ISMAR
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The IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR) is an annual academic conference on augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) research. Its organizers describe it as "the leading international academic conference in the fields of Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality", and it is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee (VGTC).[1] The first ISMAR was held in 2002 in Darmstadt, Germany. It was formed by merging two earlier events, the International Symposium on Augmented Reality (ISAR) and the International Symposium on Mixed Reality (ISMR); ISAR was itself preceded by the International Workshop on Augmented Reality (IWAR), first held in 1998.[1][2]
Although the name refers to mixed and augmented reality, the 2026 call for papers describes the conference as covering "the full spectrum of immersive technologies". It invited work on "augmented, mixed, and virtual reality (AR, MR, and VR)" and said the scope "extends far beyond traditional AR topics, such as precise 3D tracking, display technologies, and real-time performance".[3] Since 2015 its full papers, and later its journal-track papers, have been published in a special issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG).[3][4] The 25th edition, ISMAR 2026, is being held in Bari, Italy, from 5 to 9 October 2026.[5]
History
Forerunner events (1998-2001)
The oldest of ISMAR's forerunners is the first IEEE International Workshop on Augmented Reality (IWAR), held in San Francisco on 1 November 1998 with Reinhold Behringer and David Mizell as general chairs. Its proceedings were published by A K Peters. A second IWAR followed in San Francisco on 20 and 21 October 1999.[6] Its proceedings appeared under the title Proceedings 2nd IEEE and ACM International Workshop on Augmented Reality (IWAR'99) and include the marker tracking and head-mounted display calibration paper by Hirokazu Kato and Mark Billinghurst, the two original creators of ARToolKit, which was developed at the University of Washington's HIT Lab in 1999.[7][8][6]
The series continued as the International Symposium on Augmented Reality (ISAR).[2] The first ISAR was held in Munich on 5 and 6 October 2000 (general chairs Gudrun Klinker and Reinhold Behringer), and the second in New York on 29 and 30 October 2001 (general chairs Nassir Navab and Steven Feiner).[6] In parallel, a Japanese series called the International Symposium on Mixed Reality (ISMR) was held in Yokohama in March 1999 and March 2001. Hideyuki Tamura, listed by the ISMAR archive as being from the Mixed Reality Systems Laboratory in Yokohama, was a general chair of ISMR 1999 and gave an ISAR 2000 keynote on "the MR Project and Other Research Activities in Japan".[6]
Merger and growth (2002-2014)
ISAR and ISMR merged into ISMAR, which held its first symposium at Technische Universität Darmstadt on 30 September and 1 October 2002. Its website described the symposium as joining "the forces working on Mixed Reality and Augmented Reality across the world" that had met at the IWAR, ISAR and ISMR events of 1998-2001. The 2002 symposium was sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society and Fraunhofer IGD, in cooperation with ACM SIGGRAPH, ACM SIGCHI and Eurographics.[9] The general chairs were Didier Stricker (Fraunhofer IGD), Stefan Müller (Universität Koblenz) and Dieter Schmalstieg (Vienna University of Technology), and Ronald Azuma of HRL Laboratories was one of the program chairs. Invited talks came from Wolfgang Friedrich of Siemens, on the ARVIKA industrial AR project, and Hiroshi Ishii of MIT, on "Tangible Bits".[6][10] ACM was named in the titles of early editions: the 2002 site and the proceedings of 2003 and 2007 are titled as the "IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality", and the 2008 proceedings as the "IEEE/ACM" symposium.[11][12][13]
Through the 2000s the symposium moved between Asia, Europe and North America, with editions in Tokyo, Arlington, Vienna, Santa Barbara, Nara and Cambridge. The ISMAR archive lists between 87 and 141 paper submissions per year from 2003 to 2014, with 24 to 38 papers accepted.[6] Several papers from this period later received the symposium's impact paper awards. The 2007 Nara symposium published Georg Klein and David Murray's "Parallel Tracking and Mapping for Small AR Workspaces" (PTAM), which tracks a hand-held camera in a small AR workspace by running tracking and mapping in parallel threads; the authors contrasted it with adapting SLAM algorithms developed for robotic exploration.[12] The 2011 Basel symposium published "KinectFusion: Real-time dense surface mapping and tracking" by Richard Newcombe, Shahram Izadi and colleagues.[14]
