An International Journal of Systems & Applications in Computer Graphics

Submission checklist

It is hoped that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal's Editor for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.

Ensure that the following items are present:

• One Author designated as corresponding Author:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
• All necessary files have been uploaded
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

Further considerations

• Manuscript has been "spellchecked"
• References are in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
• Colour figures are clearly marked as being intended for colour reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in colour on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
• If only colour on the Web is required, black and white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes

For any further information please contact the Author Support Department at authorsupport@elsevier.com.

Submission of articles

General
It is essential to give a fax number and e-mail address when submitting a manuscript. Articles must be written in good English.
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all Authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

Upon acceptance of an article, Authors will be asked to transfer copyright (for more information on copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). This transfer will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. A letter will be sent to the corresponding Author confirming receipt of the manuscript. A form facilitating transfer of copyright will be provided.

If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the Author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by Authors in these cases: contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Oxford, UK: phone (+44) 1865 843830, fax (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail permissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage ( http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions).

US National Institutes of Health (NIH) voluntary posting (" Public Access") policy
Elsevier facilitates author posting in connection with the voluntary posting request of the NIH (referred to as the NIH "Public Access Policy", see http://www.nih.gov/about/publicaccess/index.htm) by posting the peer-reviewed author's manuscript directly to PubMed Central on request from the author, after formal publication. Upon notification from Elsevier of acceptance, we will ask you to confirm via e-mail (by e-mailing us at NIHauthorrequest@elsevier.com) that your work has received NIH funding (with the NIH award number, as well as the name and e-mail address of the Prime Investigator) and that you intend to respond to the NIH request. Upon such confirmation, Elsevier will submit to PubMed Central on your behalf a version of your manuscript that will include peer-review comments, for posting 12 months after the formal publication date. This will ensure that you will have responded fully to the NIH request policy. There will be no need for you to post your manuscript directly to PubMed Central, and any such posting is prohibited. Individual modifications to this general policy may apply to some Elsevier journals and its society publishing partners.

Authors' rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) may do the following:

• make copies (print or electronic) of the article for your own personal use, including for your own classroom teaching use
• make copies and distribute such copies (including through e-mail) of the article to research colleagues, for the personal use by such colleagues (but not commercially or systematically, e.g., via an e-mail list or list server)
• post a pre-print version of the article on Internet websites including electronic pre-print servers, and to retain indefinitely such version on such servers or sites
• post a revised personal version of the final text of the article (to reflect changes made in the peer review and editing process) on your personal or institutional website or server, with a link to the journal homepage (on elsevier.com)
• present the article at a meeting or conference and to distribute copies of the article to the delegates attending such a meeting
• for your employer, if the article is a 'work for hire', made within the scope of your employment, your employer may use all or part of the information in the article for other intra-company use (e.g., training)
• retain patent and trademark rights and rights to any processes or procedure described in the article, include the article in full or in part in a thesis or dissertation (provided that this is not to be published commercially)
• use the article or any part thereof in a printed compilation of your works, such as collected writings or lecture notes (subsequent to publication of your article in the journal)
• prepare other derivative works, to extend the article into book-length form, or to otherwise re-use portions or excerpts in other works, with full acknowledgement of its original publication in the journal

Online submission to the journal prior to acceptance
Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the Elsevier web site ( http://www.elsevier.com/authors) you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the Author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.

The above represents a very brief outline of this form of submission. It can be advantageous to print this "Guide for Authors" section from the site for reference in the subsequent stages of article preparation.

Electronic format requirements for accepted articles

General points
We accept most word processing formats, but Word, WordPerfect or LaTeX is preferred. Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file for reference and safety. Save your files using the default extension of the program used.

Word processor documents
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the word processor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. Do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the word processor's facility. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier on the web site: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/guidepublication). Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on the manuscript. See also the section on Preparation of electronic illustrations. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the "spellchecker" function of your word processor.

LaTeX documents
If the LaTeX file is suitable, proofs will be produced without rekeying the text. The article should preferably be written using Elsevier's document class "elsart", or alternatively the standard document class "article". The Elsevier LaTeX package (including detailed instructions for LaTeX preparation) can be obtained from: http://www.elsevier.com/latex or from the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network (CTAN): see below, in the directory /tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/supported/elsevier. It consists of the files: elsart.cls, guidelines for users of elsart, a template file for quick start, and the instruction booklet "Preparing articles with LaTeX".

CTAN is an archive with up-to-date copies of all the public-domain versions of TeX, LaTeX, Metafont and ancillary programs, which is made available via a mirrored network of FTP servers. You can enter the CTAN archive via a Web interface in the UK ( http://www.tex.ac.uk), in the USA ( http://www.ctan.org), or in Germany ( http://www.dante.de/software/ctan in German). You can search for a package on CTAN via http://www.ucc.ie/cgi-bin/ctan/. You can also enter the archive via FTP at ftp.tex.ac.uk, at ftp.dante.de, at ctan.tug.org, or at one of the many mirror servers; see for a list the UK or USA CTAN Web pages. When a CTAN server does not respond, please try another one.

Note that CTAN is not related to Elsevier, and that Elsevier's author support cannot accept complaints or answer questions about the availability of any CTAN server.

Figures may be inserted in the usual way using an \includegraphics command, at the position in the article where they are cited.

