News

We are delighted to announce the winning of smartDoc competition (challenge 2) as part of the competitions in ICDAR 2015 Conference.

The goal of the competition is to extract the textual content from document images which are captured by mobile phones. The images are taken under varying conditions to provide a challenging input (full description of the challenge).

The method is based on “Combining Clustering and Classfication Results” (CCC); initially the background color is used to first detect and dewarp the document. The image is then binarized to extract lines, words and subwords. Those are then clustered incrementally across all the corpus. A 1D LSTM is trained on both sharp and blurry gray-scale text-lines for recognizing subwords. Clusters of subwords are labeled by majority voting. 

Each year an expert jury from the University of Kaiserslautern is nominating outstanding doctoral theses for several academic subjects together with the Kreissparkasse Kaiserslautern..

We congratulate Dr.-Ing. Petersen on winning this award for Computer Science.

This award was granted for his doctoral thesis that deals with the understanding of manual workflows from video examples. An important application of his research work is the automatic generation of interactive Augmented Reality manuals from the observation of a reference performance.

Links:

https://www.kskkl.de/module/ueber_uns/pressecenter/upload/preisverleihung_stiftung_fuer_die_tu_kl.pdf

Abstract  doctoral thesis:

Workflow knowledge comprises both explicit, verbalizable knowledge and implicit knowledge, which is acquired through practice. Learning a complex workflow therefore benefits from training with a permanent corrective. Augmented Reality manuals that display instructive step-by-step information directly into the user’s field of view provide an intuitive and provably effective learning environment. However, their creation process is rather work intensive and current technological approaches lead to insufficient interactivity with the user. In this thesis we present a comprehensive technical approach to algorithmically analyze manual workflows from video examples and use the acquired information to teach explicit and implicit workflow knowledge using Augmented Reality. The technical realization starts with unsupervised segmentation of single work steps and their categorization into a coarse taxonomy. Thereafter, we analyze the single steps for their modalities using a hand and finger tracking approach optimized for this particular application. Using explicit, work step specific generalization we are able to compensate for morphological differences among different users and thus to reduce the need for large amounts of training data. To render this information communicable, i.e., understandable by a different person, we present the further processed data using Augmented Reality as an interactive tutoring system. The resulting system allows for fully or semi-automatic creation of Augmented Reality (AR-) manuals from video examples as well as their context-driven presentation in AR. The method is able to extract and to teach procedural, implicit workflow knowledge from given video examples. In an extensive evaluation, we demonstrate the applicability of all proposed technical components for the given task.

Prof. Didier Stricker gave a key impulse talk about „Technologiy and Innovation“ in the area of Digital Technology at the MIT:Futura. The event analyzed barriers for digitalization, creation of start-ups and large capital investment in Germany. Investors, founders and European Commissar for Digitalization – Mr Oettinger – discussed current situation and possible changes for speeding-up technological changes at economical and societal level.

More on: www.ioxp.de

…is the newly started European project at AV.

The kick-off meeting was held on January 27th 2015 at the University of Castilla-La Mancha.

Read also the press release on the Kick-off meeting.

If you are interested in the project’s goals and objectives, partners and the idea behind it, please check also the project website http://eyesofthings.eu

… the WearHEALTH team for their success being one of the eight winners of the prestigious Young Researchers Competition called by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) on the field of “interdisciplinary competence development in the research field human-machine interaction for demographic change”.

If you are curious and would like to know who or what is WearHEALTH .

Positions in the area of sensor networks, sensor fusion, motion tracking and computer vision / augmented Reality are available. Please refer to the following links for more details.

• Researcher Position for On-Body Sensor Network, Statistical Filtering
• Software Engineer in the area of Image Processing / Computer Vision
• Software Developer Position in the area of “Smart Sensor Networks”
• Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin / Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter (Teilzeit)
• PhD position Inertial MoCap and Motion Interpretation
• Researcher Position in Image Processing, esp. Object Recognition and Tracking

Two publications were accepted at the European Conference on Computer Vision (ECCV) 2014. ECCV is one of the top conferences for researchers in the field of computer vision.

Christian Bailer, Alain Pagani, Didier Stricker
A Superior Tracking Approach: Building a strong Tracker through Fusion

Tobias Nöll, Johannes Köhler, Didier Stricker
Robust and Accurate Non-Parametric Estimation of Reflectance using Basis Decomposition and Correction Functions

ECCV 2014 takes place for the 13th time and will be held from September 6th to September 12th in Zürich (Switzerland).

