Gabriel Taubin
Associate Professor:
Engineering and Computer Science
Phone: +1 401 863 1484
Phone 2: +1 401 863 1484
taubin@brown.edu
Associate Professor of Engineering and Computer Sciences Gabriel Taubin main research interests fall at the intersection of the following disciplines: Applied Computational Geometry, Computer Graphics, Geometric Modeling, 3D Photography, and Computer Vision. His main line of research has been for many years related to the development of efficient, simple, and mathematically sound algorithms to operate on 3D objects represented as polygonal meshes, with an emphasis on technologies to enable the use of 3D models for Web-based applications. More recent research initiatives are related to visual sensor networks, real-time distributed audio/visual signal processing algorithms, and applications.
Biography
I joined the Division of Engineering at Brown University in the Fall of 2003 after thirteen years at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, where I was a Research Staff Member. During my first five years at IBM Research I belonged to the Exploratory Computer Vision group. During the next five years I managed the Visual and Geometric Computing group. During the 2000-2001 academic year I was on sabbatical at the California Institute of Technology as Visiting Professor of Electrical Engineering. The following year, back at IBM, I was a member of the Visual Technologies department. Finally, in the Fall of 2002 I joined the Pervasive Computing Solutions group as a project leader, where I lead a team effort to design and build miniature smart cameras for real-time audio/visual signal processing applications.
I earned a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Brown University, and a Licenciado en Ciencias Matemáticas degree from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. I was named IEEE Fellow for my contributions to the development of three-dimensional geometry compression technology and multimedia standards.
My main research interests fall into the following disciplines: Applied Computational Geometry, Computer Graphics, Geometric Modeling, 3D Photography, and Computer Vision. For the last few years my main line of research has been related to the development of efficient, simple, and mathematically sound algorithms to operate on 3D objects represented as polygonal meshes, with an emphasis on technologies to enable the use of 3D models for Web-based applications. I made significant theoretical and practical contributions in several areas, such as: 3D capturing and surface reconstruction, modeling, compression, progressive transmission, signal processing, and display of polygonal meshes. The 3D geometry compression technology that I developed with my group at IBM is now part of the MPEG-4 standard, and integral part of IBM products.
At Brown I plan to continue with this line of work, expand the work that I initiated at IBM on smart cameras, and start new initiatives in embedded systems design, very large smart camera networks, real-time distributed audio/visual signal processing algorithms, and applications.
Interests
Gabriel Taubin, an associate professor of engineering and computer sciences, is primarily interested in the development of efficient, simple, and mathematically sound algorithms to represent, store, transmit, operate on, and reason about 3D objects and scenes. He is actively pursuing research activities in 3D Photography, Geometry Processing, Multi-View camera Systems, and Visual Sensor Networks. 3D Photography refers to processes that use cameras and lights to capture the shape and appearance of 3D objects. These processes provide simple ways of creating graphical models for a number of applications, including computer animation, game development, electronic commerce, heritage preservation, reverse engineering, and virtual reality. Geometry Processing is concerned with 3D object representations and data structures, as well as methods to capture, smooth, denoise, edit, compress, transmit, simplify, and optimize these representations. Multi-view camera systems, composed of multiple synchronized video cameras or hybrid sysystems with multiple curved mirrors and lenses, are used to capture, or to make inferences about, the structure of 3D dynamic scenes. Visual Sensor Networks (VSNs) are wireless and wired networks of smart cameras, able to capture and process image data in a distributed collaborative fashion. VSNs have been very important in surveillance and security applications.
Degrees
Ph.D.
Awards
- Eurographics 2002 Günter Enderle Best Paper Award, September 2002.
- IEEE Fellow, "For contributions to the development of three-dimensional geometry compression technology and multimedia standards," January 2001.
- IBM Master Inventor, August 2001. Award granted each year to IBM Research inventors having top scores based on the value to IBM of their United States patents that issued during the last three years.
- IBM Research Invention Achievement Award, Top 5% Value, July 2001. Award granted each year to particular patents based on their estimated licensing value.
