Symposium and Workshop on High Dynamic Range Imaging

Ricardo Motta is Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Vice President of Imaging Systems for Pixim Inc, a fabless semiconductor company based in Mountain View, CA. Ricardo joined the company in 2000 as its first executive and led the development of the company's core technology, including high-dynamic range video sensors and companion DSPs. He assembled a world class team that developed the architecture, image pipeline, key algorithms, simulations and characterization of the product, delivering the world's first HDR video chipset, which has been widely acclaimed for its image quality.  Prior to Pixim, Ricardo was Chief Imaging Architect of the Imaging and Printing Group at HP, where he led R&D initiatives in digital imaging products and standards. Beginning in 1987 at HP Labs, Ricardo made key technical contributions in the area of computational color imaging, having developed the first colorimetric based imaging pipelines using 3D LUT and modeling, enabling HP's entry and eventual dominance in the desktop color products market (PaintJet, DeskJet, LaserJet, etc), and the foundation work for digital photography architectures, including sRGB.  Ricardo grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were he worked in commercial photography and motion pictures before attending the Photographic and Imaging Science program at RIT. An avid cyclist, Ricardo can be easily spotted on the many climbs around the bay area.

Boyd Fowler was born in California in 1965. He received his M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University in 1990 and 1995 respectively. After finishing his Ph.D. he stayed at Stanford University as a research associate in the Electrical Engineering Information Systems Laboratory until 1998. In 1998 he founded Pixel Devices International in Sunnyvale California. Presently he is CTO and VP of Technology at Fairchild Imaging. He has authored numerous technical papers and patents. His current research interests include CMOS image sensors, low noise image sensors, noise analysis, and data compression.

Tim Drabik received B.S. degrees in EE and in mathematics in 1981 from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and then joined the Advanced Switching Technology Laboratory at AT&T Bell Labs.  He received a M.S. in EE from Georgia Tech in 1982 and received his Ph.D. in EE from Georgia Tech in 1990.  From 1990 to 2001, he was appointed to the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, where he conducted research in microdisplays, device-scale integration of III-V optoelectronic devices with silicon VLSI, advanced packaging, smart pixel arrays, neural analog computing, optical interconnection of high-performance digital systems, microoptics technologies, subwavelength diffractive optics, and nanolithography.  He also delivered courses and pursued research program development at Georgia Tech Lorraine, the French campus of Georgia Tech.  From 1999 to 2001, he was a Visiting Associate Professor in the EE Department at Stanford University, and from 2001 to 2009 has held consulting appointments in EE.   Since 2002 he has devoted much of his time to both technical and litigation support consulting in the areas of display technologies, optical telecommunications, high-performance computing, optical interconnect technologies, optical storage, signal processing, and digital systems.  He has undertaken R&D activity with Displaytech, Inc., Sun Microsystems Laboratories, NASA JPL, Siemens Corporate Research, Silicon Valley telecom startups, and has been an expert reviewer for research programs sponsored by the European Union.

As Dolby Laboratories’ Director of HDR Technology, Helge Seetzen is responsible for HDR-related licensing engineering and research groups in California as well as Canada. Prior to joining Dolby, he co-founded BrightSide Technologies Inc. in 2002 to commercialize high dynamic range imaging technology developed at the University of British Columbia. As the Chief Technology Officer of BrightSide, he led the growth of the company to over 30 engineers and ultimately the successful sale to Dolby Labs in 2007 at a high return to shareholders. Helge is an active member of several scientific organizations including serving as the Program Chair for the 2010 annual symposium of the Society for Information Display. He received his B.Sc. (Physics, 2003) and PhD (Physics & Computer Science, 2009) from the University of British Columbia.

Associate Professor Wolfgang Heidrich holds the Dolby Research Chair in Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. He received a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Erlangen in 1999, and then worked as a Research Associate in the Computer Graphics Group of the Max-Planck-Institute for Computer Science in Saarbrucken, Germany, before joining UBC in 2000. Heidrich's research interests lie at the intersection of computer graphics, computer vision, imaging, and optics. In particular, he has worked on High Dynamic Range imaging and display, image-based modeling, measuring, and rendering, geometry acquisition, GPU-based rendering, and global illumination. Heidrich has written over 80 refereed publications on these subjects and has served on numerous program committees. He was the program co-chair for Graphics Hardware 2002, Graphics Interface 2004, and the Eurographics Symposium on Rendering, 2006.

