Date: 26 Jul 93 14:41:57-PST
From: Vision-List moderator Phil Kahn <Vision-List-Request@TELEOS.COM>
Errors-to: Vision-List-Errors@TELEOS.COM
Reply-to: Vision-List@TELEOS.COM
Subject: VISION-LIST digest 12.33
To: Vision-List@TELEOS.COM

VISION-LIST Digest    Mon Jul 26 14:41:57 PDT 93     Volume 12 : Issue 33

 - ***** The Vision List has changed hosts to TELEOS.COM *****
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Today's Topics:

 Announcing release of computer vision software
 Sbus digitizer
 Problem of geometry
 Range finders - information wanted
 OCR
 Re: KBVision, KHOROS, and LISP
 Discussion: Ways to intergrate global inf into NN classifier
 Ph.D. program in Computer Vision/Image Processing
 Text and Image in document
 Congress Hearings on the Future of the Internet
 SMART: Call for Visiting Researchers
 Email list on Very Low Bit-rate Video
 International Workshop on Very Low Bit-rate Video
 STSF'94 Workshop

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 93 18:55 -0700
From: Art Pope <pope@cs.ubc.ca>
Subject: Announcing release of computer vision software

               Announcing the Free Availability of the 
                  Vista Computer Vision Environment

                       Art Pope and David Lowe
                   University of British Columbia

The Vista software environment for computer vision research has been
developed at the University of British Columbia's Laboratory for
Computational Intelligence.  Unlike most toolkits for image processing,
Vista allows easy extension to data types other than images.  It is
designed to support computer vision research in which any user can easily
program new modules or add new data types.  Vista comes with extensive
documentation, a collection of image manipulation routines, edge detectors,
edge linking, overlay of edge vectors on images, tools for printing images,
and tools for viewing images and vectors under the X Window System.

One useful component of Vista is a toolkit to allow rapid development of
applications running under X Windows.  Using a few standard library
routines that do not require knowledge of X internals, a user can create
applications that display images, manipulate vectors, create menus, and
provide full mouse interaction with display elements.  Vista contains an
image viewing widget that provides display independence, image scaling, and
interactive zooming.

Vista operations can be used both as stand-alone UNIX programs
or as library routines. The programs can be used from the UNIX shell
to manipulate files containing images and other objects; they can be
piped together to perform a sequence of operations. The library can be
used to construct custom applications, including ones that display
images interactively under X Windows.

Vista uses its own format for representing images, edge sets, and
other objects in data files. The format is highly flexible -- it can
represent a great variety of image types as well as collections of
images and other objects. The format is also extensible -- for
example, new image attributes can be added without the need to modify
existing software or data files. Tools are available for converting
images between Vista's format and other formats.

Vista is written in ANSI C for UNIX platforms. It requires the X
Window System (X11R5); some portions also require the OSF/Motif widget
library.

Vista's source code and documentation are available from ftp.cs.ubc.ca via
anonymous FTP. There are no significant restrictions on its distribution or
use. The remainder of this announcement contains a more detailed
description of Vista and instructions for obtaining it via FTP.

VISTA FILE FORMAT

Vista employs a data file format that allows any collection of images, edge 
vectors, and other structured objects to be stored in a single file. This 
allows, for example, both an edge set and the image from which it was 
derived to be kept in one file. 

Each file is divided into two parts. The first part, which contains 
descriptions of the objects in the file, is represented entirely in ASCII 
so that it can be easily viewed and even edited using a text editor. One 
can, for example, add a comment annotating an image by simply editing that 
part of the file. The second part of the file holds information that must 
be stored compactly, such as image pixel values. There data is represented 
efficiently with a binary encoding that is independent of machine byte order. 

Vista's data file format can be readily extended. You can record custom 
attributes with each of the images stored in your data files yet still 
manipulate those images using the existing Vista software. You can also 
define custom types of objects (e.g., an object describing a set of camera 
parameters). These custom objects can be included in data files alongside
standard ones such as images and edge sets.

VISTA IMAGE FORMAT

A Vista image is a 3-dimensional array of pixels indexed by row, column, 
and `band' number. The third dimension, band, is used to represent a 
variety of things: the discrete frames of a motion sequence, various camera 
viewpoints, multiple color channels, or the real and imaginary components 
of complex pixel values. It is also used to represent combinations of these 
 -- allowing, for example, a single image to represent a motion sequence of 
stereo pairs of RGB color images. Such images can be manipulated as easily 
as a single-band, grey-scale intensity image by most of Vista's subroutines 
and programs. 

Several different pixel representations are supported. They range from a 
single bit to a 32-bit signed integer and a 64-bit floating point number. 
Again, images can be manipulated equally well regardless of pixel 
representation by most of Vista's subroutines and programs.

Vista includes software for translating images in both directions between
`Portable Graymap' (PGM) file format and Vista format. The PBM+ package
can be used to reach a large variety of other formats from PGM format.

VISTA SOFTWARE

Vista includes the following software:

 (a) a collection of UNIX filter programs for manipulating images. There 
     are programs for scaling, cropping and rotating images, adjusting 
     image brightness and contrast, converting images from one pixel 
     representation to another, performing an arithmetic or logical 
     operation on each pixel of an image, convolving two images, computing 
     pixel statistics, estimating the gradient of an image, computing the 
     Fourier transform of an image, computing the magnitude and phase of a 
     complex image, applying the Canny edge detector, and linking edge
     pixels to form sets of extended edges. 
    
