Across the pale parabola of joy...

Research

As you might have noticed this website is not being updated a great deal. This is because the pages are being moved to my new website. The move will be completed, uh, um, eventually.

Current research

My current work is on Markerless Motion Capture. Motion capture methods traditionally use active or passive markers, and there exist applications where it is desirable to do away with markers for a variety of reasons not the least of which is their invasive nature. In particular, biomechanical and clinical applications, where marker-based motion capture is the state-of-the-art technique would benefit greatly from such a system. We have published some work on image-based 3-D tracking as well as pose estimation and human body model estimation from voxels.

Since much of my work has revolved around multi-camera capture I have a fair bit of experience with different multiple capture systems. I have (with James Sherman) designed and built the Hydra project, a portable and scalable multi-camera capture system for human motion analysis.

Projects

I've listed below some of the projects that I have worked on as a graduate student at Maryland including a summer I spent at Honda Research Institute. Some of the information is duplicated in the NSF project page, but this is supposed to be the concise and up-to-date summary.

Model driven human body model estimation in Laplacian Eigenspace

Segmentation in Eigenspace This project has two components. The first is model-driven segmentation in Laplacian Eigenspace. The input abstraction layer is voxels and the neighbourhood relationship of the voxels is used to compute the Laplacian of the adjacency graph. The nodes are then mapped to 6-D Laplacian eigenspace using the eigenvectors corresponding to the smallest non-zero eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix. We show that this transformation maps segments whose lengths are greater than their thicknesses to 1-D curves in eigenspace. We can then fit splines to these 1-D curves and segment them at their joints. The two images on the left correspond to the 6-D eigenspace and we have segmented one segment by fitting a spline. This work was awarded the best student paper in the Computer Vision track at the biennial International Conference on Pattern Recognition, 2006.

Model acquisition The second part of the project is to acquire a set of key frames where the voxels have been segmented and registered using a prior model and a probabilistic registration method. This set of key frames can be used to estimate the human body model in two steps: estimate a skeleton based human body model and joint locations using human body statistics and computed skeleton, and then fit a super-quadric model using the segmented voxels. The images (from left to right) denote the voxels (unsegmented), voxels (segmented), computed skeleton curve and estimated super-quadric skeleton model. Five frames were used to estimate the model.

Articulated 3-D Tracking using shape and motion cues

3D tracking using shape and motion We perform 3D tracking of articulated subjects using both motion and shape cues information in the images obtained from multiple cameras. The motion information used is the computed pixel displacement. The shape information used is both the silhouette information as well as the "motion residue". These cues are complementary and when fused in the tracking algorithm prevent drifting (through use of shape features) and avoid non-optimal local minima (through prediction of motion using optical flow). The two images on the right illustrate the super-quadric model superimposed on the image for two views.

Real-time marker based motion capture to control robots

Real-time marker-based capture The project was with Allen Yang (then at UIUC), James Davis, Hector Gonzalez-Banos and Victor Ng-Thow-Hing at Honda Research Institute. The objective is to retarget motion from a subject wearing markers to different robots such as Asimo. Images were obtained from eight cameras attached to two servers. The server can be controlled over network to capture, calibrate, obtain 2D marker locations and 3D marker locations. The markers are located in real time and their position in space found. The pose is estimated from the markers and the motion is retargetted to the robot. The motion retargetting was done by Allen and Hector.

Human Identification at a Distance (HID)

HMM for Gait Recognition The objective is to obtain methods of representing and recognizing humans in video sequences. We use 2-D binary silhouettes in an HMM framework for modelling gait and human shape. This simple approach enables us to analyse gait and gain an understanding of the problem. We aim to ultimately build 3-D models for human motion. Silhouettes are obtained from the sequence and are used to build an exemplar image-based human shape and gait model using the Baum-Welch algorithm. This HMM model can be used to obtain the identity of an unknown subject by maximising the posterior probability of the model given the sequence. The UMD data is available at HID UMD Database page.

Publications

Book chapters

  • A. Sundaresan, R. Chellappa: "Markerless Motion Capture using Multiple Cameras", Computer Vision for Interactive and Intelligent Environments, (Eds. C. Jaynes and R. Collins), IEEE Press, 2006. [pdf]
  • A. Kale, A. Sundaresan, A. RoyChowdhury, and R. Chellappa: "Gait-Based Human Identification From A Monocular Video Sequence", Handbook on Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision (Eds. C.H.Cheng and P.S.P.Wang), 3rd Ed, World Scientific Publishing Company Pvt. Ltd., 2005.