The conference has also been the subject of its own literature reviews. In 2008 Feng Zhou, Henry Been-Lirn Duh and Mark Billinghurst reviewed ten years of work presented at ISMAR and its predecessors, focusing on tracking, interaction and display research.[13] Ten years later Kangsoo Kim, Billinghurst, Gerd Bruder, Duh and Gregory Welch reviewed the ISMAR papers of 2008-2017 and reported "a sharp increase in AR evaluation and rendering research".[15]
Journal track and recent growth (2015-present)
From ISMAR 2015 in Fukuoka, all full papers were published as a special issue of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, with citations in the form "IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proc. ISMAR 2015), 21(11)".[4] Later editions kept two paper tracks, journal papers in the TVCG special issue and conference papers in the symposium proceedings.[3] The guest editors' messages for the 2023 and 2024 special issues, both published in November issues of TVCG, describe ISMAR as continuing "the over twenty-year long tradition of IWAR, ISMR, and ISAR".[16][17]
Submissions rose quickly after 2017. According to the ISMAR archive, the symposium received 113 submissions in 2017, 302 in 2020, 603 in 2022 and 763 in 2025.[6] The 2020 edition, hosted from Recife and Porto de Galinhas in Brazil, and the 2021 edition, hosted from Bari, were held virtually.[6] The 2023 Sydney and 2024 Greater Seattle editions were run in hybrid form; the 2024 symposium took place at the Hilton Bellevue in Washington.[16][18] The 24th symposium was held at the Daejeon Convention Center in South Korea from 8 to 12 October 2025, and recorded 781 attendees.[19][6]
Format and organization
ISMAR is run by a steering committee. As of October 2026, its chair is Wolfgang Broll of TU Ilmenau and its vice-chair is Tobias Höllerer of the University of California, Santa Barbara; former members listed as emeritus include Ronald Azuma, Steven Feiner, Henry Fuchs and Hirokazu Kato.[20] Each year's symposium has its own general chairs and science and technology (S&T) program chairs.[6]
Papers go through a single submission round. For 2026, each paper was assigned to two members of the International Program Committee; papers not rejected early were to be sent to external reviewers, with the organizers aiming for at least two additional reviews, and authors could write a rebuttal. The possible outcomes were acceptance as a TVCG journal paper, acceptance as a conference paper, or rejection. The main body of a paper could be 4 to 9 pages, with no more than 11 pages including references, and all accepted papers are archived in the IEEE Xplore digital library.[3] The listed topics include tracking and spatial registration, sensor fusion, projection mapping and spatial AR, display technologies and optics, rendering, locomotion, haptics, presence and body ownership, avatars and virtual humans, mediated and diminished reality, telepresence, and applications from medicine and training to virtual production.[3]
Besides paper sessions, the program includes posters, demos, workshops, tutorials, a doctoral consortium, keynotes and panels. ISMAR 2026 also ran a Future Faculty Forum, a speed mentorship session, Women@ISMAR and "Pitch Your Lab". Workshops and tutorials took the first two days (5 and 6 October), and the main conference with keynotes, papers, posters and demos ran from 7 to 9 October.[21][5]
Awards
The archive lists best paper awards in most years, often with honorable mentions or runner-up awards, and best poster and best demo awards in many years.[6] Two further awards recognize long-term influence. An impact paper award honors earlier IWAR, ISAR and ISMAR papers; it was called the "10 Years Lasting Impact Award" in 2012 and 2013 and the "Long Lasting Impact Papers Award" in 2016, and later appears as the Impact Paper Award or Paper Impact Award. The Career Impact Award honors individuals; the earliest listed in the archive went to Steven Feiner of Columbia University in 2017. Before it, Gudrun Klinker (2014) and Nassir Navab (2015) received 10 Years Lasting Impact Awards for their research, and Hideyuki Tamura received a Long Lasting Impact Award in 2016.[6] At ISMAR 2025 the Career Impact Award went to Bruce Thomas and the Paper Impact Award to Iryna Skrypnyk and David G. Lowe.[22]
| Year | Recipient |
|---|---|
| 2017 | Steven Feiner |
| 2018 | Henry Fuchs |
| 2019 | Mark Billinghurst |
| 2020 | Dieter Schmalstieg |
| 2021 | Doug A. Bowman |
| 2023 | Hirokazu Kato |
| 2024 | Nassir Navab; Gudrun Klinker |
| 2025 | Bruce Thomas |
Sources for both tables: the ISMAR past symposiums archive and the ISMAR 2025 awards page.[6][22]
| Award year | Paper (original venue) | Authors |
|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Marker Tracking and HMD Calibration for a Video-Based Augmented Reality Conferencing System (IWAR 1999) | Hirokazu Kato, Mark Billinghurst |