 (b) a collection of interactive programs for manipulating images under X 
     Windows. There are menu-driven programs for displaying images and edge 
     sets, cropping images, and adjusting image brightness and contrast. 
     (Some of these programs require the OSF/Motif widget library.) 

 (c) programs for converting Vista images to and from `Portable Graymap'
     (PGM) format, for rendering images and edge sets using Encapsulated 
     PostScript, and for arranging multiple Encapsulated PostScript 
     pictures on a single page. 

 (d) a library of C routines. There are routines for performing each of the 
     operations listed above under item (a), from scaling images to linking 
     edge pixels. There are also routines for reading and writing Vista 
     data files, reporting errors, parsing command line options, and 
     generating PostScript documents. 

 (e) a widget for displaying images under X Windows. The widget has 
     built-in support for color allocation and dithering to accommodate 
     various displays having from 1 to 24 planes. It provides user 
     controls for panning and zooming the displayed image. The widget is 
     compatible with other widget sets based on the X Toolkit, including 
     the MIT Athena and OSF/Motif sets.

 (f) a package that simplifies the task of creating an application that runs
     under X Windows for displaying an image and lines while accepting
     user input through menus and dialog boxes. The package shields the 
     programmer from having to understand a widget set, the X Toolkit, and 
     the Xlib library. The package itself uses the OSF/Motif widget set, 
     but it is designed for easy porting to other widget sets. 

INSTALLATION REQUIREMENTS

Vista is distributed as ANSI C source code. To build it you will need an
ANSI C compiler (we use the GNU project's gcc), X11R5 (at patch level 21 or
better), and about 40 megabytes of disk space.

The OSF/Motif widget library is needed to build some portions of Vista -- 
specifically, some of the programs mentioned under item (b), above, and the 
package described under item (f). Lacking OSF/Motif it is still possible to 
build most Vista software, including one of the programs for displaying 
images under X Windows. We've been using V1.1.2 of the OSF/Motif library.

Like X11R5, Vista uses the imake facility to configure the build and 
installation procedures for a particular site and machine architecture. You 
will need the imake, makedepend, and mkdirhier tools distributed with 
X11R5. Vista includes architecture-specific configuration files for SunOS 
4.1, and Silicon Graphics's IRIX 4.0. 

DOCUMENTATION

Vista is fully documented by about 250 pages of on-line `man' pages. It 
also includes a tutorial on using Vista programs, an introduction to 
programming with the Vista library, a set of example programs, installation 
instructions, and guidelines for those contributing Vista software.

OBTAINING VISTA

Vista is available via anonymous FTP from ftp.cs.ubc.ca (IP number
137.82.8.5) as a compressed tar file. The file is

	/pub/local/vista/vista-2.0.1.tar.gz

and its about 600 kilobytes in size.  Fetch a copy in binary mode,
uncompress it using the GNU utility gunzip, untar it into the directory of
your choice, and follow the installation instructions you find there. If
you decide to keep and use Vista, let us know so that we can continue to
inform you of new releases, bug fixes, etc.

Some sample Vista data files are also available via anonymous FTP from
ftp.cs.ubc.ca. They're in /pub/local/vista/data, accompanied by a README
file.

WHY WE'RE DISTRIBUTING VISTA

Our hope in distributing Vista is that it will foster greater exchange
of software and data in the computer vision research community. We
believe that it can be a foundation on which the community builds and
shares reference implementations of commonly used algorithms.

Vista has all of the traits needed to fulfill this role. It provides a
framework for storing and manipulating not only images, but also other data
objects that often arise in conjunction with images -- for example, edge
sets, camera geometry specifications, and model parameters. It is designed
as an extensible system to which anyone can contribute. It is comprehensive
although not so large as to be unwieldly. And, importantly, it can be
freely distributed.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

In case of comments, problems, queries, bug reports, etc., contact:

  Art Pope, pope@cs.ubc.ca, (604) 822-3061

  David Lowe, lowe@cs.ubc.ca, (604) 822-3170

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1993 10:54:21 -0700
From: Matthew Turk <turk>
Subject: Sbus digitizer
Organization: Teleos Research, Palo Alto, CA

Several people have asked about SBus frame grabbers lately, so our
illustrious moderator asked me to post a description of ours.  A few
months ago we bought a Datacell S2200 "Real Time Colour Frame Grabber
and Display".  It's made by Datacell Ltd in the U.K. and marketed in
the U.S. by High Sierra Technologies (702) 832-0792.

The S2200 isn't the perfect digitizer, and it's quite expensive, but
here's the scoop.  Single slot Sbus card, takes composite and
component video (e.g. NTSC and RGB) and S-Video, and digitizes to 24
bits.  It displays to an RGB monitor.  There are input and output
LUTs, and an overlay plane for display graphics.  The image data is
memory-mapped (though stored interlaced).  It has a "color space
converter", whereby the RGB signals can by transformed by an arbitrary
3x3 matrix.  It has enough memory for two full RGB (512x480) images
(or 6 monochrome images, or 24 monochrome 256x240 images, etc.).
There is hardware subsampling by factors of 2 and 4.  The board costs
somewhere around $4500, sans software.

