Thomas Huang
Encyclopedia
Thomas Shi-Tao Huang is a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
(UIUC). Huang is one of the leading figures in computer vision
, pattern recognition
and human computer interaction.
and received his bachelor's degree
in 1956. Huang went to study in the United States
, and obtained his D.Sc degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) in 1963.
Huang is the William L. Everitt Distinguished Professor in the UIUC Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and the Coordinated Science Lab (CSL). Huang is also a faculty member (full-time) at the Beckman Institute and participates in the Image Formation and Processing and Artificial Intelligence laboratories.
and visual gesture analysis in controlling display in virtual environments; and the use of visual lip reading to enhance audio speech recognition accuracy.
3-D modeling, analysis, and synthesis (animation) of human face, hands, and body. The original motivation for this research is very low bitrate 3-D model-based video coding, esp. for video phone and teleconferencing scenarios. The idea is that if a 3-D model of the user at the transmitting end is constructed at the receiving end, then only the movement information needs to be extracted at the transmitting end and sent to the receiving end, where this information is used to drive the 3-D model and to regenerate the video sequence. Obviously, the tools developed for these scenarios are applicable to many other problems, such as virtual space conferencing with avatars, and electronic games.
Multimedia (images, video, audio, text) databases including content based image retrieval. Of special interest are the use of relevance feedback
in adapting the databases system to user intentions (when browsing or searching), and the construction of a table of contents and a semantic index for video using multimedia information (image sequence, audio, and closed-captions if available).
Although the above problems are application motivated, the main goal is to develop general concepts, methodologies, theories, and algorithms which would be widely applicable to multimodal and multimedia signal processing in general. Huang's research support includes the NSF, DOD, UIUC Research Board, and a number of industrial firms.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
(UIUC). Huang is one of the leading figures in computer vision
Computer vision
Computer vision is a field that includes methods for acquiring, processing, analysing, and understanding images and, in general, high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g., in the forms of decisions...
, pattern recognition
Pattern recognition
In machine learning, pattern recognition is the assignment of some sort of output value to a given input value , according to some specific algorithm. An example of pattern recognition is classification, which attempts to assign each input value to one of a given set of classes...
and human computer interaction.
Biography
Huang studied electronics at the National Taiwan UniversityNational Taiwan University
National Taiwan University is a national co-educational university located in Taipei, Republic of China . In Taiwan, it is colloquially known as "Táidà" . Its main campus is set upon 1,086,167 square meters in Taipei's Da'an District. In addition, the university has 6 other campuses in Taiwan,...
and received his bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in 1956. Huang went to study in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and obtained his D.Sc degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT) in 1963.
Huang is the William L. Everitt Distinguished Professor in the UIUC Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering and the Coordinated Science Lab (CSL). Huang is also a faculty member (full-time) at the Beckman Institute and participates in the Image Formation and Processing and Artificial Intelligence laboratories.
Research
Multimodal human computer interaction, especially the use of speech- and vision-based techniques in developing more natural and effective interfaces as alternatives to complements of conventional interfaces such as the keyboard and the mouse. Research projects include the integration of speech recognitionSpeech recognition
Speech recognition converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes used to refer to recognition systems that must be trained to a particular speaker—as is the case for most desktop recognition software...
and visual gesture analysis in controlling display in virtual environments; and the use of visual lip reading to enhance audio speech recognition accuracy.
3-D modeling, analysis, and synthesis (animation) of human face, hands, and body. The original motivation for this research is very low bitrate 3-D model-based video coding, esp. for video phone and teleconferencing scenarios. The idea is that if a 3-D model of the user at the transmitting end is constructed at the receiving end, then only the movement information needs to be extracted at the transmitting end and sent to the receiving end, where this information is used to drive the 3-D model and to regenerate the video sequence. Obviously, the tools developed for these scenarios are applicable to many other problems, such as virtual space conferencing with avatars, and electronic games.
Multimedia (images, video, audio, text) databases including content based image retrieval. Of special interest are the use of relevance feedback
Relevance feedback
Relevance feedback is a feature of some information retrieval systems. The idea behind relevance feedback is to take the results that are initially returned from a given query and to use information about whether or not those results are relevant to perform a new query...
in adapting the databases system to user intentions (when browsing or searching), and the construction of a table of contents and a semantic index for video using multimedia information (image sequence, audio, and closed-captions if available).
Although the above problems are application motivated, the main goal is to develop general concepts, methodologies, theories, and algorithms which would be widely applicable to multimodal and multimedia signal processing in general. Huang's research support includes the NSF, DOD, UIUC Research Board, and a number of industrial firms.
Published work
Representative publications by Thomas Huang include:- Jaimes, A., Gatica-Perez, D., Sebe, N., Huang, T.S. (2007), "Human-centered Computing: Toward a Human Revolution", IEEE Computer, 40(5), pp. 30–34.
- Cohen, I., Cozman, F., Sebe, N., Cirelo, M., Huang, T.S. (2004), "Semi-supervised Learning of Classifiers: Theory, Algorithms and Their Applications to Human-Computer Interaction", IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine IntelligenceIEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine IntelligenceThe IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence is a monthly journal published by the IEEE Computer Society. It presents the most important research results in areas including all traditional areas of computer vision and image understanding, all traditional areas of pattern...
, 26(12), pp. 1553–1567. - Pan, H., Levinson, S.E., Huang, T.S., and Liang, Z.P. (2004), “A Fused HMM Model with Application to Bimodal Speech Processing,” IEEE Transactions On Signal Processing, 52/3, pp. 573– 581.