- IBM Research Invention Achievement Award, Fourth Plateau, May 2000.
- IBM Research Division 1999 Accomplishment, Software, "HotMedia."
- IBM Research Division Award "MPEG-4 3D Mesh Coding", 1999.
- IBM Research Division Award "3D Scanning Michelangelo's Pieta", 1999.
- IBM Research 1998 Best Computer Science Paper Award, August 1999.
- IBM Research Invention Achievement Award, Third Plateau, May 1999.
- IBM Research Division 1998 Accomplishment, Solutions, "3D Capturing and Presenting of Michelangelo's Pieta."
- IBM Research Division 1998 Accomplishment, Science and Exploratory, "MPEG-4 Standard."
- IBM Research Invention Achievement Award, Second Plateau, March 1998.
- IBM Research Invention Achievement Award, First Plateau, September 1996.
- IBM Research Division Award "for developing and implementing key shape-matching algorithms for QBIC", 1994.
- IBM First Patent Application Invention Achievement Award for "Produce Recognition System", 1994.
- IBM Research Accomplishment Award, 1993.
- IBM Computer Science pre-doctoral fellowship, 1989-1990.
- IBM Manufacturing Research pre-doctoral fellowship, 1988-1989.
- Teaching and Research Assistantship, Division of Engineering, Brown University, 1987-1988.
- Brown University Fellowship, 1986-1987.
- Travel Award, Fulbright Foundation, 1986.
- Initiation Fellowship, National Council of Scientific and Technological Research, Argentina, 1986.
- Travel Award, Cambridge Summer Meeting in Category Theory, Cambridge, England, 1981.
Institution
Brown
Affiliations
- IEEE & Computer Society, student member 1986, member 1990, senior member 1995, Fellow 2001.
- SIAM, student member 1987, member 1990.
- ACM & Siggraph, member 1992.
- Eurographics, member 1999.
Teaching
ACADEMIC TEACHING
- Brown University, EN0252s34, "3D Photography and Geometry Processing," Spring 2007.
- Brown University, EN0157, "Linear System Analysis," Fall 2006.
- Brown University, EN0052, "Electrical Circuits and Systems," Spring 2006.
- Brown University, EN0157, "Linear System Analysis," Fall 2005.
- Brown University, EN0052, "Electrical Circuits and Systems," Spring 2005.
- Brown University, EN0193s05, "High-Performance Sensors and Multimedia," Fall 2004.
- Brown University, EN0052, "Electrical Circuits and Systems," Spring 2004.
- Brown University, EN0193s08 "3D Photography," Fall 2003.
- California Institute of Technology, EE-148 "3D Photography," 2000-2001 academic year.
- California Institute of Technology, EE-191 "Smart Appliances with Sensory Systems," 2000-2001 academic year.
TEACHING AT CONFERENCES
- Course on the MPEG-4 Standard, Siggraph'2002, speaker. Attendance: 200-300.
- Course on 3D Photography, 1st Symposium on 3D Data Processing, Visualization, and Transmission, Padova, Italy, June 2002, speaker. Enrollment: 50.
- Course on Geometric Signal Processing on Large Polygonal Meshes, Siggraph'2001, organizer and speaker. Enrollment: 150-200.
- Course on 3D Geometry Compression, ACM Solid Modeling 2001, organizer and speaker. Enrollment: 25-30.
- Course on 3D Geometry Compression, Siggraph'2000, organizer and speaker. Enrollment: 80-120.
- Course on 3D Geometry Compression, Siggraph'1999, organizer and speaker. Enrollment: 150-200.
- Course on 3D Geometry Compression, Siggraph'1998, organizer and speaker. Enrollment: 200-300.
- Course on VRML Compressed Binary Format, VRML'97, organizer and speaker. Enrollment: 40-60.
- Course on Object Recognition with Algebraic Geometry, Invariants, and Bayesian Methods, IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR'93), New York, June 1993, organizer and speaker.
