Abstract

The focus of this workshop is on all issues related to tracking for mixed and augmented reality applications.

Unlike the tracking sessions of the main conference, this workshop does not require pure novelty of the proposed methods; it rather encourages presentations that concentrate on complete systems and integrated approaches engineered to run in real-world scenarios.

The research fields covered include self-localization using computer vision or other sensing modalities (such as depth cameras, GPS, inertial, etc.) and tracking systems issues (such as system design, calibration, estimation, fusion, etc.). This year's focus is also expanded to research on object detection and semantic scene understanding with relevance to augmented reality.  Implementations on mobile devices and under real-time constraints are also part of the workshop focus. These are issues of core importance for practical augmented reality systems.

Organizer Background

Selim BenHimane is a Computer Vision System Architect at Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, CA. Before joining Intel, Dr. BenHimane was the Head of Research of metaio, a leading Augmented Reality company headquartered in Munich, Germany, where he was developing and managing the team developing the core computer vision algorithms. He studied Electrical Engineering in France and obtained the Postgraduate degree of Engineering systems, Automation and Vision from the National School of Higher Education in Physics, Strasbourg, France in 2002. He received a Ph.D. Degree with the highest distinction from Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Paris (France) in 2006 after a 3­year research on real­time visual tracking and serving at INRIA in France. Dr. BenHimane received the prize of the best Ph.D. in France of the two years 2005 and 2006 in Applied and Innovative Research by the ASTI. Since early 2000's, Selim BenHimane has been working in augmented reality, computer vision, mobile applications, robotics and vision­based control. He authored and co­authored over 50 publications including papers in international conference proceedings, renowned scientific journal, research reports and patents.

Daniel Kurz is heading the Advanced Technology Group at metaio GmbH, a leading Augmented Reality company headquartered in Munich. With his research group, he is working on novel approaches and innovations in the fields of Computer Vision and Augmented Reality. Daniel received a Master of Science (M.Sc.) with honors and a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) from the Bauhaus­Universität Weimar in 2010 and 2006, respectively. Currently, he works on finalizing his dissertation thesis on sensor­aided visual camera localization and tracking for handheld AR to earn a Ph.D. degree from the Technische Universität München. Daniel regularly contributes to ISMAR since 2007 and won the ISMAR Best Poster Award in 2013. He authored and co­authored over 20 papers and patent applications in the area of Computer Vision and Augmented Reality. His research interests are focused on camera localization and tracking but also include other relevant topics in the context of AR, such as computer graphics and human computer interfaces.

Jonathan Ventura is a senior researcher at the Graz University of Technology, in Austria. His research focus is developing computer vision techniques for mobile augmented reality. He is especially interested in vision­based modeling and camera localization. The goal of his work is to enable sophisticated and widely available mobile augmented reality experiences through advanced sensor technology. Dr. Ventura is a native of the central coast of California and earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2012. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from UCSB, as well. He has also worked as a research intern at the Adobe Advanced Technologies Lab in San Jose, CA. He has presented his work at several top international conferences and journals, including ACM SIGGRAPH, IEEE ISMAR, and IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. Joint work with his colleagues at UCSB was awarded the best paper prize from IEEE ISMAR, the premier international augmented reality conference.

Daniel Wagner received his MSc from Vienna University of Technology and his PhD from Graz University of Technology. Daniel is known for pioneering Augmented Reality on mobile phones. During his PhD study he developed the first tracking library running in real­time on PDAs and mobile phones. He created the Invisible Train game, which was shown at several international events including SIGGRAPH, WiredNextFest and the Ars Electronica Festival. He developed the first 6DOF natural feature tracker running in real­time on a mobile phone and designed the multi­platform software stack Studierstube ES. Daniel is an author of over 30 peer reviewed papers published at international conferences and journals. He gave more than 70 talks all around the world to academic and commercial audiences. Daniel was the deputy director of the Christian Doppler Lab at Graz University of Technology until he was hired by Qualcomm in early 2010, we he currently leads a project on developing a robust SLAM solution for mobile phones. 

Harald Wuest is the deputy head of the department Virtual and Augmented Reality at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics (IGD) in Darmstadt. He is leading the development of the computer vision and tracking activities of Fraunhofer IGD’s augmented reality system. In 2004 he received his diploma degree in computer engineering from the University of Mannheim, and has been a research fellow at the Fraunhofer IGD since then. After an academic visit at the Centre of Advanced Media Technology in Singapore in 2007, he received his PhD in computer science from the University of Darmstadt in 2008. His research interest is focused on monocular camera based tracking and sensor fusion for augmented reality applications. He participated in every tracking contest of the ISMAR conferences and tracking challenges of other events and he could lead his team to win the first prize several times.