Latest news

30/08/2011 : OpenVL: Developer-Centred Interface Design for Computer Vision
Through the creation of our computer vision abstraction we have developed a set of guidelines along the way to help steer our design decisions. We believe these guidelines will be of some use to others in the vision community, so will be presenting a few of them at the Human-Computer Interaction workshop held in conjunction with the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) in Barcelona in November.
30/06/2011 : OpenVL: Towards a General Abstraction for Computer Vision
At the International Conference on Vision Systems this year we will be presenting our latest research into a general abstraction for computer vision, OpenVL. OpenCV and similar systems provide sophisticated computer vision methods directly to the user, which requires a lot of knowledge and experience to use effectively. We have developed a methodology which provides the user with a mechanism to execute the required vision algorithm through a higher level interface, allowing a much larger audience to employ computer vision methods.
24/06/2011 : The Mobile MyView Framework
At the upcoming ICEC we will be presenting our work on a prototype mobile video capture and delivery methodology, as an overview of how components of the MyView and OpenVL projects can be used together to create a simple system.
25/05/2011 : OpenVL at SIGGRAPH
SIGGRAPH is coming to Vancouver this year! We will be attending to present the latest research on our computer vision shader language, which is part of our OpenVL project. The presentation will be part of the poster session, and the poster will be on display throughout the conference.
15/05/2011 : MediaDiver showcased at CHI 2011 in Vancouver
At the Interactivity session of the SIGCHI 2011 in Vancouver we demonstrated our latest interactive video research with our MediaDiver. In this new demo we have seamless view switching, automatic view selection based on video objects, object tagging and additional object information all within a single video-spanning interface.



If you would like more information on the MediaDiver or any of the research, feel free to contact me.
11/04/2011 : Hold - A new method to select moving targets
One of the challenging issues with interactive video is when the clickable components move around the display; this is also a problem in real-time strategy games and some web-based interfaces. In our example of viewing a hockey game, the players are selectable in order to retrieve information or to customise the actions of the viewer (such as 'follow the player'). In our latest work, Moving Target Selection in 2D Graphical User Interfaces, we have introduced an intuitive and simple method for users to select dynamic objects. We will be presenting this work at the Interact Conference on Human-Computer Interaction in Lisbon in September.
02/03/2011 : MediaDiver: viewing video with dynamic content
We will be presenting our latest work on interfaces for multi-view video with dynamic content interaction and creation at the CHI Interactivity session in Vancouver in May.



