Abstract:

Virtual worlds can serve as software laboratories for carrying out camera networks research. Espousing this unorthodox view, we developed virtual vision paradigm that brings together advanced computer graphics and vision simulation technologies to serve the needs of camera networks research. A consequence of this paradigm is our recent work on developing smart camera networks and intelligent surveillance systems capable of persistent human observation in large-scale synthetic environments. This talk will focus on our work on highly capable smart camera networks capable of distributed camera assignments and handoffs to carry out multiple, simultaneous observation tasks. We deploy and evaluate these networks in our virtual vision simulators---a large scale model of the original Penn train station and a modern office floor---inhabited with self-animating pedestrians.

Speaker:

Faisal Qureshi
Associate Professor (Computer Science)
Faculty of Science
University of Ontario Institute of Technology
UA4000, 2000 Simcoe Street North
Oshawa, Ontario L1H 7K4, Canada
Email: faisal.qureshi@uoit.ca
Web: http://faculty.uoit.ca/qureshi
Lab: http://vclab.science.uoit.ca

Bio:

Faisal Qureshi is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and the (founding) director of the Visual Computing Lab at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), Oshawa, Canada. He obtained a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Toronto in 2007.  He also holds an M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, and an M.Sc. in Electronics from Quaid-e-Azam University, Pakistan.  Prior to joining UOIT, he worked as a Software Developer at Autodesk. His research interests include sensor networks, computer vision, and computer graphics. He has also published papers in space robotics.  He has interned at ATR Labs (Kyoto, Japan), AT&T Research Labs (Red Bank, NJ, USA), and MDA Space Missions (Brampton, ON, Canada).  He is a member of the IEEE, the ACM, and the Canadian Image Processing and Pattern Recognition Society.  He has also served as the Guest Editor for IEEE JETCAS, IEEE Sensors, and CVIU journal special issues.  He is currently serving has the co-chair for the 12th Conference on Computer and Robot Vision that will be held in Halifax, Canada in June, 2015.