Scott Daly received a B.S.E.E degree in 1980 from North Carolina State University, and then worked with early high-resolution laser scanning systems at Photo Electronics Corporation in Florida.  Shifting from hardware to wetware, he obtained an M.S. in Bioengineering from the University of Utah in 1984 where he was engaged in retinal neurophysiology, completing a thesis on the temporal information processing of cone photoreceptors. He then worked from 1985 to 1996 at Eastman Kodak in the fields of image compression, image fidelity modeling, and digital watermarking. Currently as a research fellow and leader of the Center for Displayed Appearance at Sharp Laboratories of America, he is now applying visual models towards digital video and displays.  He is associate editor of the applied vision section of SPIE’s Journal of Electronic Imaging, has been a co-chair of the Human Vision and Electronic Imaging section and is now a committee member there as well as the Color section of SPIE’s Electronic Imaging Conference.  He is currently a member of IEEE, SPIE, and SID. His career highlights include a Best Visual award (1978), NEA grant (1984), Emmy (technical category, 1990), Kodak Mees Award (1994, for the VDP project), SPIE Medical Imaging poster award (1995), Sharp corporation excellence award (2004), and SID distinguished paper award (2006).   

Michael F. Cohen is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research which he joined in 1994 from Princeton University where he served on the faculty of Computer Science. He is also an Affiliate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. Michael received The 1998 SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award for his contributions to the Radiosity method for image synthesis. Dr. Cohen also served as paper's chair for SIGGRAPH '98.  Michael received his Ph.D. in 1992 from the University of Utah. He also holds undergraduate degrees in Art and Civil Engineering from Beloit College and Rutgers University respectively, and an M.S. in Computer Graphics from Cornell. Dr. Cohen also served on the Architecture faculty at Cornell University and was an adjunct faculty member at the University of Utah. For the past decade Michael has work primarily on Image Based Rendering (IBR) and Computational Photography research. In 1996, he co-authored The Lumigraph which along with The Lightfield work from Stanford set the stage for subsequent IBR work. Recent work in computational photography has ranged from creating new methods for low bandwidth teleconferencing, segmentation and matting of images and video, technologies for combining a set of "image stacks" as a Photomontage , to the creation of very high resolution panoramas, and HD View, a technology for interactive exploration of high dynamic range gigapixel scale images.

Manu Parmar is a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University where he is affiliated with the Center for Image Engineering and the Electrical Engineering Department. He works on problems in color and multispectral imaging. Manu holds the Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Auburn University, AL, and a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from the Government College of Engineering Pune, India. Previously, he held a research position at Xerox Innovation Group where he worked on problems in printing. Manu is a member of the IEEE and SIAM.

Garrett Johnson is a Color Scientist in the Professional Applications division at Apple, in Santa Monica CA, working on products such as Final Cut Pro and Motion. He is also an Affiliate Professor with the Munsell Color Science Laboratory, in the Center for Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He has an M.S. in Color Science and a Ph.D. in Imaging Science, from RIT, where he performed research on models of color and image appearance, image quality, image fidelity, and high-dynamic range imaging. He is currently the chair of the CIE Technical Committee TC8-08 on testing HDR imaging.

Since receiving a BS in CS from UMass Lowell in 1992, Dave Coffin has worked as a UNIX system administrator, BIOS engineer (using Linux!), and release engineer. He is best know for reverse-engineering undocumented raw photo formats and creating the free "dcraw" software to render them into viewable images.  He also created "devoc" by reverse-engineering the VOC audio format used by inexpensive RCA pocket voice recorders.

David Cardinal is the founder of Pro Shooters, which produces the award winning DigitalPro for Windows--software for organizing and managing your digital images--and nikondigital.org, the leading information website for serious digital shooters-with over 100,000 unique visitors each month-as well as DigitalPro Shooter, a leading bi-monthly newsletter for digital photographers with over 15,000 readers. David's background includes many years of technical consulting on topics ranging from digital image management to color digital imaging for both Fortune 500 companies and the US Government. David is also a long-time wildlife photographer who specializes in North American mammals and birds. His work is part of the permanent exhibit at the Lucy Evans Baylands Nature Center and has been featured in exhibitions at the Palo Alto Civic Center, the Seipp, Works and Allegro galleries, the Watsonville Wetlands Nature Center, on calparks.org, andon portolavalley.net. David is co-author with Moose Peterson of The D1 Generation, and has had his articles and images appear in publications including Outdoor Photographer, Studio Photography & Design, Photoshop User, PC Magazine and Dr Dobbs Journal.  

