Invited Talk September 2007

Dr. Ezio Malis

Dr. Ezio Malis (INRIA Sophia Antipolis - France) will be giving an invited talk on Tuesday, Sep. 4, at 15:30, in Hörsaal 2 MI-Gebäude, Garching on "The ESM algorithm for deformable object tracking and varying illumination conditions"

Abstract:

In this talk, I will briefly describe the Efficient Second-order approximation Method (ESM) for the solution of systems of non-linear equations. The ESM has a higher convergence rate compared to the Newton-Raphson method and approximated Newton methods. The efficiency is equivalent to an approximated Newton method since the ESM does not need to compute the Hessians. Theoretical analysis and comparative simulations with other approaches show that the using the ESM can solve least-squares optimization problems at a higher convergence rate than standard optimization techniques. Consequently, the ESM can track with higher inter-frame movements and it is well adapted to real-time applications. The ESM algorithm can be applied to any parametric identification problem and in particular to visual tracking. In this context, I will describe a model parameterization that is well adapted either to track either Lambertian or non-Lambertian (rigid or deformable) objects under shadows, inter-reflections, glints as well as ambient, diffuse and specular reflections. Examples of the ESM visual tracking of rigid and deformable objects with strong changes in the illumination conditions will be presented.

Bio:

Ezio Malis was born in Gorizia, Italy, in 1970 and graduated both from the University Politecnico di Milano and from the Ecole Superieure d'Electricite (Suplec), Paris, in 1995. After a three years joint research work with IRISA/INRIA Rennes and with the national French company of electricity power (EDF), he received the Ph.D degree from the University of Rennes in 1998. He spent two years as research associate at the University of Cambridge (UK). He joined INRIA Sophia-Antipolis (FRANCE) in 2000 as a permanent research scientist. His research interests include automatics, robotics, computer vision, and in particular vision-based control. Dr. Malis received the best vision paper award at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in 2002. He also received the 2002 Best IEEE Transaction on Robotics and Automation Paper Award.