The software, which costs another $1000 (very rough estimates, I don't
have the P.O. in front of me), consists of a low-level library and
some example code, along with an Openwindows-based interface for
digitizing and manipulating the various board parameters.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 17:36:31 +0200
From: Chokri BENAMAR <Chokri.BENAMAR@lai1.univ-lyon1.fr>
Subject: Problem of geometry

I'm looking for a program or an algorithm to find the radius and the
center of the circumscribing sphere of a polyedric object. This
polyedric object is caracterised by its vertices. All what i know are
the spatial coordinates ( x,y and z) of these vertices.

Any ideas !
Thank you in advance,

Chokri BEN AMAR
LAI,BAT.303,INSA,20 Avenue A.Einstein
69621 Villeurbanne FRANCE
TEL:(33)72.43.81.98
FAX:(33)72.43.85.35
E-MAIL:benamar@lai1.univ-lyon1.fr

------------------------------

From: mtc@aifh.ed.ac.uk
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 17:21:38 BST
Subject: Range finders - information wanted

	Is anybody aware of a recent survey on range sensors since
	the days of Besl's (Mechine Vision, 1988) and Everett's (Robotics
	and Autonomous Systems, 1989)? 
	Articles listing manufacturers, prices etc would be
	particularly welcome.

	Thanks,
	Manuel

Dr. Emanuele Trucco		             Research Fellow
Dept. of Artificial Intelligence  | Email: mtc@aifh.ed.ac.uk
University of Edinburgh		  | Tel.:    +44 31 650.3087
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh,	  |   (Vision Lab)  650.4504
EH1 2QL,			  | FAX:     +44 31 225.9370
SCOTLAND			  | TELEX:   727442 UNIVED G

------------------------------

Date: 21 Jul 93 07:55:47 GMT
From: barry@concave.cs.wits.ac.za (Barry Vincent Greenan)
Organization: Computer Science, University of the Witwatersrand
Subject: OCR

I am currently doing some research into OCR, specifically in the sub-field
of handwritten numerics, such as those found in ZIP codes, cheques etc.

If anyone could send me some info, or tell me where I could get hold of
some, please do so.

Thanks

Barry Greenan
barry@concave.cs.wits.ac.za

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 93 10:49 PDT
From: wilbur@constitution.ucr.edu (Wilhelm Burger)
Subject: Re: KBVision, KHOROS, and LISP

Several people asked me to summarize the response I received
to my posting in the VISION-LIST digest 12.30:

   >Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 15:53 PDT
   >From: wilbur@constitution.ucr.edu (Wilhelm Burger)
   >Subject: KBVision, KHOROS, and LISP
   >
   >I am faced with the problem of selecting a suitable combination of
   >software tools for two upcoming vision projects that will involve
   >image processing, pattern recognition, and AI-type processing.  Due to
   >this wide range of expected tasks, processing techniques,
   >representation schemes, user preferences,...  the requirements for
   >that environment are quite demanding.  Later reuse of produced code
   >should also be straightforward.
   >
   >KBVision and its LISP-based Knowledge Module appear to be a viable and
   >reasonably open choice, despite the famed user interface and
   >relatively high price tag.
   >
   >KHOROS, on the other hand, is free and has become a de-facto
   >government and industry standard.  Being not familiar with KHOROS, I
   >am seeking answers to the following questions:
   >
   >1. Has anybody used LISP (which I consider essential for AI-type
   >   processing) in combination with KHOROS? Can it be done and
   >   what effort would it be to implement?
   >
   >2. Does KHOROS have any notion of "tokens", i.e., methods
   >   for extraction, visualization, and storage of token sets
   >   or dynamic structures in general? Are there any toolboxes
   >   for this purpose?

;;;---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The above note was  also  posted  on  the  'comp.soft-sys.khoros'
newslist.  Apparently, nobody has used LISP with KHOROS (question
1). Also, the is no notion of 'tokens' or 'token sets'  (question
2) in KHOROS and I there do not seem to be any such toolboxes ei-
ther.  KHOROS is probably a good tool for signal and  image  pro-
cessing, where relatively simple control and data flow structures
are sufficient.  Currently, KHOROS supports only regular,  image-
type  data  structures.   There is no support for non-homogeneous
and dynamic (in size) data, as they are frequently encountered in
vision problems. Also, the advance summary of KHOROS 2.0 does not
give any indication that efforts are being made  in  that  direc-
tion.

Comparing KHOROS and KBVision as an image processing tool, my
private checklist would include the following items:

  1. extent and quality of the image processing library,
  2. image visualization and inspection facilities,
  3. support for different picture classes
  4. support for image sequences (storage, visualization, processing)
  5. support for token sets (representation, extraction, storage)
  6. support for 3-D images
  7. graphical user interface
  8. integrability with LISP
  9. hardcopy facilities
 10. software engineering support (code generation, debugging,
     documentation, multi-developer)
 11. matureness and reliability
 12. support for distributed computation
 13. supported image file formats
 14. cost and availability


KBVision and KHOROS are largely equivalent with respect  to  most
of  the  above  items.  KHOROS  has probably some advantages with
respect to items 4, 10, 12, and certainly 14.  The  documentation
could probably be improved for both environments. KBVision has an
edge in items 2 and 5.  KBV  also  has  a  clear  advantage  with
respect to 8, due to its LISP-based Knowledge Module.

