2-YEAR POSTDOCTORAL POSITION
Australian Centre for Visual Technologies
University of Adelaide
South Australia

Rapid interactive scene modelling from video

Research areas: Computer Vision, Structure from Motion

The successful applicant will join an established and successful team lead by A/Prof Anton van den Hengel, Dr Anthony Dick, and Prof Philip Torr working on developing methods for rapid interactive scene modelling from video sequences. The position is initially for 2 years and will be available from mid 2008.

Project background: The recovery of 3D models from video has for a number of years been a goal of both the computer vision and graphics communities. In computer vision, several systems have been developed to automatically recover a cloud of 3D scene points from a video sequence. However these are vulnerable to ambiguities in the image data,degeneracies in camera motion, and a lack of discernible features on the model surface. These difficulties can be overcome by manual intervention in the modelling process. In the extreme case, a modelling package such as Blender3D can used to build a model manually, but it is difficult to create a photo-realistic result by this process. A more appealing option is to use all of the information that can be derived from the video using computer vision techniques to inform an interactive modelling process. The question then arises: how should these interactions be implemented so they are (a) intuitive to a non-expert user and (b) powerful and informative to the underlying modelling engine, so that only a small number of interactions are required? See http://www.acvt.com.au/research/videotrace/ for more details.

This is a new position in an expanding international group of researchers. Applicants should have a PhD in a relevant discipline, with a strong background in computer vision, in particular in structure from motion and Bayesian estimation.  Strong coding and mathematical skills are also required. The successful applicant will work as part of a team of researchers within the Australian Centre for Visual Technologies on problems in interactive scene modelling.  International travel, particularly to work with researchers in Oxford, will be funded as part of the package.

Salary: From $77,959 to $98,982 (Australian Dollars) negotiable.

Closing Date: 30 April, 2008.  Further positions may become available, however, so applications may be accepted after this date for those positions.

Informal enquiries and applications may be addressed to A/Prof. A van den Hengel, Computer Science University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5005, Australia or by email to Anton.vandenhengel@adelaide.edu.au