Your LaTeX file will be most useful as input for the printed article if you obey the following rules of thumb:

1. Be consistent. If you use a macro for a phrase, use it throughout.
2. Use standard LaTeX mark-up. Do not hardcode your own layout for e.g. section headings, but use the usual LaTeX macro for this purpose.

Keep it simple. Do not define macros that accomplish complicated layout. They will also make the input process complicated.

Preparation of text

Presentation of manuscript
General
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Italics are not to be used for expressions of Latin origin, for example, in vivo, et al., per se. Use decimal points (not commas); use a space for thousands (10 000 and above).

Language Polishing. For authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit http://www.elsevier.com/locate/languagepolishing or contact authorsupport@elsevier.com for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Terms & Conditions http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions Provide the following data on the title page (in the order given).

Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.

Author names and affiliations. Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the Authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the Author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name, and, if available, the e-mail address of each Author.

Corresponding Author. Clearly indicate who is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address.

Present/permanent address. If an Author has moved since the work described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a "Present address" (or "Permanent address") may be indicated as a footnote to that Author's name. The address at which the Author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.

Abstract. A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separate from the article, so it must be able to stand alone.

Keywords. Immediately after the abstract, provide three to five keywords, using American spelling and avoiding general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, "and", "of"). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.

Abbreviations. Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field at their first occurrence in the article: in the abstract but also in the main text after it. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.

N.B. Acknowledgements. Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or otherwise.

Arrangement of the article
Subdivision of the article. Divide your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to "the text." Any subsection may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.

Appendices. If there is more than one appendix, they should be identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: (Eq. A.1), (Eq. A.2), etc.; in a subsequent appendix, (Eq. B.1) and so forth.

Acknowledgements. Place acknowledgements, including information on grants received, before the references, in a separate section, and not as a footnote on the title page.

References. See separate section, below.

Figure captions, tables, figures, schemes. Present these, in this order, at the end of the article. They are described in more detail below. If you are working with LaTeX and have such features embedded in the text, these can be left, but such embedding should not be done specifically for publishing purposes. Further, high-resolution graphics files must be provided separately (see Preparation of illustrations).

Specific remarks

Mathematical formulae. Present simple formulae in the line of normal text where possible. In principle, variables are to be presented in italics. Use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line, e.g., Xp/Ym rather than Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separate from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text). Footnotes. Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Should this not be the case, indicate the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves on a separate sheet at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list. Table footnotes. Indicate each footnote in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.

Tables. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.

Nomenclature and units. Follow internationally accepted rules and conventions: use the international system of units (SI). If other quantities are mentioned, give their equivalent in SI.

Preparation of supplementary data. Elsevier accepts supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the Author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

References

Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citations lies entirely with the Authors.

Citations in the text: Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either "Unpublished results" or "Personal communication" Citation of a reference as "in press" implies that the item has been accepted for publication.

Citing and listing of Web references. As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (Author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

Text: Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with the text. The actual Authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.

List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the list in the order in which they appear in the text.

Examples: Reference to a journal publication:

[1] Van der Geer J, Hanraads JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J Sci Commun 2000;163:51-9.

Reference to a book:

[2] Strunk Jr W, White EB. The elements of style. 3rd ed. New York: Macmillan; 1979.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:

[3] Mettam GR, Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the electronic age, New York: E-Publishing Inc; 1999, p. 281-304

Note shortened form for last page number. e.g., 51-9, and that for more than 6 Authors the first 6 should be listed followed by "et al."

The digital object identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal Physics Letters B):

doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.071

When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.

Preparation of illustrations

Preparation of electronic illustrations General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide all illustrations as separate files and as hardcopy printouts on separate sheets.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website: http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions You are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.

Formats
Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please "save as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (Note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below.):

EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as "graphics".
TIFF: Colour or greyscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (colour or greyscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".

Please do not:

• Supply embedded graphics in your word processor (spreadsheet, presentation) document;
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
• Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.

Line drawings
The lettering and symbols, as well as other details, should have proportionate dimensions, so as not to become illegible or unclear after possible reduction; in general, the figures should be designed for a reduction factor of two to three. The degree of reduction will be determined by the Publisher. Illustrations will not be enlarged. Consider the page format of the journal when designing the illustrations.

Do not use any type of shading on computer-generated illustrations.

Photographs (halftones)
Remove non-essential areas of a photograph. Do not mount photographs unless they form part of a composite figure. Where necessary, insert a scale bar in the illustration (not below it), as opposed to giving a magnification factor in the caption.

Colour illustrations
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in colour on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) in addition to colour reproduction in print. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Cover illustration
Authors are encouraged to submit interesting figures for possible publication on the front cover of an issue of this journal; the figure should be related to the Author's article.

Proofs
When your manuscript is received by the Publisher it is considered to be in its final form. Proofs are not to be regarded as "drafts".

One set of page proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding Author, to be checked for typesetting/editing. No changes in, or additions to, the accepted (and subsequently edited) manuscript will be allowed at this stage. Proofreading is solely the Author's responsibility.

A form with queries from the copyeditor may accompany your proofs. Please answer all queries and make any corrections or additions required.

The Publisher reserves the right to proceed with publication if corrections are not communicated. Return corrections within the requested time period after receipt of the proofs. Should there be no corrections, please confirm this.

Elsevier will do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and accurately as possible. In order to do this we need your help. When you receive the (PDF) proof of your article for correction, it is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Subsequent corrections will not be possible, so please ensure your first sending is complete. Note that this does not mean you have any less time to make your corrections, just that only one set of corrections will be accepted.