I’ll start tweeting about graphics research papers which I think are important to know about for various reasons (in no particular order).

— Tomas Akenine-Möller (@inversepixel) September 14, 2013

This is an announcement that got all my attention. Since Twitter is a mess to find anything older than a day, here is the list so far:

1. A Characterization of Ten Hidden-Surface Algorithms, Sutherland et al., ACM Computing Surveys, 1974
2. Survey of Texture Mapping, Paul Heckbert, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 1986
3. Rendering Complex Scenes with Memory-Coherent Ray Tracing, Matt Pharr et al., proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 1997
4. An Efficient Representation for Irradiance Environment Maps, Ramamoorthi & Hanrahan, proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 2001
5. Decoupled Sampling for Graphics Pipelines, Ragan-Kelley et al. ACM Transactions on Graphics, 2011
6. The Aliasing Problem in Computer-Generated Shaded Images, Franklin C. Crow, Communications of the ACM, 1977
7. Ray Tracing Complex Scenes, Kay & Kajiya, proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 1986
8. Hierarchical Z-buffer Visibility, Greene et al., proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 1993
9. Geometry Images, Gu et al., ACM Transactions on Graphics, 2002
10. A Hidden-Surface Algorithm with Anti-Aliasing, Edwin Catmull, proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 1978
11. Modeling the Interaction of Light Between Diffuse Surfaces, Goral et al., proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 1984
    “The first radiosity paper, with the real physical Cornell box (which I’ve actually have seen in real life!)”
12. Pyramidal Parametrics, Lance Williams, proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 1983
13. Rendering synthetic objects into real scenes: bridging traditional and image-based graphics with global illumination and high dynamic range photography, Paul Debevec, proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2008
    “Influence on gfx proportional to title length!”
14. A parallel algorithm for polygon rasterization, Juan Pineda, proceedings of SIGGRAPH, 1988
15. Rendering from compressed textures, Beers et al., proceedings of SIGGRAPH 1996
    “This one (out of 3) of the 1st texture compression papers ever! Uses VQ so probably not something you want today, but major eye opener!”
16. A general version of Crow’s shadow volumes, P. Bergeron, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 1986
    “Generalized SV. Nice trick”
17. Reality engine graphics, Kurt Akeley, proceedings of SIGGRAPH 1993
    “Paper describes MSAA, guard bands, etc etc”
18. The design and analysis of a cache architecture for texture mapping, Hakura and Gupta, proceedings of ISCA 1997
    “Classic texture $ paper!”
19. Deep shadow maps, Lokovic and Veach, proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2000
    “Lots of inspiration here!”
20. The Reyes image rendering architecture, Cook et al., proceedings of SIGGRAPH 1987
    “Sooo good & mega-influential!”
21. A practical model for subsurface light transport, Jensen et al., proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2001
22. Casting curved shadows on curved surfaces, Lance Williams, proceedings of SIGGRAPH 1978
    “*the* shadow map paper!”
23. On the design of display processors, Myer and Sutherland, Communications of the ACM 1968
    “Wheel of reincarnation”
24. Ray tracing Jell-O brand gelatin, Paul S. Heckbert, Communications of the ACM 1988
25. Talisman: Commodity realtime 3D graphics for the PC, Torborg and Kajiya, Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 1996
26. A Frequency Analysis of Light Transport, Durand et al., Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2005
    “Very influential!!”
27. An Ambient Light Illumination Mode (behind a paywall), S. Zhukov, A. Iones, G. Kronin, Eurographics 1998
    “First paper on ambient occlusion, AFAIK. Not that old…”