Speaker:
Hsueh-Ming HANG
Distinguished Professor, Department of Electronics Engineering,
Associate Dean, College of Electrical and Computer Engineering
National Chiao-Tung University

Time: 3:00 PM -- 4:00 PM, May 15th (Tuesday), 2012

Location: Babbio Center, Room 321

ABSTRACT
3D video products are aggressively growing recently. One step further, the virtual-viewpoint (or free-viewpoint) video becomes the research focus. It is also an on-going standardization item of the international MPEG Committee. In addition to the movie special effect people have seen, one application of a virtual-view system is the multi-view auto-stereoscopic (glasses free 3D) display. Practically, a densely arranged camera array is used to acquire input images and a virtual view is synthesized using the depth-image based rendering (DIBR) technique. Three essential components are needed for building a virtual-view system: depth estimation, data compression, and view synthesis. The MPEG standard committee is now in the process of defining the data compression (delivery format) of the virtual-view system. The committee also provides non-normative depth estimation and view synthesis tools. The entire set of standard specifications is to be done in two years. We will summarize the recent progress and technology trend on this subject. In addition, we will give a brief introduction to National Chiao Tung University and its EE & CS Colleges, in particular.

BIOGRAPHY
Hsueh-Ming Hang received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in control engineering and electronics engineering from National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, in 1978 and 1980, respectively, and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, in 1984. From 1984 to 1991, he was with AT&T Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ, and then he joined the Electronics Engineering Department of National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Hsinchu, Taiwan, in December 1991. From 2006 to 2009, he took a leave from NCTU and was appointed as Dean of the EECS College at National Taipei University of Technology (NTUT). He is currently a Distinguished Professor of the EE Dept at NCTU and an associate dean of the ECE College, NCTU. He has been actively involved in the international MPEG standards since 1984 and his current research interests include multimedia compression, image/signal processing algorithms and architectures, and multimedia communication systems.

Dr. Hang holds 13 patents (ROC, US and Japan) and has published over 170 technical papers related to image compression, signal processing, and video codec architecture. He was an associate editor (AE) of the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing (TIP, 1992-1994), the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (1997-1999), and currently an AE of the IEEE TIP again. He is co-editor and contributor of the Handbook of Visual Communications published by Academic Press. He is a recipient of the IEEE Third Millennium Medal and is a Fellow of IEEE and IET and a member of Sigma Xi.