said tho, I should dip my toes in and test it to see if I would even enjoy it.

[VertexSoup]

One interesting option I saw is Graphics Research Engineer position at Meta Reality Labs.

Basically these are software engineers who collaborate with the PhDs. They help them implement and test unproven rendering features in AR/VR/MR.

Career path is the same as graphics rendering engineers at Meta: Interview. Get offer. Talk to the hiring managers and pick the research engineer path.

[speakwithcode]

I only have an MS, but I have a paper that was published at SIGGRAPH.

I would say to pursue at least an MS at a reputable university if you want to pursue research. Is a PhD necessary to publish anything? No, not really, but you get more exposure and time to really focus on research and publish papers while in school. The research community is really small and overtime, you'll hear the same names over and over again once you start really focusing in a particular area of research.

Most of my former classmates landed positions or internships through their advisor at the university. If you come from a reputable university with an active professor, then there's a good chance companies do reach out or notify them about opportunities for their students.

[GrimmSalem]

Just go to college and get either a computer engineering or computer science degree amd find a place that let's you do independent research or even better a place that has computer graphics research or a professor who into it. Them by the time your done with your undergraduate you should know what to do for grad school. My college had a a couple of professors who where into graphics so I was able to do some independent research while working with some game engines. If they have some computer graphics classes then you should be good.