| 2016 | Spatially augmented reality (IWAR 1998) | Ramesh Raskar, Greg Welch, Henry Fuchs |
| 2016 | Dynamic shader lamps: Painting on movable objects (ISAR 2001) | Deepak Bandyopadhyay, Ramesh Raskar, Henry Fuchs |
| 2017 | Parallel Tracking and Mapping for Small AR Workspaces (ISMAR 2007) | Georg Klein, David Murray |
| 2018 | Pose tracking from natural features on mobile phones | Daniel Wagner, Gerhard Reitmayr, Alessandro Mulloni, Tom Drummond, Dieter Schmalstieg |
| 2019 | Evaluating the benefits of augmented reality for task localization in maintenance of an armored personnel carrier turret | S. J. Henderson, S. Feiner |
| 2021 | KinectFusion: Real-time Dense Surface Mapping and Tracking (ISMAR 2011) | Richard A. Newcombe, Shahram Izadi and others |
| 2022 | Perceptual issues in augmented reality revisited (ISMAR 2010) | E. Kruijff, J. E. Swan, S. Feiner |
| 2022 | Going out: robust model-based tracking for outdoor augmented reality (ISMAR 2006) | G. Reitmayr, T. W. Drummond |
| 2023 | Experiences with handheld augmented reality (ISMAR 2007) | D. Schmalstieg, D. Wagner |
| 2024 | Mobile Augmented Reality for Cultural Heritage: A Technology Acceptance Study (ISMAR 2012) | Anne-Cecilie Haugstvedt, John Krogstie |
| 2025 | Scene Modelling, Recognition and Tracking with Invariant Image Features (ISMAR 2004) | Iryna Skrypnyk, David G. Lowe |
Notable editions or selections
The table lists the ISMAR symposia from 2002 with the figures published in the ISMAR archive. Blank cells mean the archive gives no figure. From 2016 onward the archive splits accepted papers into TVCG journal papers and conference papers.
| Year | Location | Dates | Submissions | Accepted papers | Attendees |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Darmstadt, Germany | 30 Sep - 1 Oct | |||
| 2003 | Tokyo, Japan | 7-10 Oct | 90 | 25 | |
| 2004 | Arlington, Virginia, USA | 2-5 Nov | 120 | 24 | |
| 2005 | Vienna, Austria | 22-25 Oct | 107 | 24 | |
| 2006 | Santa Barbara, California, USA | 22-25 Oct | 105 | 30 | |
| 2007 | Nara, Japan | 13-16 Nov | 121 | 38 | |
| 2008 | Cambridge, UK | 15-18 Sep | 104 | 26 | 150 |
| 2009 | Orlando, Florida, USA | 19-22 Oct | 124 | 24 | |
| 2010 | Seoul, South Korea | 13-16 Oct | 107 | 24 | |
| 2011 | Basel, Switzerland | 26-29 Oct | 141 | 26 | |
| 2012 | Atlanta, Georgia, USA | 5-8 Nov | 105 | 26 | 284 |
| 2013 | Adelaide, Australia | 1-4 Oct | 103 | 26 | 241 |
| 2014 | Munich, Germany | 10-12 Sep | 87 | 33 | 345 |
| 2015 | Fukuoka, Japan | 29 Sep - 3 Oct | 103 | 22 | 342 |
| 2016 | Merida, Mexico | 19-23 Sep | 79 | 7 journal, 23 conference | 257 |
| 2017 | Nantes, France | 9-13 Oct | 113 | 14 journal, 31 conference | 330 |
| 2018 | Munich, Germany | 16-20 Oct | 119 | 15 journal, 33 conference | 448 |
| 2019 | Beijing, China | 14-18 Oct | 163 | 14 journal, 50 conference | 455 |
| 2020 | Recife / Porto de Galinhas, Brazil (virtual) | 9-13 Nov | 302 | 18 journal, 87 conference | 625 |
| 2021 | Bari, Italy (virtual) | 4-8 Oct | 359 | 24 journal, 56 conference | 547 |
| 2022 | Singapore | 17-21 Oct | 603 | 35 journal, 93 conference | 580 |
| 2023 | Sydney, Australia | 16-20 Oct | 627 | 45 journal, 128 conference | 605 |
| 2024 | Greater Seattle Area (Bellevue), USA | 21-25 Oct | 646 | 44 journal, 133 conference | 580 |
| 2025 | Daejeon, South Korea | 8-12 Oct | 763 | 60 journal, 157 conference | 781 |
| 2026 | Bari, Italy | 5-9 Oct |
ISMAR 2026
ISMAR 2026, the 25th symposium, is taking place at The Nicolaus Hotel in the Poggiofranco district of Bari, Italy, from 5 to 9 October 2026.[5][23] Bari had previously been the host of the virtual 2021 symposium.[6] The general chairs are Joe Gabbard, Michele Fiorentino, Daisuke Iwai, Antonio E. Uva and Woontack Woo.[1] The paper deadline was 16 March 2026.[3] The three keynote speakers are Jenny Spurlock, a senior product design director at Meta Reality Labs, on interaction pathfinding; Antonio Rizzo of the University of Siena, on sailing as a lens for "augmented agency"; and Misha Sra of UC Santa Barbara, on spatial human-AI interaction.[24] The ACM Symposium on Spatial User Interaction (SUI 2026) follows in Bari on 10 and 11 October.[5]
Future symposiums
As of October 2026, the steering committee lists the following future hosts, with dates that may change:[25]
| Year | Location | Planned dates |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 | Kobe, Japan | 11-15 October |
| 2028 | Cyprus | 9-13 October |
| 2029 | Canada | Early October |