Journal articles

  • A. Sundaresan, R. Chellappa, "Model driven segmentation and registration of articulating humans in Laplacian Eigenspace", IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (submitted).
  • A. Kale, A. Sundaresan, A. N. Rajagopalan, N. Cuntoor, A. RoyChowdhury, V. Kruger, R. Chellappa, "Identification of Humans Using Gait", IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, July 2004. [pdf]

Conferences

  • A. Sundaresan and R. Chellappa, "Segmentation and Probabilistic Registration of Articulated Body Models", International Conference on Pattern Recognition, Hong Kong, 2006. [Best Student Paper Award in Computer Vision and Image Analysis] [pdf]
  • A. Sundaresan and R. Chellappa, "Acquisition of Articulated Human Body Models using Multiple Cameras", IV Conference on Articulated Motion and Deformable Objects Andratx, Mallorca, Spain, 2006. [pdf] [poster]
  • A. Sundaresan and R. Chellappa, "Multi-camera Tracking of Articulated Human Motion Using Motion and Shape Cues ", Asian Conference on Computer Vision, 2006. [pdf]
  • A. Sundaresan, A. RoyChowdhury, and R. Chellappa, "Multiple View Tracking of Human Motion Modelled by Kinematic Chains", International Conference on Image Processing, 2004. [pdf]
  • A. Sundaresan, A. RoyChowdhury, and R. Chellappa, "A Hidden Markov Model based Framework for Recognition of Humans from Gait Sequences", International Conference on Image Processing, Barcelona, Sep. 2003. [Oral] [pdf]

Workshops and Symposiums

  • L. Mündermann, S. Corazza, A. M. Chaudhari, T. P. Andriacchi, A. Sundaresan, and R. Chellappa, "Measuring human movement for biomechanical applications using markerless motion capture", IS&T/SPIE 18th Annual Symposium: Electronic Imaging, San Jose, California, 2006. [pdf]
  • A. Sundaresan, A. RoyChowdhury, and R. Chellappa, "3D Modelling of Human Motion using Kinematic Chains and Multiple Cameras for Tracking", Eighth International Symposium on the 3-D Analysis of Human Movement, Tampa, Mar-Apr. 2004. [pdf]

Presentations and posters

  • 3D Modelling of Human Motion using Kinematic Chains and Multiple Cameras for Tracking, Eighth International Symposium on the 3-D Analysis of Human Movement, Tampa, Mar-Apr. 2004.
  • Tech 2004 Poster, University of Maryland [pdf]
  • Research Review Day 2003, University of Maryland [poster pdf]

Courses and projects

Courses

  • ENEE620: Random Processes in Communication and Control
  • ENEE624: Advanced Digital Signal Processing
  • ENEE631: Digital Image Processing
  • ENEE621: Estimation and Detection Theory
  • ENEE739Q: Statistical and Neural Pattern Recognition
  • ENEE699: Independent Study - Hidden Markov Models for Gait Recognition
  • ENEE721: Information Theory
  • ENEE663: System Theory
  • ENEE698A: Seminar on Sequential Monte Carlo Methods
  • ENEE739J: Image Understanding
  • CMSC733: Computer Processing of Pictorial Information
  • ENEE698C: Seminar on Numerical Optimization
  • AMSC660: Scientific Computing I
  • ENEE698A: Seminar on Elements of Statistical Learning
  • ENEE799: Masters Thesis Research
  • ENCO098: Co-op Internship
  • ENEE799: Masters Thesis Research
  • STAT700: Mathematical Statistics I
  • ENEE899: PhD Thesis Research
  • KNES152O: Soccer

Projects

  • ENEE 624 Project: Parametric Speech Coding using Linear Prediction
  • ENEE 631 Project: Image Codec
  • ENEE 631 Project: Video Codec and Shot Segmentation of video streams using Wipe detection Techniques
  • ENEE 739Q Project: Classification and Regression using Linear Networks , Multilayer Perceptron Networks, and Radial Basis Functions [pdf]
  • ENEE 698A: Slides from my talk on Approximating and Maximising the Likelihood for a General State-Space Model [pdf]
  • ENEE 739J Project: Edge detection using Marr-Hildreth edge detector and Haralick's edge detector [pdf]
  • ENEE 739J Project: Texture Segmentation using Markov Random Fields [pdf]
  • ENEE 739J Project: Structure from Motion from Multiple Frames using Iterated Extended Kalman Filter [pdf]
  • ENEE 739J Project: Structure from Motion using Factorization [pdf]
  • CMSC 733 Project: Image Mosaicing and Correspondences
  • CMSC 733 Project: Motion Estimation using Stereo and Independent Motion Detection
  • CMSC 733 Project: Video Manipulation, Replacement of Planar background in Images
  • CMSC 733 Study Project: Camera Calibration [pdf]
  • ENEE 698A: Slides from my talk on Model Selection and Assessment [pdf]

Last updated Jul 23, 2008.