Christian Bloch is a visual effects artist at EdenFX in Hollywood, California. During the ten years of his professional career, he has created effects for the TV shows StarTrek: Enterprise, Lost, 24, and Chuck as well as several feature films and commercials. His work was honored with an Emmy Award and two VES award nominations. He has been a pioneer in the practical application of HDR images in postproduction, specifically under the budgetary and time restraints of TV production. Bloch is the author of the "HDRI Handbook: High Dynamic Range Imaging for Photographers and CG Artists" (RockyNook, 2007). This book is roughly based on his diploma thesis, which was honored with the achievement award of the University of Applied Sciences Leipzig, and then heavily expanded with hands-on tutorials and practical workshops. He also runs HDRLabs.com, which is a buzzing hub of HDR-related collaborative projects. That includes the Open-Source lighting system Smart IBL, the freeware photo editor Picturenaut, as well as a wealth of well-sorted HDR resources and information. HDRLabs is run strictly non-profit, collaborators include the Savannah College of Art & Design and the Media Design School Auckland.

German photographer Uwe Steinmueller came to live and work (with his wife and partner Bettina Steinmueller) in the United States over a decade ago.  Bettina and Uwe concentrate on taking photos for fine art prints (mainly Nature and Urban Landscapes).  Uwe is the owner and editor of Digital Outback Photo (www.outbackphoto.com). One major focus of Outback Photo is the digital workflow and Uwe has authored numerous books about this topic. Since over 3 years HDR is an important element for their photographic work. Uwe has written many articles on how to use HDR for artistic photography. 

Igor Tryndin is a Chief Technology Officer at Unified Color Technologies (UCT), the developer of HDR PhotoStudio. Before joining UCT in 2007, Igor was a senior engineer at NVIDIA for 6 years, developing NVIDIA's system software Resource Manager, which is an internal core for all NVIDIA graphics chips, sometimes referred to as the GPU's Operating System. In November, 2008, Igor won the first place award at SVOD (Silicon Valley Open Doors) investment conference, where his company has been named as the most promising innovative technology company of the year.

Sergey Bezryadin is a Principal Scientist at Unified Color Technologies, the developer of HDR PhotoStudio.  Sergey is the main inventor on over 20 US and international patents that define Unified Color technology, he also authored all company's science publications as well as presented his work at multiple imaging science and technology events. Prior to this endeavor, Sergey was a faculty professor at Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology, where he lectured Physics and worked as a Senior Researcher. Sergey is also a member of CIE TC8-09, an international technical committee on image archiving.

Gerhard Bonnet is one of the founders of SpheronVR AG, Germany. His academic origin is in applied laser physics and holography. The company Spheron started in 1998 on digital panoramic- and later on fully spherical cameras. With this basis, Gerhard pioneered fully spherical HDRi capturing in 2001, initially for pure photographic reasons; he then became attracted by interfacing HDRi capturing devices to computer generated imagery within games-, movie- and the automotive industry. Gerhard also contributed to HDR goniospectrometers, 3D immersive photogrammetry, visual asset management and High Dynamic Range Video.

Philippe Dewost joined imsense, the computer vision technology company, as Chief Executive Officer in May 2009. He holds an MBA from the Collège des Ingénieurs, a Master in Telecommunication from Telecom Paris, and a Master in Physics from the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ULM).  He began his career at Apple Computer where he worked on telephony applications for the Newton platform. He then joined France Telecom Multimedia Division, running a Product Marketing Team, and in 1995 was one of the 5 founders of Wanadoo, the company’s Internet Service Provider.  After a role as VP Business Development with Ukibi, Inc, Philippe returned to Orange France Telecom in June 2003, serving as Vice President Customer Premises Equipment  Before joining imsense Philippe ran Marketing and Business Development for RealEyes 3D a leading provider of camera phone applications and technologies and  launched Qipit, an online mobile copy service.

