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BMVA

The British Machine Vision Association and Society for Pattern Recognition
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One-day BMVA Technical Meeting
Facial Analysis and Animation

Programme now available

Facial animation is a broad and exciting area of research drawing on multiple disciplines: computer graphics and animation provide the means to render and display a face; computer vision can be used to measure, interpret and decode facial actions; speech science is used to determine how the face should move during speech; while psychology can help provide the emotive human element of animation. However, creating convincing facial animation is an exceptionally difficult task due to our innate sensitivity to facial form and motion, each one of us is an expert judge in deciding whether an animation is realistic or not. In today's world, facial animation has more applications than ever before: from video game characters to movie actor doubles, from machine facial displays to psychological research stimuli.

A typical example of a facial animation development pipeline might involve 3D acquisition of the shape of an actor's face in various poses over time, rigid and non-rigid registration of the resulting surface representations, retargeting of the poses to an existing facial model, collecting motion data from the actor during speech and emotional expression, synthesizing new motion sequences on the facial model based on an analysis of that data, and evaluating the realism of the resulting synthesis.

The aim of this meeting is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in all aspects of facial animation and related analysis. Submissions are invited in the following topic areas but are not limited to:

Invited Speakers

Tim Weyrich
Dept. of Computer Science
University College London
UK
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/T.Weyrich/

Iain Matthews
Senior Research Scientist
Disney Research
USA
http://www.disneyresearch.com/

Steven Caulkin
Head of Research
Image Metrics
Manchester
UK
http://www.image-metrics.com/

Industry Participants

Dimensional Imaging: demonstration of their 4D capture technology
Image Metrics: invited talk
Disney Research: invited talk

Location

The meeting will take place in room G.07, in the Informatics Forum, 10 Crichton Street, University of Edinburgh.
The map of the campus is here.

Programme

Please note that the meeting will start at 9.30 am and will last until 5.15 pm. The programme is available here. [PDF version]

Registration

To register, simply send an e-mail mentioning the meeting ('10th of June 2009 Meeting in Edinburgh'), your name, address, affiliation, and BMVA membership information ('member' or 'non-member'), and lunch option ('vegetarian' or 'standard') to BMVA@roystonparkin.co.uk

Payment

The fee is £5 for BMVA members and £25 for non-members. Nonmembers automatically gain BMVA membership via this payment. Lunch is included. The registration fee can be paid at the door (cash or UK cheque). Although not necessary, it is also possible to pay in advance by sending a cheque or postal order in the required amount made payable to 'The British Machine Vision Association'. Mailed payments may be sent via regular post to:

BMVA Secretary Royston Parkin
95 Queen Street,
Sheffield, S1 1WG
United Kingdom

Please include your name, address and meeting title ('10th of June 2009 Meeting in Edinburgh') with payment.

NOTE: ALL ATTENDEES SHOULD REGISTER BY E-MAIL REGARDLESS OF METHOD OF PAYMENT

Organizers

If you have any queries, please contact the organizers:
Darren Cosker [D.P.Cosker at cs.bath.ac.uk]
Gregor Hofer [G.Hofer at sms.ed.ac.uk]
Michael Berger [M.A.Berger at sms.ed.ac.uk]
Nataliya Nadtoka [N.Nadtoka at surrey.ac.uk]

Important Dates

Abstract submission deadline 30th of April 2009
Notification of acceptance 10th of May 2009
Pre-registration deadline 3rd of June 2009
Meeting date 10th of June 2009

Accommodation

There is a wide range of accommodation available in Edinburgh. Prices are approximate and are subject to change.

Pre-Symposium social

For people arriving the day before the symposium, the organisers will be at Doctors pub from 8 PM onwards on Tuesday the 9th of June to welcome attendees to Edinburgh.

The Doctors
32 Forest Road
Edinburgh, EH1