Application Projects

Eric Saund

My research is grounded in a number of applications and prototypes that test the viability of my results and provide insight into key issues. Mainly centering around analysis of spatial structure in document images, they focus especially on line drawings derived from pen input and hand-drawn sketches on live surfaces, paper, and whiteboards. The applications vary in technical maturity and potential near-term commercial viability.

ZombieBoard Whiteboard Scanner

ZombieBoard is a whiteboard scanner for offices, conference rooms, and open areas. A computer-controlled video camera takes overlapping snapshots of the whiteboard, which are then electronically "stitched" together to form a relatively high resolution mosaic image that can be printed, faxed, or displayed. Each ZombieBoard at PARC runs a small real-time computer vision system in support of a Diagrammatic User Interface permitting users to issue commands by drawing on the whiteboard itself.

Perceptually-Supported Sketch Editing

When we create a sketch or drawing either on paper or with a computer graphics program, we "see" not just the elemental marks on the surface, but salient and sensible visual objects. Computer vision techniques of perceptual organization make possible a new class of perceptually-supported image editing tools enabling computer-assisted drawing programs to engage users in terms closer to the user's own visual constructs. In collaboration with Tom Moran, I have built a prototype sketch editing system called, PerSketch (also called FancyTivoli), that explores this new space of WYPIWYG (What You Perceive Is What You Get) image editing tools. UIST '94.

Text Topic Inference Using The Multiple Cause Mixture Model

Apart from applications in document image analysis, my work in inferring factoral causal structure underlying binary data finds an application in inferring the topic structure of a corpus of documents. This work was done in collaboration with Marti Hearst and intern Mehran Sahami. ML '96.

Vision: Cooperative Workspaces

ZombieBoard is an example of Ubiquitous Computing technology---computers help you in your daily life and work without your having to deal with them as conventional computers with monitors, operating systems, keyboards, and all that nonsense. My colleagues in the Perceptual Documents Area and I continue to explore other ways in which computer vision can contribute to computationally enhanced physical environments through a focus on document image analysis.


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