Research Task 2 (07/27/15 - 08/09/15)

Great to see you make substantial progresses! The second phase will be focusing on Computer Vision, both in theories and practices. You will be continuing working on the OpenCV part of the previous assignment as re-described in the following. OpenCV provides you the practical tool to "do" the computer vision. I also found a series of easy-to-follow video tutorials on Computer Vision to build your theoretical background. The last part is researching and brainstorming the possible ways to implement the compound eyes system for your research project.

OpenCV

1. Learning OpenCV: Computer Vision with the OpenCV Library (2008),  Gary Bradski and Adrian Kaehler. [chap. 1-2, 30 pages]. Get the basic idea of what is OpenCV. 
2. You will need to download and install Ubuntu 12.04 (LTS) on your computer, or use a Linux laptop provided by school. You can also choose other OS's as your platform for OpenCV just for learning purpose. However, we will want to develop our code on Linux later.

Computer Vision (CV)

1. Computer Vision Video Lectures, Center for Research in Computer Vision (CRCV), UCF. [video 1-3, 5-11, 13] This series of videos are covering many up-to-date topics in the CV research field and have been presented in a clear manner. You will be introduced to many terminologies, concepts, and techniques in computer vision.  Going through them carefully (even though you may not be able to understand every details) will give you a foundation to read technical papers/reports.

Implementation of Compound Eyes

You are going to find answers for the question: "How can you build a cost-effective compound eyes vision system?" The following may be some clarifications and hints to start your journey. Be creative and find your own solutions.

• "Cost-effective" means the total cost is < $500 (not including computer).
• Your compound eyes system can be an approximation to the natural ones instead of trying to replicate them, i.e., your system is "inspired" by the natural compound eyes. 
•  How can we acquire compound-eyes images/videos? Multiple cameras? Single camera with some lenses? Anything in our daily lives can give us similar optical effects? Can we rotate a single camera (or mirror/lenses) and take pictures in many directions (only good for static object?) Which software can we use?.......

* Whenever you come across good papers/websites/reports, don't forget to add them to the "Project Resource" page.

* Please take electronic notes while you are studying the materials, watching the videos, or browsing through the web.

* Make PowerPoint presentations based on your notes. We will start presentation at the beginning of the year.