Computational Imaging and Display – Hardware-Software Co-design for Imaging Devices - FLS Talk by Wolfgang Heidrich

Speaker:  Wolfgang Heidrich, Professor, UBC Computer Science

Title:  Computational Imaging and Display – Hardware-Software Co-design for Imaging Devices

Abstract:

Computational Imaging aims to develop new cameras and imaging modalities that optically encode information about the real world in such a way that it can be captured by image sensors. The resulting images represent detailed information such as scene geometry, motion of solids and liquids, multi-spectral information, or high contrast (high dynamic range), which can then be computationally decoded using inverse methods, machine learning, and numerical optimization. Computational Displays use a similar approach, but in reverse. Here, the goal is to computationally encode a target image that is then optically decoded by the display hardware for presentation to a human observer. Computational displays are capable of generating glasses-free 3D displays, high dynamic range imagery, or images and videos with spatial and/or temporal super-resolution. In this talk I will give an overview of recent advances and current challenges in rapidly expanding research area.

Biography:

Wolfgang Heidrich is a Professor of Computer Science and the Director of the Visual Computing Center at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. He is also a Professor (on leave) at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Heidrich received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Erlangen in 1999, and then worked as a Research Associate in the Computer Graphics Group of the Max-Planck-Institute for Computer Science in Saarbrucken, Germany, before joining UBC. Dr. Heidrich’s research interests lie at the intersection of computer graphics, computer vision, imaging, and optics. In particular, his more recent work is on computational photography and displays, High Dynamic Range imaging and display, as well as image-based modeling, measuring, and rendering, geometry acquisition. His work on High Dynamic Range Displays served as the basis for the technology behind Brightside Technologies, which was acquired by Dolby in 2007. Dr. Heidrich has served on numerous program committees for top-tier conferences such as Siggraph, Siggraph Asia, Eurographics, EGSR, and in 2016 he is chairing the papers program for both Siggraph Asia and the International Conference of Computational Photography (ICCP). Dr. Heidrich is the recipient of a 2014 Humboldt Research Award.