VASC Seminar
Luca Weihs
Research Manager
Allen Institute for AI

Imitating Shortest Paths in Simulation Enables Effective Navigation and Manipulation in the Real World

Newell-Simon Hall 3305

Abstract: We show that imitating shortest-path planners in simulation produces Stretch RE-1 robotic agents that, given language instructions, can proficiently navigate, explore, and manipulate objects in both simulation and in the real world using only RGB sensors (no depth maps or GPS coordinates). This surprising result is enabled by our end-to-end, transformer-based, SPOC architecture, powerful [...]

VASC Seminar
Vishnu Lokhande
Assistant Professor
University at Buffalo, SUNY

Creating robust deep learning models involves effectively managing nuisance variables

Newell-Simon Hall 3305

Abstract: Over the past decade, we have witnessed significant advances in capabilities of deep neural network models in vision and machine learning. However, issues related to bias, discrimination, and fairness in general, have received a great deal of negative attention (e.g., mistakes in surveillance and animal-human confusion of vision models). But bias in AI models [...]

VASC Seminar
Mohit Gupta
Associate Professor
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Shedding Light on 3D Cameras

Newell-Simon Hall 3305

Abstract: The advent (and commoditization) of low-cost 3D cameras is revolutionizing many application domains, including robotics, autonomous navigation, human computer interfaces, and recently even consumer devices such as cell-phones. Most modern 3D cameras (e.g., LiDAR) are active; they consist of a light source that emits coded light into the scene, i.e., its intensity is modulated over [...]

VASC Seminar
Ilya Chugunov
PhD Candidate
Computational Imaging Lab, Princeton University

Neural Field Representations of Mobile Computational Photography

Newell-Simon Hall 3305

Abstract: Burst imaging pipelines allow cellphones to compensate for less-than-ideal optical and sensor hardware by computationally merging multiple lower-quality images into a single high-quality output. The main challenge for these pipelines is compensating for pixel motion, estimating how to align and merge measurements across time while the user's natural hand tremor involuntarily shakes the camera. In [...]

VASC Seminar
Mian Wei
PhD Candidate
University of Toronto

Passive Ultra-Wideband Single-Photon Imaging

3305 Newell-Simon Hall

Abstract: High-speed light sources, fast cameras, and depth sensors have made it possible to image dynamic phenomena occurring in ever smaller time intervals with the help of actively-controlled light sources and synchronization. Unfortunately, while these techniques do capture ultrafast events, they cannot simultaneously capture slower ones too. I will discuss our recent work on passive ultra-wideband [...]

VASC Seminar
Angela Dai
Associate Professor
The Technical University Munich

From Understanding to Interacting with the 3D World

1305 Newell Simon Hall

Abstract: Understanding the 3D structure of real-world environments is a fundamental challenge in machine perception, critical for applications spanning robotic navigation, content creation, and mixed reality scenarios. In recent years, machine learning has undergone rapid advancements; however, in the 3D domain, such data-driven learning is often very challenging under limited 3D/4D data availability. In this talk, [...]

VASC Seminar
Wolfgang Heidrich
Professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering
KAUST Visual Computing Center

Learned Imaging Systems

Newell-Simon Hall 4305

Abstract: Computational imaging systems are based on the joint design of optics and associated image reconstruction algorithms. Of particular interest in recent years has been the development of end-to-end learned “Deep Optics” systems that use differentiable optical simulation in combination with backpropagation to simultaneously learn optical design and deep network post-processing for applications such as hyperspectral [...]

VASC Seminar
Nataniel Ruiz
Research Scientist
Google

Unlocking Magic: Personalization of Diffusion Models for Novel Applications

3305 Newell-Simon Hall

Abstract: Since the recent advent of text-to-image diffusion models for high-quality realistic image generation, a plethora of creative applications have suddenly become within reach. I will present my work at Google where I have attempted to unlock magical applications by proposing simple techniques that act on these large text-to-image diffusion models. Particularly, a large class of [...]

VASC Seminar
Yingsi Qin
PhD Candidate
Carnegie Mellon University

Instant Visual 3D Worlds Through Split-Lohmann Displays

3305 Newell-Simon Hall

Abstract: Split-Lohmann displays provide a novel approach to creating instant visual 3D worlds that support realistic eye accommodation. Unlike commercially available VR headsets that show content at a fixed depth, the proposed display can optically place each pixel region to a different depth, instantly creating eye-tracking-free 3D worlds without using time-multiplexing. This enables real-time streaming [...]