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "ISMAR - The IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality". ISMAR. https://www.ismar.net/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Past Conferences". IEEE ISMAR 2026. https://www.ieeeismar.net/2026/past-conferences/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 "Call for Papers". IEEE ISMAR 2026. 2026-06-13. https://www.ieeeismar.net/2026/call-for-papers/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "ISMAR 2015". ISMAR 2015. https://ismar2015.vgtc.org/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 "IEEE ISMAR 2026". IEEE ISMAR 2026. https://www.ieeeismar.net/2026/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 "ISMAR - Past Symposiums". ISMAR. https://www.ismar.net/past_symposiums/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "ARToolKit Documentation (History)". ARToolKit, Human Interface Technology Laboratory, University of Washington. http://www.hitl.washington.edu/artoolkit/documentation/history.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ H. Kato, M. Billinghurst (1999). "Marker tracking and HMD calibration for a video-based augmented reality conferencing system". Proceedings 2nd IEEE and ACM International Workshop on Augmented Reality (IWAR'99), pp. 85-94. https://doi.org/10.1109/IWAR.1999.803809. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "ISMAR 2002 - Home". ISMAR 2002. http://ismar2002.ismar.net/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "ISMAR 2002 - Program". ISMAR 2002. http://ismar2002.ismar.net/program.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "Proceedings Second IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality". IEEE. 2003. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISMAR.2003.1240681. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Georg Klein, David Murray (2007-11). "Parallel Tracking and Mapping for Small AR Workspaces". 2007 6th IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, pp. 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISMAR.2007.4538852. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Feng Zhou, Henry Been-Lirn Duh, Mark Billinghurst (2008-09). "Trends in augmented reality tracking, interaction and display: A review of ten years of ISMAR". 2008 7th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, pp. 193-202. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISMAR.2008.4637362. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ Richard A. Newcombe, Andrew Fitzgibbon, Shahram Izadi, Otmar Hilliges, David Molyneaux, David Kim, Andrew J. Davison, Pushmeet Kohli, Jamie Shotton, Steve Hodges (2011-10). "KinectFusion: Real-time dense surface mapping and tracking". 2011 10th IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, pp. 127-136. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISMAR.2011.6092378. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ Kangsoo Kim, Mark Billinghurst, Gerd Bruder, Henry Been-Lirn Duh, Gregory F. Welch (2018-11). "Revisiting Trends in Augmented Reality Research: A Review of the 2nd Decade of ISMAR (2008-2017)". IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 24, no. 11, pp. 2947-2962. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2018.2868591. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Michele Fiorentino, Joseph L. Gabbard, Gun Lee, Maud Marchal, Guillaume Moreau (2023-11). "Message from the ISMAR 2023 Science and Technology Journal Program Chairs and TVCG Guest Editors". IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 29, no. 11. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2023.3322308. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ Ulrich Eck, Maki Sugimoto, Misha Sra, Markus Tatzgern, Jeanine K. Stefanucci, Ian Williams (2024-11). "Message from the ISMAR 2024 Science and Technology Program Chairs and TVCG Guest Editors". IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 30, no. 11. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2024.3453128. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "Welcome to the IEEE ISMAR 2024". IEEE ISMAR 2024. https://www.ieeeismar.net/2024/index.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "IEEE ISMAR 2025". IEEE ISMAR 2025. https://www.ieeeismar.net/2025/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "ISMAR - Steering Committee". ISMAR. https://www.ismar.net/steering_committee/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "Program Overview". IEEE ISMAR 2026. https://www.ieeeismar.net/2026/overview/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Awards". IEEE ISMAR 2025. https://www.ieeeismar.net/2025/program/awards/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "Venue". IEEE ISMAR 2026. https://www.ieeeismar.net/2026/venue/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "Keynote Speakers". IEEE ISMAR 2026. https://www.ieeeismar.net/2026/keynote-speakers/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
- ↑ "ISMAR - Future Symposiums". ISMAR. https://www.ismar.net/ismar_future. Retrieved 2026-10-06.