Khoros is (for now at least) not a vision tool, since  intermedi-
ate  and  high-level  tasks are not supported. However, there are
some attractive features in  KHOROS,  such  as  alternative  data
transport  mechanisms between processes (other than files), which
I consider important.  I am hoping that the  Image  Understanding
Environment  will  provide  us with all these goodies some day in
the future.?


W. Burger
University of California, Riverside
email: wilbur@constitution.ucr.edu


I am including some of the responses below:
;;;---------------------------------------------------------------------------
   >From ele.etsmtl.ca!crevier Tue Jul 13 08:16:56 1993
   >To: wilbur@constitution.ucr.edu
   >Subject: KBVision, KHOROS, and LISP
   >Cc: crevier@ele.etsmtl.ca
   >
   >Further to your enquiry in the VISION-LIST Digest, I have been involved in
   >an AI-related vision project with KHOROS for several months now, and the
   >results are rather disappointing. For one thing, KHOROS is plagued with a
   >substantial number of bugs: the convolution routines for example give
   >erroneous results in the first few columns and rows. We have found that
   >compiling the supplied source code for the KHOROS routines also tended to 
   >result in errors. KHOROS takes up a very large amount of disk space, and it
   >takes a lot of time to learn how to incorporate new code in it, or modify
   >existing code. Execution is extremely slow, and the mechanisms supplied 
   >for controlling program execution are simplistic. Documentation is often
   >poor: in order to find out what the labelling routine "vlabel" did
   >exactly, we've had to print out the source code (even this turned out
   >to be somewhat of a problem, since the KHOROS source directory has a
   >rather cryptic structure). I am not aware of any token toolboxes for
   >KHOROS, but this could be simply because I was otherwise too disappointed
   >with the package to look for any. If you do learn of some, I'd appreciate 
   >if you'd let me know.
   >
   >My overall impression is that KHOROS is trying to be too many things to too
   >many people. If they concentrated on image processing instead of being an 
   >"integrated software development environment," they'd probably do better.
   >My group has recently  purchased KBVision, and we hope to have better luck
   >with this product.
   >
   >Sincerely,
   >Daniel Crevier (crevier@ele.etsmtl.ca)
   >Professor of Electrical Engineering,
   >Ecole de Technologie Superieure,
   >University of Quebec, Montreal, Canada
 ;;;--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   >From mason1.gmu.edu!ahauter Fri Jul 16 09:07:36 1993
   >To: khoros@chama.eece.unm.edu
   >Subject: Re: Khoros vs. KBVision
   >Cc: adepersia@arpa.mil, wilbur@constitution.ucr.edu
   ...
   >>1. Has anybody used LISP (which I consider essential for AI-type
   >>   processing) in combination with KHOROS? Can it be done and
   >>   what effort would it be to implement?
   >
   >    LISP is a wonderful computer language to use because it
   >permits  the scientist to quickly express abstract ideas
   >while ignoring mundane  considerations such as memory
   >allocation and type declaration.  However,  LISP is not
   >considered a development language of choice because it is
   >not  portable.
(I strongly disagree with this comment - Wilbur)
   >                For development usage, C or C++ is
   >frequently considered the  language of choice.  A robust
   >LISP-to-C Translator would give the best of both worlds.  How this can 
   >interface with the Khoros data structures is all together another 
   >question?  
   >
   >>2. Does KHOROS have any notion of "tokens", i.e., methods
   >>   for extraction, visualization, and storage of token sets
   >>   or dynamic structures in general? Are there any toolboxes
   >>   for this purpose?
   >
   >If you mean by "tokens" the data structures to store features extracted 
   >from an image, then Khoros 1.5 is weak in this area.  However, I'm not 
   >equipped to comment if this is being alleviated for 2.0.  Hopefully, 
   >someone can?
   >
   >=========================================================
   >Andrew J. Hauter,  Engineer
   >SAIC	 		Tel:  703-525-0081
   >4001 N. Fairfax Dr.	Internet: ahauter@mason1.gmu.edu
   >Arlington, VA 22203               ahauter@cpms.saic.com
   >=========================================================
;;;---------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1993 16:39:49 GMT
From: dapeng@ee.su.oz.au (Dapeng Tien)
Organization: School of Electrical Engineering, University of Sydney
Subject: Discussion: Ways to intergrate global inf into NN classifier

Generally, after the training, an image classifier (statistical,
rule-based or NN) classifies one object at a time. However, this is not
always the case in  real life. For example, the decision that a
pathologist makes, during cervical smear screening, depends not only on
individual cell objects, but also on the overall cell patterns on a
smear.

I did some research to add some globa information into a statistical
classifier -- by mathematically shifting classification boundaries after
the training.

I think the same thing could also be done to the NN classifiers. For
example, can the weights of the trained NN be shifted (mathematically)
if we know that the next input object is from a suspected bad (or good)
family? Does anyone have any experience in adding global information
into an NN classifier?

