ECE Seminar Series – Sep 25 (Fri) @ 2:00pm: “Reinventing the Camera: AI and the Future of Imaging," Peyman Milanfar, Distinguished Scientist, Google
Come at 1:30p for Cookies, Coffee and Conversation
DISTINGUISHED LECTURE at the ECE SEMINAR SERIES
Location: Harold Frank Hall, Room 1132 (CS Conf. Rm.)
Abstract
AI is fundamentally revolutionizing imaging, transforming how we capture, reconstruct, enhance, and experience visual content. Advancements in AI are actively overcoming the physical limitations of mobile phone cameras, powering features like enhanced zoom, state-of-the-art noise reduction, and blur mitigation. These models also drive sophisticated post-capture tools for the intelligent curation and editing of your photo collections.
This talk will delve into some specific breakthroughs and highlight the latest research directions pushing the boundaries of computational photography. I'll discuss a possible future where AI empowers us to capture, create, and interact with visual content in unprecedented ways.
Bio
Peyman is a Distinguished Scientist at Google, leading foundational research and technical direction for Computational Imaging. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Signal Processing Society.
Prior to Google, he was a Professor of Electrical Engineering at UC Santa Cruz for 15 years, two of those as Associate Dean for Research. From 2012-2014 he was on leave at Google-x, where he helped develop the imaging pipeline for Google Glass. Over the last decade, Peyman has spearheaded the research and development of several core imaging technologies that are used in many products at Google. Among these are enhancement and upscaling functions in Nano Banana and Gemini Omni; and the camera pipeline for Pixel phones, which includes the multi-frame super-resolution (Super Res Zoom) pipeline, including several generations of state of the art digital upscalers. His teams led the development of Pro Res Zoom (using a 1-step diffusion model) for in-camera deep magnification; effortless automatic photography in Magic Capture, fast low light photography in Instant Night Sight, industry leading 120x Zoom, and the first consumer solution to deblurring in Photo Unblur.
Peyman received his undergraduate education in electrical engineering, mathematics and statistics from UC Berkeley, and the MS and PhD degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT. He holds several dozen patents. He founded MotionDSP, which was acquired by Cubic Inc. Along with his students and colleagues, his research work has had deep impact in several areas of computational imaging, and applications of AI thereto - including the introduction of adaptive kernel regression to imaging; pioneering use of learning for fast, content adaptive image upscaling (RAISR); Neural Image quality Assessment (NIMA), Regularization by Denoising (RED); and most recently Inversion by Direct Iteration (InDI). All of these works have been recognized with best paper awards.
Hosted by: Distinguished Lecture at the ECE Seminar Series
Submitted by: Professor BS Manjunath | Manjunath's Email