Alain Pagani hat am 13.06.2014 seine Dissertation mit der wissenschaftlichen Aussprache erfolgreich abgeschlossen.

Seine Doktorarbeit trägt den Titel „Reality models for efficient registration in Augmented Reality“.  In seiner Arbeit befasste sich Alain Pagani mit mathematischen Modellen realer Objekte oder Szenen, um das Problem der Kameraregistrierung im Forschungsfeld  Erweiterte  Realität zu behandeln. Die vorgeschlagenen bildbasierte Verfahren ermöglichen  eine effiziente Kamerapose-Berechnung  in unterschiedlichen Szenarien und lösen somit eine grundliegende Herausforderung der erweiterten Realität.

Gutachter der Arbeit sind Prof. Dr. Didier Stricker und Prof. Dr. Michael Felsberg (Linköping University).

Wir gratulieren Alain Pagani herzlich zu diesem Erfolg!

A Franco-German TV Network ARTE (ARTE FUTUREMAG) interviewed Prof. Dr. Didier Stricker to the european project AlterEGO.

The full interview is available in german and french languages (see links below)

• ARTE FUTUREMAG Interview AlterEGO German Language
• ARTE FUTUREMAG Interview AlterEGO French Language

Recently two publications resulting from research work within the Augmented Vision Group were accepted at the WSCG 2014 conference (http://www.wscg.cz/). Both publications address image-based 3D reconstruction relying on perspective respectively spherical images.

Oliver Wasenmüller, Bernd Krolla, Francesco Michielin, Didier Stricker
Correspondence Chaining for Enhanced Dense 3D Reconstruction
The paper proposes and evaluates a new algorithm to fuse existing dense two-view 3D reconstruction algorithms to a multi-view reconstruction, where each 3D point is estimated from multiple images. This leads to an enhanced precision and reduced redundancy of the reconstructed model.

Bernd Krolla, Christiano Couto Gava, Alain Pagani, Didier Stricker
Consistent Pose Uncertainty Estimation for Spherical Cameras
The paper discusses and evaluates the reliability of first order uncertainty propagation results in context of spherical Structure from Motion, concluding that they are not valid without restrictions, but depend on the choice of the objective function.

The “International Conference in Central Europe on Computer Graphics, Visualization and Computer Vision” (WSCG) takes place for the 22nd time and will be held from June 2nd to June 5th in Pilzen (Czech Republic).

Think Outside the Box:
Nils Petersen will give a talk on „Augmented Reality in Service & Support” at Service Desk World 2014
When: 6th May 2014, 13:10 – 13:30
Where: InterContinental Düsseldorf, Königsallee 59, 40215 – Düsseldorf

Save the date: Professor Stricker has been invited by the Fundación Innovación Bankinter to give a talk about SuperHumans at the XXI Future Trends Forum (link not available anymore) on April 29th in Madrid.

Alexander Schweitzer – Minister für Soziales, Arbeit, Gesundheit und Demografie des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz lässt sich am DFKI-Stand das Exponat „TrackMe meets GeoVisualizer” erklären

FastMRO – If you are visiting CeBIT 2014 and are interested in the latest results on Augmented Vision for the Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul of Agricultural Machines, visit us at Hall 9, Booth D44. Our colleagues are happy to show you how helpful AV can be.

If you cannot make it, check it out here.

If you are interested in Wearable Computing and Human Analytics, visit us at Hall 9, Booth F43 and experience our latest results from the European research project EASY-IMP.

Don’t miss it!

In the context of DFKI’s SmartCity Living Lab opening on February, 5th, 2014 in Kaiserslautern, the department Augmented Vision presented results from the EU project EASY-IMP. The researchers have chosen the general title “Human Analytics – TrackMe meets GeoVisualizer” to showcase a mobile sensing Android app called TrackMe and the visualization toolkit GeoVisualizer. The TrackMe app collects, analyzes and stores a variety of sensor data. Furthermore, the smart phone app is able to broadcast the collected data to a standardized web service, e.g. for real time monitoring.

The research group Augmented Vision receives the Google Research Award for development new 3D Scanning methods.

See press release in German: Link

Sonys European Technology Center (EuTEC), located in Stuttgart (Germany) initiated a collaboration with the Augmented Vision Group in April 2012.
Within the cooperation, the work of PhD- and Masterstudents is funded to research new 3D reconstruction technologies.
Sony EuTECs bi-annual PhD-Roundtable furthermore allows for interdisciplinar discussion of PhD-students from different research areas, preparing the ground for new innovations.

Link: Sony EuTec