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Simon A. J. Winder
Microsoft Research
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
Tel: 425 703-9497
Fax: 425 706-7329
swinder@microsoft.com
About Me
I'm involved with the
Interactive Visual Media group at Microsoft Research. My work focusses on low level image recognition,
e.g. methods to extract
interest points and to describe local image features for matching and classification. Our group explores novel
technologies that have
application in the consumer video or photography market.
Previous Work
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Panoramic Stitching. We developed a fully automatic tool for stitching together many photographs taken from
the same location to make a large panorama.
This requires no manual effort because it matches all the images automatically and blends them
onto a spherical projection. Our code was shipped in
Windows Live Photo Gallery.
Examples form my trip to alaska are shown here:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
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Real-Time Frame Interpolation for Video Smoothing. I developed the algorithm that is currently used
in Windows Media Player Version 9 for "Video Smoothing". This improves the user experience when watching low bit-rate
on-line video by increasing the frame rate at the client so that the player displays a higher frame rate than the
actual source video. The algorithm "invents" new video frames by computing a detailed motion analysis of the source
and by using this information to warp the positions of objects to create intermediate frames. This requires very
fast and accurate optical-flow estimation. |
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High Dynamic-Range Video. We developed a method to produce high dynamic range
video by rapidly alternating the exposure on a video camera and we also used a similar technique to stitch together
photographs of a scene taken with different exposures where there was camera and scene motion. This required the use of accurate motion estimation and image registration
techniques, taking into account the existence of over and under-exposed regions. The final results were
rendered using a tone mapping algorithm. |
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Interactive Exploration of Environments. We used a PointGrey LadyBug camera head to capture real environments
and turned these into real-time virtual tours by putting together a number of technologies developed in our group, including
the off-line generation of high dynamic-range video. I developed a fast on-demand panoramic compression scheme to
reduce the storage and data-rate requirements for interactive playback. (Demo video) |
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Interactive "Bullet-Time" 3D Video.We used a number of video cameras to simultaneously capture some interesting action
and we developed algorithms to allow synthetic viewopoints to be generated on the fly during a real-time user interaction
session. Our results are of an extremely high quality. I developed a compression scheme which codes a layered representation
of stereo data suitable for realtime playback and rendering. (Demo video) |
Primary Interests
- Interest points and feature-based representations of images
- Machine learning
- Computational neuroscience of natural vision
- Robotics and control systems
- Cosmology and quantum mechanics
Publications
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J. Fogarty, D. Tan, A. Kapoor and S. Winder. CueFlik: Interactive Concept Learning in Image Search.
ACM CHI Florence, Italy, April 2008 (pdf).
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G. Hua, M. Brown and S. Winder. Discriminant Embedding for Local Image Descriptors.
International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV2007) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 2007 (pdf).
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S. A. J. Winder and M. Brown. Learning Local Image Descriptors.
IEEE Computer Society Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Minneapolis, MN, June 2007 (pdf,
supplementarty material).
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M. Brown, R. Szeliski and S. Winder. Multi-Image Matching using Multi-Scale
Oriented Patches. IEEE Computer Society Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
San Diego, CA, June 2005, vol. 1, pp. 510-517.
(pdf)
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C.L. Zitnick, S. B. Kang, M. Uyttendaele, S. Winder, and R. Szeliski.
High-Quality Video View Interpolation Using a Layered
Representation. ACM SIGGRAPH and ACM Transactions on Graphics Aug. 2004, pp. 600-608.
(pdf)
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M. Uyttendaele, A. Criminisi, S. B. Kang, S. Winder, R. Hartley, and R. Szeliski.
High-quality Image-based Interactive Exploration of Real-World Environments.
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 24(3):52-63, May/June 2004.
(pdf)
(Technical Report, MSR-TR-2003-61,
Microsoft Research, Oct 2003.)
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S. B. Kang, M. Uyttendaele, S. Winder, and R. Szeliski.
High Dynamic Range Video.
ACM SIGGRAPH and ACM Transactions on Graphics
22(3):319-325, July 2003. (pdf)
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S. A. J. Winder.
Simulation of Retinal Contrast Gain Control Mechanisms. In Bower, J.M. (Editor) (1996)
Computational Neuroscience: Trends in Research 1995.
Academic Press, New York (pdf)
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S. A. J. Winder.
Including Contrast Gain Control in a Parallel Simulation of the Visual Cortex.
In Bower, J.M. (Editor) (1996) Computational Neuroscience: Trends in Research 1995.
Academic Press, New York (pdf)
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S. A. J. Winder.
A model for biological winner-take-all neural competition employing inhibitory modulation of
NMDA-mediated exhitatory gain. Neurocomputing, 26-27, 1999, 587-592
(pdf)
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N. E. O'Connor and S. A. J. Winder.
Current Developments in MPEG-4 Video. Proc. First Advanced Digital Video Compression Engineering
Conference, 89-96. Presented at ADVICE‘96, Jesus College Cambridge, July 8-11, 1996.
(pdf)
Unpublished
- A Brief Survey of Central Mechanisms in Primate Visual Perception. - June 2002, S. A. J. Winder.
(pdf)
- From Cones to Contours - A Parallel Simulation of Neural Mechanisms in the Primate Vision System.
- June 1995, S. A. J. Winder, PhD Thesis, School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Bath, England.
(pdf)
- Computer Simulation of Interactions Responsible for Length and Width Tuning in the Striate Cortex.
Presented at AVA’96, University of Reading, UK, April 1-3, 1996. - S. A. J. Winder.
(pdf)
Some other random things...
My art and science blog
My mother is an artist and you can find her web site here
I was in a team that built a novel electric vehicle known as the "dogdish" or "gravity bowl"
Particle physics and cosmology
Some experiments with the trifocal tensor
Simulation of
lens flare and the optical properties of the eye
Fun with high voltages!
The ImgStar 1.1 home page
Last modified 17/11/2005
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