“Computer Science and Illusion: A Computational View of the Interpretation and Manipulation of Images”

A presentation by Prof. Andrew Blake, Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research Cambridge.

7:30pm Wednesday 6th September
Ernst Walton Theatre
Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin

Please visit: http://isg.cs.tcd.ie/ for more details.

Presentation Abstract

The Interaction, Simulation and Graphics (ISG) Lab in Trinity College Dublin, in association with Microsoft Ireland, are delighted to announce a seminar by Prof. Andrew Blake of Microsoft Research in Cambridge. Prof. Blakes’s lecture, “Computer Science and Illusion”, will explore some connections between visual perception, geometry, and computer processing of images. It will touch on: perspective in drawings and how a computer can understand it; analysis of perspective in certain paintings; perspective and stereo vision; colour illusions and Edwin Land. Finally there will be demonstrations of how the understanding of visual perspective, colour and texture has helped to produce more powerful tools for manipulating images by computer.

Speaker Biography

Andrew Blake is a Senior Researcher in the Machine Learning and Perception Group (MLP), where his main research focus is computer vision. Andrew graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1977 with a BA in Mathematics and Electrical Sciences. After a year as a Kennedy Scholar at MIT and two years in the defence electronics industry, he studied for a doctorate at the University of Edinburgh, which was awarded in 1983.

Andrew ran the Visual Dynamics Research Group as faculty of the Department of Engineering Science at the University of Oxford from 1987-1999. He became a Professor in 1996, and was a Royal Society Senior Research Fellow from 1998-1999. Andrew then joined Microsoft Research Cambridge as Senior Researcher in the Vision Group within MLP, though he continues as visiting Professor of Engineering with the University of Oxford. Andrew was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2005. In 2006 the Royal Academy of Engineering awarded him its Silver Medal. Andrew has published several books including “Visual Reconstruction” with A. Zisserman (MIT press), “Active Vision” with Alan Yuille (MIT Press) and “Active Contours” with Michael Isard (Springer-Verlag).