Monthly Archives: September 2014

The increasing demand for rendering smooth and plausible 3D motion is fueling the development of motion capture (mocap) systems. This new format of high quality 3D motion data has paved its way into animation movies, high-end computer games, biomechanics and robotics (see the accompanying photo from [1]). Diverse applications and the rapid development of mocap systems have resulted in a large corpus of data in recent years. Automatic classification of the mocap data is essential for various database management tasks such as segmentation, indexing and retrieval.

Mr. Harshad Kadu, a MCL PhD student, and Professor C.-C. Jay Kuo recently proposed a new framework to tackle the human mocap data classification problem using novel spatial/temporal feature representations, machine learning and decision fusion concepts. The proposed solution methods are tested on a wide variety of sequences from the CMU mocap database, and a correct classification rate of 99.6% is achieved, which is the state-of-the-art technique in the field. This work has been accepted for publication in the IEEE Trans. on Multimedia.

[1] http://www.noldus.com/innovationworks/content/automated-behavior-recognition-in-humans

Dr. Seyoon Jeong, a principal researcher in Broadcasting and Telecommunications Media Research Laboratory of Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), have been visiting Media Communications Lab (USC) since this September. Now we have an interview with him, talking about his research and thoughts on MCLab.

Could you briefly describe yourself and your previous research experience?

I received BS, MS degrees from Inha University in 1995, and 1997, respectively. Then I finished my Ph.D degree from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Aug. 2014. Since December 1996, I joined ETRI and focused on the development of international standards such as Scalable Video Coding (SVC), High Efficient Video Coding (HEVC). Currently, my research interests are video coding, super resolution and parallel computing for realistic broadcasting applications such as 3DTV and UHDTV.

What were your first impression of USC and MCLab?

I just arrived USC this month and not very familiar with the environment. People in the lab are very nice and help me a lot. I met Hyunsuk Ko this Monday. He showed me around the campus and our lab. USC is a very diverse university. People from all over the world come to here for their dreams. It is amazing that happens to meet some Koreans when walking on campus and chats with them, just like at home.  As for Media Communications Lab, it is a big family. Professor Kuo is very warm-hearted to introduce his group to me. I really like his style that treats his students as his children. I feel so lucky to join this group.

What is your future expectation in MCLab?

Actually, this is the second year of the UHDTV collaborative project from ETRI and USC MCLab. For the first year, Dr. Kim [...]

In 2014 Fall semester, Chien-Yi Wang will become a new Ph.D. student in MCLab. Chien-Yi Wang received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University in 2013. He arrived at USC a month ago, and now we have an interview with him, talking about his background and his thoughts on USC and MCLab.

What were your first impression of USC and MCLab?

I have heard of USC in its great learning environment and plenty of resources. At first sight, the buildings in USC are amazing and beautiful. There are usually many trees and animals around the campus, bringing lots of energy and spirits. I also notice that there are always some comfortable benches and tables, accompanying with fabulous fountains, for people to study and chat outside. I am so excited and cannot wait to study in this wonderful campus.
As for MCLab, I think people here are really nice and friendly. Some senior students in the lab introduce many places in the campus for me, and try to help me to get used to the life in Los Angeles. I also got many assistances and advices from them in academy and living before I entered the school. It’s really great to become one of this big warm family.

Could you briefly describe your previous research experience?

In the last two years of my B.S. program, I joined the Wireless Communication Lab and initiated a research project on multimedia communication subject. I have studied the protocols of different wireless systems and learned how to use complex encoding technologies such as H.264 on video sources. I found it interesting to design some algorithms and implement them on the wireless driver. I finally proposed a scheme to improve the [...]