Please come along and try it out!
01/03/2011 : Axioms of Vision and Image Registration Taxonomy
As part of our on-going effort to provide an abstraction over computer vision algorithms we will be presenting a conceptual decomposition of computer vision into the axioms of vision and a problem-based taxonomy of image registration at the Canadian Conference on Computer and Robot Vision in St. John's, NL in May.
19/10/2010 : Winter Meetings, Face Detection and Image Registration
The Winter Vision Meetings is a collection of workshops held annually. The next group of meetings will be held in January 2011 in Kona, Hawaii, and will host: We will be presenting our language model for face detection at POV and automated classification of image registration problems at WACV.
23/08/2010 : Navigation using Temporal Video Annotation
On the multimedia and HCI side of our research we have been working on navigational aids for viewing video. At the UIST poster session in New York City this October we will be presenting our work on viewing temporal video annotation and its applications for navigation.
08/07/2010 : The 1st International Workshop on Person-Oriented Vision
As part of the Winter Vision Meetings I am organising the Workshop on Person-Oriented Vision which will be held in Kona, Hawaii on the 5th of January 2011. I intend the workshop to highlight ongoing research in accessible and interactive computer vision, as well as provide an opportunity for discussions on new directions for the field. We are looking to publish work on the following topics:
  • Transforming CV problems to exploit meaningful user interaction
  • High-level abstractions of vision algorithms
  • Automatic or interactive algorithm selection based on user input
  • Detection/tracking/recognition of a physical person as input to an interactive system
  • Interpretation of user input such as descriptions, sketches, images or video
  • Automatic or interactive parameter tuning for vision algorithms
  • Case studies on "Person-Oriented" CV
  • Vision systems designed for use by non-experts
  • Interactive/supervised correction of weaknesses in the current state-of-the-art
The deadline for submissions is the 26th August (abstracts 19th August), using the WACV paper format.
07/07/2010 : Uniform Access to the Cameraverse
Our latest addition to the Unified Camera Framework is an addressing mechanism (turning every camera into a network camera), improved driver model and networked camera management tools. This work detailing the entire framework will be presented at the International Conference on Distributed Smart Cameras in Atlanta in August.
13/09/2009 : Uniform Image and Camera Access
As part of our work to create a Rapid Vision Application Development (RVAD) framework, we are developing an image retrieval abstraction called the Unified Camera Framework. We detail the current system and our initial findings in our paper Uniform Image and Camera Access and will present the work at the Workshop on the Applications of Computer Vision, part of the Winter Vision Meetings, in Snowbird, Utah in December.
07/09/2009 : The VU Framework
Our vision system development framework, VU, provides a new way to organise vision systems and a novel classification of the computer vision problem as a whole. Using our well-defined components for camera access, image conversion and data transport, users can construct vision systems rapidly and easily, to capture and process data. This framework will be presented at the Workshop on Multimedia Information Processing and Retrieval in San Diego in December.
19/07/2009 : An automatic image registration system
We have recently developed an automatic image registration system for stitching and stacking problems, which works with low or high frequency images as well as image sets which vary in intensity (high dynamic range - HDR) and focus. This system will be presented at the International Conference on Vision Systems in Liege in October.
23/04/2009 : MiniDiver: A Mobile Media Interface for Rich Video on an iPhone
Our mobile multi-view video browsing interface called MiniDiver exhibits new methods for interacting with contextual video and navigation within the rich video space. It will be presented at the International Conference on Entertainment Computing in Paris in September.
21/02/2009 : Teaching Computer Graphics
Since the beginning of January I have been teaching the Computer Graphics course of UBC's ECE degree programme. The course is for final year and master's students, and covers the high-level theory of graphics and its application through OpenGL.
08/11/2008 : Rapid Vision Application Development using Hive
We have developed a suite of example vision systems to demonstrate the power of Hive:
  • Improved accuracy real-time face detection
  • Quality of view analysis from multiple cameras
  • Multiple camera calibration using external sensors
  • Augmented reality and visualisation
Some of these applications will be put online for academic use, alongside the currently available Hive SDK.

This work will be presented at the International Conference on Computer Vision Theory and Applications in Lisbon in February 2009.
04/09/2008 : Hive available for download
Hive, our distributed vision processing system, is now available for download on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. See the project page for details!
27/06/2008 : Hive: A Distributed System for Vision Processing
One of the projects we've been working on, called Hive, is a framework for distributed vision processing, allowing reusable modules to be connected together. Modules can be devices such as cameras or algorithms e.g. face tracking. The work will be presented at the International Conference on Distributed Smart Cameras at Stanford University in September.
13/04/2008 : MyView, OpenVL & Hive
My research fellowship at UBC will involve me working on the following projects:
  • MyView: a next-generation broadcasting system which brings unprecedented control over the viewing experience. A prototype system is currently under development for use in the 2010 Winter Olympics.
  • OpenVL: a new framework which aims to bring the ease of use and hardware support to vision that OpenGL brought to graphics.
  • Hive: a novel architecture for modular and distributed vision processing.
23/03/2008 : PhD Thesis
My thesis, "High Quality Novel View Rendering from Multiple Cameras", is now available from this web site (PDF).
03/12/2007 : Moving to Vancouver
I will be joining the Human Communication Technologies Laboratory at the University of British Columbia in February 2008. I will be working with Sidney Fels on MyView, a flexible architecture for multiple view video processing and analysis.
01/10/2007 : Guaranteed phantom volume removal with Safe Hulls
I will be presenting the latest (and last of) my PhD research at CVMP in November on "Safe Hulls", the first ever method to guarantee construction of a visual hull surface without phantom volumes.
I'm a regular at this conference now, hopefully I'll be getting CVMP Miles which entitle me to a free publication next year.
18/01/2007 : Spot the difference
Can you tell which one is real and which is virtual?
Real or virtual? Real or virtual?
Ok, so it's pretty easy, but not bad for automatic reconstruction :)