Automatic Synchronization of Multi-User Photo Galleries

In this paper we address the issue of photo galleries synchronization, where pictures related to the same event are collected by different users. Existing solutions to address the problem are usually based on unrealistic assumptions, like time consistency across photo galleries, and often heavily rely on heuristics, limiting therefore the applicability to real-world scenarios. We propose a solution that achieves better generalization performance for the synchronization task compared to the available literature. The method is characterized by three stages: at first, deep convolutional neural network features are used to assess the visual similarity among the photos; then, pairs of similar photos are detected across different galleries and used to construct a graph; eventually, a probabilistic graphical model is used to estimate the temporal offset of each pair of galleries, by traversing the minimum spanning tree extracted from this graph. The experimental evaluation is conducted on four publicly available datasets covering different types of events, demonstrating the strength of our proposed method. A thorough discussion of the obtained results is provided for a critical assessment of the quality in synchronization.Comment: ACCEPTED to IEEE Transactions on Multimedi

Sensing and mapping for interactive performance

This paper describes a trans-domain mapping (TDM) framework for translating meaningful activities from one creative domain onto another. The multi-disciplinary framework is designed to facilitate an intuitive and non-intrusive interactive multimedia performance interface that offers the users or performers real-time control of multimedia events using their physical movements. It is intended to be a highly dynamic real-time performance tool, sensing and tracking activities and changes, in order to provide interactive multimedia performances. From a straightforward definition of the TDM framework, this paper reports several implementations and multi-disciplinary collaborative projects using the proposed framework, including a motion and colour-sensitive system, a sensor-based system for triggering musical events, and a distributed multimedia server for audio mapping of a real-time face tracker, and discusses different aspects of mapping strategies in their context. Plausible future directions, developments and exploration with the proposed framework, including stage augmenta tion, virtual and augmented reality, which involve sensing and mapping of physical and non-physical changes onto multimedia control events, are discussed