- Zhou, X.S. and Huang, T.S. (2003), "Relevance Feedback in Image Retrieval: A Comprehensive Review," ACMAssociation for Computing MachineryThe Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
Multimedia Systems Journal, pp. 536–544. - Bruckstein, A.M., Holt, R.J., Huang, T.S., and Netravali, A.N.Arun NetravaliArun N. Netravali is an Indian-American engineer who is a pioneer of digital technology including HDTV. He conducted seminal research in digital compression, signal processing and other fields. Netravali has been President of Bell Laboratories and Chief Scientist for Lucent Technologies.-Early...
(2000), "New Devices for 3D Pose Estimation: Mantis Eyes, Agam Paintings, Sundials, and Other Space Fiducials," International Journal of Computer Vision, pp. 131–139. - Lew, M.S.Michael LewProf. Michael S. Lew is a scientist in multimedia information search and retrieval at Leiden University, Netherlands. He has published over 7 books and 100 scientific articles in the areas of multimedia search, computer vision, human computer interaction, and information retrieval...
, Wong, K., and Huang, T.S. (1994), "Learning and Feature Selection in Stereo Matching," IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine IntelligenceIEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine IntelligenceThe IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence is a monthly journal published by the IEEE Computer Society. It presents the most important research results in areas including all traditional areas of computer vision and image understanding, all traditional areas of pattern...
, pp. 869–881. - Arun, K., Huang, T.S., and Blostein, S.D. (1987), "Least-Squares Fitting of Two 3-D Point Sets, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine IntelligenceIEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine IntelligenceThe IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence is a monthly journal published by the IEEE Computer Society. It presents the most important research results in areas including all traditional areas of computer vision and image understanding, all traditional areas of pattern...
, pp. 698–700.
Honors and Outstanding Achievements
Huang has received numerous honors and awards in his career, including:- Picture Coding Symposium: Pioneering Research in Picture Coding Award, 2006
- IS&T and SPIE Imaging Scientist of the Year Award, 2006
- Okawa Prize for Information and Telecommunations Technology, 2005.
- Tau Beta PiTau Beta PiThe Tau Beta Pi Association is the oldest engineering honor society in the United States and the second oldest collegiate honor society in America. It honors engineering students who have shown a history of academic achievement as well as a commitment to personal and professional integrity...
Daniel C. Drucker Eminent Faculty Award, 2005. - Pan Wen-Yuan Outstanding Research Award, Pan Wen-Yuan Foundation, 2002
- King-Sun Fu PrizeKing-Sun FuDr. King-Sun Fu was a professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He was instrumental in the founding of IAPR, served as its first president, and is widely recognized for his extensive contributions to the field of pattern recognition .In honor of the memory of Professor King-Sun...
, International Association of Pattern Recognition (IAPRIAPRThe International Association for Pattern Recognition or IAPR is an international non-profit, professional organization concerned with pattern recognition, computer vision, and image processing in a broad sense.- History :...
), 2002 - Information Science Award, Association of Intelligent Machinery, 2002
- Foreign Member, Chinese Academy of SciencesChinese Academy of SciencesThe Chinese Academy of Sciences , formerly known as Academia Sinica, is the national academy for the natural sciences of the People's Republic of China. It is an institution of the State Council of China. It is headquartered in Beijing, with institutes all over the People's Republic of China...
, 2002 - Foreign Member, Chinese Academy of EngineeringChinese Academy of EngineeringThe Chinese Academy of Engineering is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for engineering. It was established in 1994 and is an institution of the State Council of China...
, 2001 - Member, United States National Academy of Engineering, 2001
- IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing MedalIEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing MedalThe IEEE Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal is presented "for outstanding achievements in signal processing" theory, technology or commerce. The recipients of this award will receive a gold medal, together with a replica in bronze, a certificate and a honorarium.The award was established in...
, 2001 (together with Arun N. Netravali) - IEEE Achievement Award for Contributions to Motion Analysis, 2000
- IEEE Third Millennium Medal, 2000
- Society Award, IEEE Signal Processing SocietyIEEE Signal Processing SocietyThe IEEE Signal Processing Society is a society of the IEEE. It is also known by the acronym IEEE SPS. In the hierarchy of IEEE, the Signal Processing Society is one of close to 40 technical societies organized under the IEEE's Technical Activities Board...
, 1991 - IEEE ASSP Society Technical Achievement Award, 1988
- Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of ScienceJapan Society for the Promotion of ScienceThe is an independent administrative institution in Japan, established for the purpose of contributing to the advancement of science in all fields of the natural and social sciences and the humanities.-History:...
, 1986 - Fellow, SPIE
- Fellow, International Association of Pattern Recognition (IAPRIAPRThe International Association for Pattern Recognition or IAPR is an international non-profit, professional organization concerned with pattern recognition, computer vision, and image processing in a broad sense.- History :...
) - Fellow, Optical Society of AmericaOptical Society of AmericaThe Optical Society is a scientific society dedicated to advancing the study of light—optics and photonics—in theory and application, by means of publishing, organizing conferences and exhibitions, partnership with industry, and education. The organization has members in more than 100 countries...
, 1986 - Life FellowIEEE FellowAn IEEE member is elevated to the grade of IEEE Fellow for "unusual distinction in the profession and shall be conferred by the Board of Directors upon a person with an extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE fields of interest"...
, IEEE, 1979 - A. V. Humboldt U.S. Senior Scientist Award, 1976–77
- Guggenheim Fellow, 1971–72