Dapeng Tien

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 10:27:35 SST
From: patyhh@nuscc.nus.sg (Yeow Heng Ho Peter (Mr))
Subject: Ph.D. program in Computer Vision/Image Processing

I plan to pursue a Ph.D. degree in the area of computer vision
and image processing. I would like to have suggestions for strong
programs and univeristies in this area. Please email to 
patyhh@nuscc.nus.sg.  Thank you.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 93 11:06:41 WST
From: ragu@iti.gov.sg (S. Ragupathi (MMC))
Subject: Text and Image in documents.

Hi,
  I am looking for info on text and image separation in a document. Have you 
come across any software product on this? If you have any pointers like 
published papers/reports etc., kindly mail me.

Thanks in advance,
Ragu.

Dr. S. Ragupathi,
Information Technology Institute,
Singapore 0511

e-mail: ragu@iti.gov.sg

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 93 15:42:59 EDT
From: Daniel B. Szyld <szyld@euclid.math.temple.edu>
Subject: Congress Hearings on the Future of the Internet

[ This affects all of us. Please register your opinions...
				phil...		]

As many of you may know there is a push to privatize the Internet
and charge per connect time and/or per bit transmitted.
Congress has scheduled hearings on the subject. 
If you have an opinion on the subject, the following message
might be of interest:

 From: Ted Baker <baker@alpha.cs.fsu.edu>
 Subject: on-line congressional hearing on internet
 
 This is an abbreviation of a longer message I received.  I think
 all internet users should probably drop our Congress a line.
 
  --Ted Baker
 
      On July 26 at 9:30AM EDT, the Subcommittee on Telecommunications
 and Finance of the U.S. House of Representatives will hold the first
 Congressional Hearing ever held over a computer network....

      One of the primary points that we are hoping to demonstrate is
 the diversity and size of the Internet.  We have therefore established
 an electronic mail address by which people on the Internet can communicate
 with the Subcommittee before and during the hearing:
 
           congress@town.hall.org
 
      We encourage you to send your comments on what the role of government
 should be in the information age to this address.  Your comments to this
 address will be made part of the public record of the hearing.  Feel free
 to carry on a dialogue with others on a mailing list, cc'ing the e-mail
 address.
 
      Your cards and letters to congress@town.hall.org will help
 demonstrate that there are people who use the Internet as part of their
 personal and professional lives.  We encourage you to send comments on
 the role of government in cyberspace, on what role cyberspace should play
 in government (e.g., whether government data be made available on the
 Internet), on how the Internet should be built and financed, on how you
 use the Internet, and on any other topic you feel is appropriate.  This
 is your chance to show the U.S. Congress that there is a constituency
 that cares about this global infrastructure.
 
      If you would like to communicate with a human being about the
 hearing, you may send your comments and questions to:
 
           hearing-info@town.hall.org

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 93 16:42:59 BST
From: rbf@aifh.ed.ac.uk
Subject: SMART: Call for Visiting Researchers

        SMART: Call for Visiting Researchers

        Circulated to: comp.ai.robotics, pixel, Vision-List@teleos.com

The Commission of the European Communities (CEC) has awarded a
Human Capital and Mobility project grant to a consortium of 13
research organisations. The project is called SMART: Semi-Autonomous
Monitoring and Robotics Technology. This grant allows these organisations
to host visiting researchers for periods of 3 to 12 months (typically 3
months), provided their research interests coincide with the remit of the
project. The purpose of the grant is to help develop collaboration and
exchange of ideas among European researchers interested in this topic.
The project is described in more detail below. 

Several of the 13 partners would like to invite a FEW (e.g. 1-3)
visiting researchers per site from other organisations to work in their
laboratories for 3 to 12 month visits. The period during which the funds may be
used is from May 1993 to May 1995. Researchers may travel at any time
during this period, but applications will be handled first-come/first-served.
The CEC funds will pay for salary, travel, overheads to the host
institution and all expenses during the visit.

Applicants for SMART visiting research grants must be a citizen
from one of the 12 EC member states.
To be eligible for a grant, you must be applying from one of the EC
countries, and that country must be different from the country that you
propose to visit, which must also be an EC country.
    
Applicants should have a minimum of 2 years of post-graduate education
in a relevant area or related work experience. The grant is primarily
intended for the development of younger researchers, but no age
restrictions are applicable.

If you or one of your colleagues/staff are interested in applying for
a research visit, please look at the list of organisations below and
identify one whose research interests are compatible with yours. You
should then make contact with the designated person in the chosen
organisation directly. Do not contact me unless you wish to be a visitor
in my laboratory.

Bob Fisher

================================================================

SMART: Semi-Autonomous Monitoring and Robotics Technology

The SMART network addresses the development of human resources for the
technologies of monitoring and surveillance, autonomous robotics and
teleoperation.   The combination of these technologies is crucial to the
development of applications in automation.   Network partners include
public research laboratories and small enterprises working on
applications in the areas of manipulation and monitoring of hazardous
materials security surveillance, civil works, and underwater robotics.
The network makes possible technology transfer and training of staff about
recent innovations in the areas of monitoring surveillance, autonomous robotics
and teleoperation.   In the area of monitoring and surveillance, advances
in computing technology and robotic camera heads have made possible real
time systems for robust detection and tracking of objects and activities
in complex environment.   Similar advances are occurring in other areas
of visual and non-visual sensing.   In the area of autonomous robotics,
task level planning and execution have recently been demonstrated in
prototype systems.   More widespread application of these techniques
requires real time sensing abilities similar to those developed for
monitoring and surveillance.   Technologies for teleoperation and
telesurveillance have continued to progress due to advances in
ergonomics, refinements in the electromechanical components, and
increasing use of autonomy for low level control.   Adaptation of action
level autonomy and binocular camera heads offer improvements in
robustness and ease of use and teleoperated systems.   Recent progress
in these three technologies offers the possibility of synergistic
combinations which may further accelerate technology development.

