Speaker: Leonard McMillan , MIT Laboratory of Computer Science, Computer Graphics Group
Image-Based Rendering: Past, Present, and Future Directions
Abstract: In this talk, I will present a collage of recent results from the fledgling field of image-based rendering. Image-based rendering (IBR) is a new class of computer graphics techniques in which collections of images, rather than models of surface geometry and material properties, play the central role of an underlying scene representation. Image-based rendering fundamentally recasts the computational approach to image synthesis from a problem of simulation to a problem of signal reconstruction.
I will discuss a wide range of approaches for synthesizing novel renderings of a scene given a set of images. These include image warping, light fields, visual hulls, and view-dependent texture mapping methods. In addition to describing these image-based rendering techniques, I will also address the complementary problem of IBR model acquisition, and provide several examples of acquisition systems that we have built in our group.
Finally, I will relate IBR to a more general problem of constructing generative models from collections of samples. I will then suggest how the lessons learned from IBR can be reapplied to new problems in computer graphics.
Short Bio: Leonard McMillan is an Associate Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and a co-leader of the MIT Computer Graphics Group. Leonard is a pioneer in the field of image-based rendering. Leonard is also interested in a wide range of related topics including computer graphics rendering, imaging methods and technologies, three-dimension display technologies, computer graphics hardware, and the fusion of image processing, multimedia, and computer graphics. He received his Bachelors ('83) and Masters ('84) degrees in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. Leonard received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ('97).
Host: D. McAllister and C.Healey, Computer Science, NCSU