Guidelines for WACV 2027 - Area Chairs

Email Program Chairs at:

wacv_2027_pcs@computer.org

First, thank you for agreeing to be an area chair (AC) for WACV 2027. We truly appreciate your time and effort in helping with the reviewing and decision-making process.

[PLEASE READ] Applications, Algorithms, and Evaluations/Datasets grouping

Application papers must be evaluated on systems-level innovation, novelty of the domain and comparative assessment. They should not be evaluated solely on algorithmic novelty (i.e., it is okay to have algorithmic novelty, but it is also okay not to have it). Examples of systems-level innovation are: 1) A new task; i.e., does this paper deliver an interesting application of computer vision that the community has never seen before? 2) A new way of applying an existing application to an old task. 3) A new way of benchmarking the performance of existing methods. Recent examples of WACV application-track papers:

● CharacterGAN: Few-Shot Keypoint Character Animation and Reposing

● DeepCSR: A 3D Deep Learning Approach For Cortical Surface Reconstruction

● OpenFace: An open source facial behavior analysis toolkit

● FuturePose - Mixed Reality Martial Arts Training Using Real-Time 3D Human Pose Forecasting With a RGB Camera

Algorithms papers must be evaluated according to the standard conference criteria including algorithmic novelty and quantified evaluation against current, alternative approaches. They should not be evaluated solely on the basis of systems-level innovation (i.e., it is okay to have systems-level novelty, but it is also okay not to have it). Algorithms papers will be similar in style to other major computer vision conferences (e.g., CVPR, ICCV, ECCV). Recent examples include:

● Hole-robust wireframe Detection

● Agree to Disagree: When Deep Learning Models With Identical Architectures Produce Distinct Explanations

● Understanding Convolution for Semantic Segmentation

In the past, some reviewers have recommended rejecting application papers based on their lacking algorithmic novelty. It will probably happen again this year and we (ACs) should remind reviewers about the evaluation criteria. Hence, we kindly ask ACs to pay special attention to the reviews of application papers. Please use your best judgment to handle them, and, when needed, please overrule the reviewers' recommendations.

This year we are adding a new Evaluations and Datasets track. Evaluation & Dataset track papers will be evaluated similarly to NeurIPS Evaluations & Dataset Track. Papers in this category should propose tools, datasets, benchmarks, and practices for testing, stress-testing, auditing, comparing, and interpreting AI/ML systems throughout their lifecycle. Authors are encouraged to follow NeurIPS 2026 guidelines on Evaluations & Dataset Track. While this is the 1st time WACV is introducing the Evaluation & Dataset Track, the following recent papers published in WACV are examples of this track:

We anticipate some uncertainty with selecting this track and we ask the ACs to take that under consideration while evaluating these papers.

WACV 2027 Review Schedule (AC duties are denoted in bold)

Round 1:

Paper submission deadline: Fri, June 26, 2026

Papers assigned to ACs + Reviewers: Fri, July 3, 2026

Reviews due (from Reviewers): Fri, July 24th, 2026

● ACs chase reviewers

● AC “pair meeting”

Decisions and meta-reviews due (from ACs): Fri, August 4th, 2026

● PCs chase ACs

● release meta-reviews

R1 decision day: Fri, August 7th, 2026

Rebuttal+Revision deadline: Fri, August 28th, 2026

Camera ready deadline for accepted R1 revision papers: Thu, November 2nd, 2026

Round 2:

Paper submission deadline: Fri, August 28, 2026

Papers assigned to ACs + AC Pairs(first) + Reviewers(second): Fri, September 4th, 2026

Reviews due (from Reviewers): Fri, September 25th, 2026

● ACs chase reviewers

● AC “pair meeting”

Decisions and meta-reviews due (from ACs): Fri, October 6th, 2026

● PCs chase ACs

● release meta-reviews

R2 Decision Day: Fri, October 9th, 2026

Camera ready deadline for accepted R2 papers: Thu, November 2nd, 2026

Duty to Act as a Responsible Area Chair

All area chairs are required to have an up-to-date OpenReview profile to enable matching submissions to ACs. Further, area chairs are obliged to provide timely and quality metareviews. ACs who have submitted papers and are assigned metareviews who do not complete timely, quality metareviews (as judged by the PCs) may have their submitted papers desk rejected.