CESCG 2014 - Preliminary Program

Today's computer graphics techniques make it possible to create imagery that is hardly distinguishable from photographs. However, a photograph is clearly no match to an actual real-world scene. I argue that the next big challenge in graphics is to achieve perceptual realism by creating artificial imagery that would be hard to distinguish from reality. This requires profound changes in the entire imaging pipeline, from acquisition and rendering to display, with the strong focus on visual perception.

In this talk I will give an overview of two projects that demonstrate the role of the visual perception in graphics. In the first project we integrated eye-tracking with real-time rendering to improve the accuracy of an eye-tracker and to enhance the rendering using the gaze data. The much improved eye-tracking accuracy let us use gaze-data in applications that have not been possible before, such as gaze-contingent simulation of the depth-of-field effect or a gaze-contingent heads-up display. In the second project we created a new model of the colour and luminance perception across the wide range of luminance, accounting for both night and day-light vision. The model let us simulate the appearance of night scenes on regular displays, or generate compensated images that reverse the changes in vision due to low luminance levels. Such a simulator of visual perception can be used in games, driving simulators, or as a compensation for displays used under varying ambient light levels.

Bibliographical Details

Rafał Mantiuk is a senior lecturer (associate professor) at Bangor University (UK) and a member of a Reasearch Institute of Visual Computing. Before comming to Bangor he received his PhD from the Max-Planck-Institute for Computer Science (2006, Germany) and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia (Canada). He has published numerous journal and conference papers presented at ACM SIGGRAPH, Eurographics, CVPR and SPIE HVEI conferences, applied for several patents and was recognized by the Heinz Billing Award (2006). Rafal Mantiuk investigates how the knowledge of the human visual system and perception can be incorporated within computer graphics and imaging algorithms. His recent interests focus on designing imaging algorithms that adapt to human visual performance and viewing conditions in order to deliver the best images given limited resources, such as computation time or display contrast.

Digital technologies are now mature for producing high quality digital replicas of Cultural Heritage (CH) artifacts. The research results produced in the last two decades have shown an impressive evolution and consolidation of the technologies for acquiring high-quality digital 3D models, encompassing both geometry and color (or, better, surface reflectance properties); technologies for the interactive visualisation of complex models and the integration of different media have been also an important subject of research. In this talk, I will present the more recent progresses, focusing on practical solutions which aim at a major impact in real applications. The talk will also try to give a glance into the near future, demonstrating how geometry processing and visualization could become a major instrument in the study and dissemination of our cultural heritage.

Bibliographical Details

Roberto Scopigno is a Research Director at ISTI, an Institute of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) located in Pisa, and leads the Visual Computer Lab. He graduated in Computer Science at the University of Pisa in 1984, and has been involved in Computer Graphics since then.

He is currently engaged in several EU and national research projects concerned with multiresolution data modeling and rendering, 3D digitization/scanning, scientific visualization, geometry processing, virtual reality and applications to Cultural Heritage.

He published more than two hundreds papers in international refereed journals/conferences with Google Scholar h-index 39 and more than 7100 citations. He presented invited lectures or courses at several international conferences. He was Co-Chair of several international conferences and served in the program committees of international events.

Since 2012 he is Editor In Chief of the ACM Journal of Computing and Cultural Heritage; he served as Editor in Chief of the journal "Computer Graphics Forum" (2001-2010). He is member of Eurographics, served as elected member of the Eurographics Executive Committee since 2001 and was the Eurographics Chairman on 2009-2010. He is recipient of several awards, including the EG Distinguished Career Award (2014), the EG Outstanding Technical Contribution Award (2008) and the Tartessos Virtual Archeology Award (2011).