================================================================
Organisations looking for visiting researchers    
================================================================
Institution: 
        Commission of the European Communities, Joint Research Centre
        21020 Ispra (VA), ITALY
        70 Km North of Milan

Research Interests:
        * Vision based navigation of a vehicle inside a quasi structured environment.
        * 3D environment modelling and description based on range data.

Contact Person:
        Dr. Joao Goncalves
        email: joao.goncalves@cen.jrc.it
        tel: 39 + 332 + 789 416
        fax: 39 + 332 + 789 185

================================================================
Institution:    
        Tecnopolis Csata Novus Ortus
        Robotics and Automation Dept.
        Str Prov. per Casamassima km 3
	70010 Valenzano(BA)
	Italy

Research interests:
        * Developing of opto-motor reflexes for autonomous navigation 
                behaviours of mobile platforms operating in real time.
        * Advanced MMI for teleoperation.

Contact Person :
        Dr. Piero Cosoli
        email  : cosoli@rob.csata.it
        fax    : +39-80-8770 247
================================================================
Institution:    
	Scuola Superiore S. Anna
	ARTS Lab (Advanced Robotics Technologies and Systems 
	Laboratory)
	via Carducci, 40
	57127 Pisa, Italy

Research interests:
	navigation, orientation (visual servoing), tactile flow,
	sensorimotor integration (in general: artificial perception 
	- tactile, visual, proximity, fusion)

Contact Person:
        Prof. Paolo Dario
	email: dario@arts.sssup.it
	tel: +39-50-559207/560108
	fax: +39-50-559215
================================================================
Institution:
        School of Computer Studies
        University of Leeds
        Woodhouse Lane
	Leeds LS2 9JT
	UK        

Research interests:
        Computer vision, especially motion analysis, event detection, and
        application to surveillance and virtual reality.

Contact Person:
        Prof. David Hogg
        email:  dch@scs.leeds.ac.uk
        fax:  +44-532-335468
        tel:  +44-532-335765
================================================================
Institution:
        Computer Vision Group, 
	Dept. of Computer Science, 
	Trinity College,
        University of Dublin,
	Dublin 2.

Contact Person:
        Dr. Ken Dawson
	email: Kenneth.Dawson@cs.tcd.ie
	fax: +353-1-6772204

Research interests:
        1.  Monitoring (e.g. in the security industry), concentrating
	in particular on the roles of attention and modelling, with a 
        pressing need for the development of a complex pan-tilt head
	arrangement.
        2.  Autonomous robotics considering obstacle avoidance, visual
	and sonar data fusion, and subsumption architectures, with a
	pressing need for the development of a reliable mobile platform.
================================================================
Institution:
        Dept. of Artificial Intelligence
	Univ. of Edinburgh
        5 Forrest Hill
	Edinburgh EH1 2QL
	United Kingdom

Contact Person:
        Dr. Robert Fisher
	email: rbf@aifh.edinburgh.ac.uk
        fax: (44)-31-225-9370 

Research interests:
        range data interpretation, surface shape description, 3D object
	recognition and location, surface inspection
================================================================
Institution:
        Dept of Computer Science
	Reading University
        PO Box 225
	Whiteknights
	Reading, UK

Contact Person:
        Dr. Geoff Sullivan
	email: g.sullivan@reading.ac.uk
	FAX (+44) 734 751994

Research interests:
        Model-based methods for traffic analysis and surveillance.
        Pose recovery and tracking of known objects in 3D from single cameras.
        Control of foveal attention in wide-field images.
        Mobile robots in known (modelled) scenes.
================================================================
Institution:
        AITEK Srl
        Via Pisa 12/1
        16146 Genova Italy

Contact Person:
        Dr. Fabrizio Ferrari
        Tel. +39 - 10 - 315180
        Fax  +39 - 10 - 314873
        email: stress@aitek.it        

Research interests:
        Vision Based Navigation
        Monitoring and Surveillance
================================================================
Institution:
        Dipartimento di Informatica Sistemistica e Telematica (DIST)
	University of Genova
        via Opera Pia 11/A
        16146 Genova ITALY
        
Contact Person:
        Prof. Giulio Sandini
        Tel: +39 10 3532779
        Fax: +39 10 3532948
        email: giulio@dist.dist.unige.it

Research interests:
        Motion Based Segmentation and Navigation
        Optical Flow
        Vision Based Navigation
================================================================
Institution:
        Institute of Systems and Robotics
        Largo Marques de Pombal
        Dept. of Electrical Engineering
        University of Coimbra
        3000 Coimbra
        
Contact Person:
        Prof. Helder Araujo
        Phone: +351-39-36175
        Fax: +351-39-35672
        email: helder@uc.pt


Research interests:
        Multiocular stereovision systems,development and control of active
        vision heads, sensor integration, vision-based navigation
                
       
================================================================
Institution:
        Institute of Systems and Robotics
	CAPS/Complexo 1
	Instituto Superior Technico
        Av Rovisco Pais
        1096 Lisboa 
	Portugal 

Contact person:
        Prof. Helder Araujo
        Phone: +351-39-36175
        Fax: +351-39-35672
        email: helder@uc.pt
        
Research interests:
        Underwater mobile robotics, development and control of active
        vision heads, stereo vision, depth from motion algorithms,
        visual-based navigation, qualitative vision.
                        