James A. Peyton is the director of standards and technology for the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A). Mr. Peyton joined I3A, then the National Association of Photographic Manufacturers, in 1996. Prior to joining I3A, Mr. Peyton served as Manager of Standards for the Robotic Industries Association in Ann Arbor, MI. Mr. Peyton has been a frequent contributor to industry journals and publications. He holds a BA from Vanderbilt University and a BS from Lawrence Technical Institute.

Richard F. Lyon received the B.S. degree in engineering and applied science from California Institute of Technology in 1974 and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1975.  He has worked on a variety of projects involving communication and information theory, digital system design, analog and digital signal processing, VLSI design and methodologies, and sensory perception at Caltech, Bell Labs, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Stanford Telecommunications Inc., Xerox PARC, Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, and Apple Computer.  Dick served for 15 years on the Computation and Neural Systems faculty at Caltech, where he worked on sensory modeling research and analog VLSI techniques for signal processing.  He was chief scientist and vice president of research for Foveon, Inc., which he co-founded in 1997, where he led the advanced development of the Foveon X3 color image sensor technology. Dick presently works in Google Research on machine hearing, and leads the team that develops cameras for StreetView and other applications

John McCann began research on human vision at Polaroid while an undergraduate at Harvard. After graduation in 1964, he joined the Vision Research Laboratory fulltime.  He worked in, and later managed, the Vision Research Laboratory at Polaroid until 1996. He has studied human color vision, digital image processing, large format instant photography and the reproduction of fine art. His early work showed that rods act as color receptors, and that Retinex models, using spatial comparisons, calculate  appearances  in HDR scenes. His mentors in HDR imaging were Edwin Land and Ansel Adams.  In 1967, Land and McCann demonstrated an analog electronic device that rendered an HRD scene in a LDR display. Later, with Jon Frankle developed the first multi-resolution (pyramid) algorithm for efficient spatial processing.  He has 120 publications that have studied Retinex theory, color from rod/Lcone interactions at low light levels, appearance with scattered light, and HDR imaging.  He is a Fellow of IS&T. He is a past President of IS&T and the Artists Foundation, Boston. In 1996 he received the SID Certificate of Commendation.  He is the IS&T/OSA 2002 Edwin H. Land Medalist, and IS&T 2005 Honorary Member, and a Fellow of the Optical Society of America.  He is currently consulting and continuing his research on color vision and HDR imaging.  

Howard E. Rhodes earned his B.S., M.S, and Ph.D degrees in Solid State Physics from the University of Illinois, graduating as a James Scholar with High Distinction.  From 1980 to 1988, Dr. Rhodes worked at Kodak Research Labs where he helped develop hydrogenated amorphous silicon photosensors, transparent conductors, micro-lens, and ultra-thin Schottky IR photodetector technology.   From 1988 to 2004, Dr. Rhodes worked for Micron Technology where he was a Principal Fellow, Micron’s highest technical position,  in charge of the development and transfer to production of Micron’s next generation process technologies.  In 2002, Dr. Rhodes was the Director of Imager Engineering where he hired and managed a staff 80 engineers overseeing the development the CMOS Imager process technology at Micron for all of Micron's imager products.  Since October 2004, Dr. Rhodes has been the VP of Process Engineering at Omnivision Technologies.  He leads the R&D development of advanced pixel design and process technologies for Omnivision’s products with TSMC, including overseeing the transfer to mass production.   Dr. Rhodes has over 170 granted patents and 15 publications.  In June of 2005 Dr. Rhodes was awarded the Walter Kosonocky Award

Currently Russel Martin is a Principal Engineer/Manager with Qualcomm MEMS Technology in San Jose, where he directs the Image Quality and Systems Group.  Dr. Martin has been involved in semiconductor and imaging technology for 28 years.  At Foveon, Inc., he was responsible for imager characterization, process technology, image processing and patents.  He has worked on the development of electronics for electrostatic plotters for Versatec, AMLCDs for Xerox PARC and dpiX, and display electronics for Silicon Image and Gyricon Media.  Dr. Martin spent a sabbatical at NASA Ames where he developed computational models of human visual perception of displays.  He has been active in organizing conferences with the IEEE, the SID and the SPIE.  He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics from UC Davis and an A.B. in Physics from UC Berkeley.