Computer vision and graphics + mountains = HiVisComp. For the eleventh time this year

Lectures by leading experts, networking, and sports – this is the mix of the program of the now traditional High Visual Computing conference, also known as HiVisComp. This mix has ensured the event's popularity among the community and specialized companies. The eleventh edition of HiVisComp took place this year from January 28 to 31, 2026, traditionally in a mountain setting, this time in Stará Lesná in the High Tatras. We can most succinctly describe the event as an informal inspirational meeting of experts in computer graphics, image processing, and computer vision. But that is a definition that greatly simplifies everything.

The conference was founded in 2014 by "our" Prof. Martin Čadík and Doc. Jaroslav Křivánek (CTU / MFF UK). After Křivánek's untimely death in 2019, Martin Čadík completed the following year's event on his own, naturally in the spirit of remembering his deceased colleague and friend. The following two years were prevented by the COVID pandemic. However, the tradition will continue from 2023, thanks in part to the organizational assistance of Prof. Daniel Sýkora and, more recently, Prof. Ondřej Chum (both CTU).

Top results presented to the community

Over the years, the HiVisComp conference has built a very solid reputation in the field. This is also due to the fact that, as Čadík himself notes, it has the character of a community meeting without official outputs such as proceedings. This means that completely new and key findings can be presented at the conference, which will appear in the near future at some of the largest industry events such as ICCV and ECCV. The selection of presentations is demanding and rigorous. Over the years, the organizers have received over 1,000 abstracts, with 33 invited speakers, all big names in the field, giving presentations. This year, they were joined by John Collomosse (University of Surrey) with an interesting topic on the possibility of detecting and combating disinformation through the use of embedded trust signals, such as digital watermarks, content fingerprints, or cryptographically signed metadata (C2PA technology developed in collaboration with Adobe). The second invited speaker was Martin Saska (FELT CTU) with a topic on the challenges of computer vision in autonomous drones, or rather their swarms – an issue with which he has enjoyed success not only at major conferences. It is actually a very interesting question, also because of the parallels (which Saska uses) with the perception of birds that are part of a flock. A drone must also have, for example, a super-fast camera with immediate response to the behavior of the object next to it. The last guest speaker this year was Dániel Baráth (ETH Zürich), who presented the issue of multimodal understanding of 3D scenes in computer processing. This is research purely in the field of computer vision, and moreover, cutting-edge research working with scene graphs—Baráth demonstrated the advantages of its reconstruction (for example, for object pairing) in his contribution. Other lectures were given by, for example, Karol Myszkowski (Max Planck Institute for Informatics) and also "our" Michal Hradiš on the topic of machine processing of handwritten historical sources.

„Articles may be forgotten, but HiVisComp will not.“

Was this year's conference special in any way? When Martin Čadík thinks about this question, the first thing that comes to mind is the above-standard lecture hall, or rather the newly renovated lecture hall of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. "The weather was worse than in 2015, when HiVisComp was held in the High Tatras for the first time. It was good for the ski slopes, and fortunately, no one was hurt. In fact, there has only been one accident in eleven years. I was also pleased with the participation of researchers from Palacký University."

A lot of stress, a lot of work, but work that makes sense—that's how Čadík describes his relationship with HiVisComp. "It's something that other Czechia-Slovak professional communities had, but we didn't for a long time. It's obvious that people enjoy it. And it's great to see how informal entertainment gets going after the lectures, where the topics are further discussed. The concept simply works." With a touch of exaggeration, the new professor at FIT VUT adds: "My articles may be forgotten, but HiVisComp will not." When asked if he can imagine the conference tradition ending one day, Čadík answers unequivocally: “No, I wouldn’t want that. But I have considered handing over the organization to someone younger, as it is exhausting after all. However, I definitely don’t want to cancel anything. As long as people enjoy it, I want it to live on. By the way, there was a recent proposal for a summer edition of HiVisComp, but so far no one has been brave enough to take on the event."

HiVisComp is simply a logistically demanding conference, made possible thanks to sponsors such as Chaos and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. This year, the organizers welcomed 70 participants. "And there are colleagues who simply don't like winter and avoid the mountains during this season," says Martin Čadík with a smile. It is therefore no surprise that the venue and date for the next, twelfth edition of the event have already been set. Make a note: January 27–30, 2027, at the Montanie Resort hotel in the Jizera Mountains. “I would like to appeal to young scientists and doctoral students to get involved more often. If only for the opportunity to establish personal relationships at the event, which are absolutely crucial for young researchers," concludes Martin Čadík, the organizer of this year's popular conference, in his review.

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