------------------------------

From: Adrian F Clark <alien@essex.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 19:04:56 +0100
Subject: Email list on Very Low Bit-rate Video

		 Announcing a moderated email list on

		  VLBV  --  Very Low Bit-rate Video

The purpose of this mailing list is to provide an international forum
for the discussion of coding techniques being developed for MPEG-4 and
beyond.  Applications include videophones, multimedia electronic mail,
remote sensing, electronic newspapers, interactive multimedia
databases, multimedia videotex, games, interactive computer imagery,
multimedia annotation, and communication aids for deaf people.
Contributions are invited on model-based, object-oriented,
feature-based, wavelet, fractal, vector-quantization and other video
and audio-visual coding methods that promise improved performance at
very low bit rates compared with CCITT H.261 and ISO 11172.  The term
"very low bit rate" implies a range of 4.8--64 kbit/s for moving
images.

The VLBV list is coordinated with the International Workshop on Coding
Techniques for Very Low Bit-rate Video.

   Submissions:   vlbv@essex.ac.uk

To register for the list, send an email message to
vlbv-request@essex.ac.uk with the body of the message containing:

  subscribe firstname lastname

where firstname and lastname are your given name and surname
respectively.

 Dr Adrian F. Clark                                   JANET: alien@uk.ac.essex
 INTERNET: alien%uk.ac.essex@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk          FAX: (+44) 206-872900
 BITNET: alien%uk.ac.essex@ac.uk              PHONE: (+44) 206-872432 (direct)
 Dept ESE, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex, C04 3SQ, UK.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 26 Jul 93 19:05:25 +0100
From: Adrian F Clark <alien@essex.ac.uk>
Subject: International Workshop on Very Low Bit-rate Video

#     # #       ######  #     #  #####  #
#     # #       #     # #     # #     # #    #
#     # #       #     # #     # #     # #    #           International Workshop
#     # #       ######  #     #  ###### #    #
 #   #  #       #     #  #   #        # #######            on Coding Techniques
  # #   #       #     #   # #   #     #      #
  # #   #       #     #   # #   #     #      #      for Very Low Bit-rate Video
   #    ####### ######     #     #####       #

			   7--8 April 1994
		 University of Essex, Colchester, UK

			   CALL FOR PAPERS

The purpose of this workshop is to provide  an international forum for
the discussion  of coding  techniques being developed  for  MPEG-4 and
beyond.  Applications include videophones, multimedia electronic mail,
remote  sensing,   electronic   newspapers,   interactive   multimedia
databases, multimedia videotex,  games,  interactive computer imagery,
multimedia annotation, and communication aids for deaf people.  Papers
are  invited on model-based,  object-oriented, feature-based, wavelet,
fractal, vector-quantization  and other video and audio-visual  coding
methods  that  promise  improved performance  at very  low  bit  rates
compared with CCITT H.261 and ISO 11172.  The term "very low bit rate"
implies a range of 4.8--64 kbit/s for moving images.


INTERNATIONAL STEERING COMMITTEE

Don Pearson  (University of Essex, UK) (Chairman)
Leonardo Chiariglione  (CSELT, Italy)
Robert Forchheimer  (University of Linkoping, Sweden)
Yoshinori Hatori  (KDD, Japan)
Barry Haskell  (AT\&T Bell Laboratories, USA)
Thomas Huang  (University of Illinois, USA)
Murat Kunt  (EPFL, Switzerland)
Andrew Lippman  (MIT, USA)
Hans Musmann  (University of Hannover, Germany)
Richard Nicol  (British Telecom Laboratories, UK)
John Robinson  (University of Waterloo, Canada)
Yasuhiko Yasuda  (Waseda University, Japan)


SUBMISSION PROCEDURE

Prospective  contributors  are invited to  submit for consideration  a
summary of at least 2 pages and not  more  than  4 pages to  Mrs Lynne
Murrell at  the  address below.   Submissions will  be  refereed, with
preference being given to those containing explicit coding results.

  Mrs Lynne Murrell
  VLBV94
  Department of Electronic Systems Engineering
  University of Essex
  Colchester CO4 3SQ
  United Kingdom
  Tel: +44 206 872418
  Fax: +44 206 872900
  Email: vlbv94@essex.ac.uk


SCHEDULE FOR SUBMISSIONS

18 Oct 1993    Summary due
 5 Jan 1994    Notifications of acceptance mailed
21 Feb 1994    Deadline for optional updated summary


REGISTRATION OF INTEREST

If you wish to receive  further information about the workshop, please
complete and return the following form.



		 VLBV94 --- REGISTRATION OF INTEREST
			   7--8 April 1994
		 University of Essex, Colchester, UK

If  you  are  interested in  attending  the International  Workshop on
Coding Techniques for Very Low Bit-rate Video,  please EITHER complete
and  return  this  form  to  the  address  shown  below  OR  send  the
information  by  email  to  the  address  below.   Please  return  the
information  as soon as possible,  and  no later than 1-Sep-1993.   (A
PostScript  version of this form  is  available  by anonymous FTP from
peipa.essex.ac.uk in directory pub/vlbv94.)

  Mrs Lynne Murrell
  VLBV94
  Department of Electronic Systems Engineering
  University of Essex
  Colchester CO4 3SQ
  United Kingdom
  Tel: +44 206 872418
  Fax: +44 206 872900
  Email: vlbv94@essex.ac.uk

Title .  . . . .  Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Country  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Telephone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fax . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Email address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I intend to submit a paper (yes/no). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I intend to participate only (yes/no). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1993 11:53:14 UTC+0100
From: Miquel Barcelo <blo@lsi.upc.es>
Subject: STSF'94 Workshop

Friends,

	You will find here the CALL OF PAPERS of a new Workshop on 
		SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY THROUGH SCIENCE FICTION
to be held next summer in Barcelona, Spain (22nd and 23rd, June 1994).

	This will be the first edition of such a Workshop so, if you know
more people that could be interested, please help in making this 
information available just forwarding this message.

	If you need more information, please feel free to ask to:
			 blo@lsi.upc.es

	Yours,
                                   Miquel Barcels
                                   
                                   
                First Announcement and CALL FOR PAPERS
                                   
                               STSF '94
                                   
                     An International Workshop on
        SCIENCE   and   TECHNOLOGY through   SCIENCE  FICTION
                                   
             22nd-23rd  June 1994   -   BARCELONA (Spain)
                                   

Organized by:

     CONSELL SOCIAL (Board of Trustees)
          of Universitat Polithcnica de Catalunya   (UPC)

in cooperation with:

     Software Department (UPC)
     Physics and Nuclear Engineering Department (UPC)
     WORLD SF (Hispanic Chapter)


THE WORKSHOP

     A good  working definition of science fiction is "speculative ex-
trapolation about  the effect  of science  and technology on society".
The aim of this International Workshop is to provide a forum for iden-
tifying, encouraging  and discussing  research about science and tech-
nology, or  their consequences,  as portrayed  in science fiction. The
Workshop will  bring together  researchers, scientists, and other aca-
demics with science fiction professionals to share information and ex-
plore new  ideas  about  the  relationship  between  science  fiction,
science and technology.


TOPICS OF INTEREST
     The topics of interest include but are not limited to:
          -  Biotechnology, genetic engineering
          -  Computer science, robotics, artificial intelligence
          -  Macroengineering
          -  Nanotechnology
          -  Physics, astronomy, cosmology
          -  Professional activity of scientists and engineers
          -  Social impact of science and technology
          -  Teaching science and technology with science fiction


PROGRAM  COMMITTEE

     * Miquel Barcels (Software Dept., UPC, SPAIN)
     * Joe Haldeman (SFWA president, M.I.T. Associate Professor, USA)
     * Elizabeth A. Hull (SFRA past-president, USA)
     * Frederik Pohl (SFWA and WSF past-president, USA)
     * Vernor Vinge (Dept. of Math Sciences, SDSU, USA)
     

ORGANIZING   COMMITTEE

     * Miquel Barcels (Software Dept., UPC)
     * Laura Cabarrocas (Board of Trustees (secr.), UPC)
     * Gay Haldeman (Writing Program, M.I.T.,USA)
     * Pedro Jorge (Hispanic Chapter of WORLD SF)
     * Jordi Josi (Physics and Nuclear Engineering Dept., UPC)
     * Louis Lemkow (Sociology Dept., UAB)
     * Manel Moreno (Physics and Nuclear Engineering Dept., UPC)
     

INSTRUCTIONS  TO  AUTHORS

Paper submissions must be in English and no more than 6000 words long.
     The Proceedings  of the Workshop will be published by the organi-
     zing institution.
Authors   are requested  to   submit a "Letter of Intention" with  the
     title of  the paper and a short abstract (less than one page) be-
     fore November 30, 1993.
Authors must  submit five  copies of  each paper,  before January  31,
     1994, to the:

Program Chairperson:
                    Miquel  Barcels
                              Facultat d'Inform`tica
                              Universitat Polithcnica de Catalunya
                              Pau Gargallo, 5
                              E 08028 BARCELONA  (Spain)
                                   Tel:   34.3.401.6958
                                   Fax:   34.3.401.7113
                                   E-mail: blo@lsi.upc.es


IMPORTANT   DATES
     
     * Deadline  for Letter  of Intention:   November 30, 1993
     * Deadline for Paper Submission:        January 31, 1994
     * Notification  of Acceptance:          March 15, 1994
     * Camera Ready Papers Due:              April 30, 1994
     * Workshop:                             June, 22-23, 1994

------------------------------

End of VISION-LIST digest 12.33
************************
